Results from Sept 8,2012

Well, we had one faaaast car on this weekend but it didnt start out that way at all! After unloading the car, we found the throw-out bearing for the clutch was bad and leaking out the fluid which meant the entire driveline, transmission and clutch had to come out. Luckily, Riley Watson was generous enough to drive into town to grab one that he had in his shop. We installed that and were ready for our one and only practice session...#3 of the day for everyone else. In that practice we were already fast. We recorded a 15.348 lap time which was 2nd fastest compared to the 15.325 from Tom Elam in the #4 car.

We then prepped the car with our qualifying package and waited for our turn on the track. As the car rolled onto the track and into turn 1, I could feel the excellent grip and knew I would have a fast lap time.  My previous best lap time ever (over the last 8 years) was a 15.33 that I set last year. After coming out of turn 4 I looked up at the scoreboard to see my lap time but saw what looked like a 15.24, so for my 2nd and final lap, I gave it a little extra and put the car at the very edge of stability. As I gassed it coming out of turns 3/4 the rear rotated too much and sent me for a loop. It would have been a great lap. So, I came off the track and into my pit area thrilled with my 15.24! Only to find out that the scoreboard was not working at all and what I saw was the time of day 5:24pm. Bummed, I figured that maybe I got into the 15.3 or 15.4 but really had no idea until I was told that we actually ended up with a 15.06! A great lap and exactly what we have expected from this car and myself as a driver. Could the 2nd lap have been faster and actually gone into the 14.9 second barrier? I think so! So we ended up with the 2nd fastest lap time because Alan Cress in the #91 got a 15.01. Kyle Pope in the #72 got 3rd with a 15.13 and Tom Elam got 4th fastest with a 15.18. The top 4 were seperated by a tenth of a second.

After qualifying it was found that our left front control arm mount was bent on the frame which needed to be pulled out and welded. We missed the heat race while making those repairs.

Starting in the last row in the main event, we worked our way up to 3rd after about 20 laps. On a restart, the inside row didnt move, allowing the outside row to pass sending me to 6th within one lap. We ran out of time and ended up 5th for the 35 lap race. Not the result we wanted but ended up tied for the fastest lap of the main with 2 other cars at 15.2. We can take alot of positives from this weekend for sure.

Thanks again to all of my sponsors:
Blue Ox Towing Products
Pepsi Max
Kamper Korner RV Center
ITS
The Oregon State Fair
Clint Newell Motor Group