5/26/07
Well the night started off pretty well. We were good in warmups but it was obvious the track had the most bite it's had all year. We had to loosen the car up a ton for the heat. I started 8th and worked my way to 4th in a couple of laps. I followed the 25 up through and finished right behind him in 3rd. After hot laps I had a problem with the motor laying down, kinda like it was running out of fuel. We checked a bunch of stuff and finally found some water in the fuel. We freed the car up some more for the feature and rolled off 16th. I was following the 00 and made a couple of nice moves and ended up 9th by the time the caution flew on the first lap. The car was just phenomenal. I got going pretty good again on the restart but fell back after checking up for some crazy stuff happening in front of me. We had another restart on lap 4 and I got going again. This time coming off of turn 4 the 87 started to spin, the 00 caught him and spun and I thought I could just drive through and I would be alright. I hit the 00 in the quarter and it shoved me up the track towards the pit opening. I'm not sure if I got pushed by someone behind me but I ended up hitting the wall wicked hard. I limped around to the pits and the boys had to peel the right front wheel off with the sledge hammer and pry bar. We got back out before losing a lap with a badly damaged car. I got black flagged a lap later because the right side nerf bar was rubbing the rear tire. This time we went a lap down and I went back out to make some laps and we ended up with a 22nd place finish.
5/12/07
Definitely no rain this week. The track was wicked slick in warmups and we were scratching our heads as to what we were going to do about it. Jimmy changed the pinion angle and moved the torque arm bolt and we ditched the sway bar. I started the heat 7th again this week, but at least I had some room to race. I was able to grab a couple of spots in the first laps and picked one more off to get 4th with about 2 1/2 laps to go. I was able to run the front pack down but ran out of time. I bounced some ideas off of Jeff Trombley and he was bouncing ideas off of me and together we made some changes to our cars. We were much better in hot laps and Jimmy threw a couple more changes at the car before the feature and we were ready to go from 14th place. Right from the start is was absolutely nuts. Cars were running into each other, changing lanes, just trying to do their best to wreck. I had to check up a bunch of times to stay out of trouble and starting sliding to the back. I think at one point I was back to 18th. About the 4th or 5th restart I finally caught a break and managed to pass 6 cars before the yellow flew again the next lap. We finally got to single file restarts and I was able to start grabbing some spots, passing the 25 on the last lap to grab ourselves a 5th place finish. And Jeff? He picked up his first LV feature of the year. :)
5/5/07
After a surprise rainout last week were able to get back to our regularly scheduled programming. We had a field trip to Malta on Friday for Kale's first race. Unfortunately he was held up in inspection and missed warmups. The good new was that he was starting the feature from the first row. He was a little shy on the start, but quickly fell in behind the leader. For several laps he held his own, sticking right with the guy. A caution fell and he got ganged up on a little bit on the restart. A couple laps later he spun to avoid a wreck and had to restart at the end of the field. On the restart he got into turn 1 a little hot and looped it again, earning him the black flag. (2 spins and you're out rule) All in all, Kale did a great job, we can't wait to get him back in the car.
Our story at the Valley was a bit of a struggle too. We ran warmups and the car was pretty good. The track had a little bit of grip and we made the most of it. I started the heat in 7th and was just blocked in right from the start. What little grip was there in warmups was all gone now. It took me too many laps to grab a couple of spots and left me no time to make a bid on 4th. We ended up 5th and not handicapped. Not too major a penalty, we only started one row back from where we would have. Jimmy made a couple of small changes for hot laps and the car was better. We got close to feature time and decided to make a couple more last minute changes and got ready to roll off from out 17th spot. The first few laps were pretty tight, no good holes opened up. Artie was able to get out a little bit on me but I wasn't too far behind. We had some pretty decent racing for several laps and I had made it up to 12th when the caution flew. I was able to grab a few more spots after the restart and missed a wild wreck on the backstretch that happened right in front of me. After a 10 minute red flag we got going again. The car was very good and I was able to pick up a few more spots. By the end I was dicing it out with the 63 but couldn't quite get the spot. We ended up 7th which was a great run on a slippery track.