Saturday Night July 30th 2011

After waiting for six weeks between races and having the July 16th race rain out, Connelly had already gone into racing withdrawals and it was fixing to go South from there. As we pulled out of the driveway in Metairie, LA it was raining, Connelly said he was racing even if he had to go to rain tires. We arrived at Sunny South Raceway around 5:30 the sun was out but we drove through a rain shower about 3 miles from the track. Got lucky, it didn't hit SSR. At registration I let Betty pull the chip for starting position, she drew 8th out of 11 cars, said she was sorry and will let the drawing to me or Connelly.

In practice the car was "snappy loose" out of two and four, which ment it was probably tight and when he hit the throttle at the transition out of the banked turns onto the flatter straights it would snap loose on him. He was turning some pretty good lap times so we let it alone. In the heat race he got loose coming out of two, got into another car and a third car spun so we restarted in 10th. Connelly worked his way back up to 8th which is where he would start the feature race. We took a half turn out of the left rear hoping that would help the tight and solve that "snappy loose" condition, it worked. For the feature, I told him to feel the car out for at least a couple of laps before leaning on it, which he did. He then proceeded to drive the best race of his brief legend career. He started passing cars and worked his way through the field, with about 4 or 5 to go we got a caution and he restarted 4th. Made a nice pass for third and was pushing the front 2 at the end. He crossed the finish line in third place but was first in the Young Lyons/Semi Pro division, and after one of the top two failed post race inspection Connelly was awarded the first place trophy and points for YL/SP and a second place check for the overall second place finish. This was Connelly's first cash prize money and first Legends WIN. The goal he set for himself before the season was to get at least one win and finish in the top 3 in YL/SP points. He is halfway to achieving that goal.

Many of our friends in the pits an grandstand all said that he "drove the wheels off" of that car.
He looked like he had just gotten out of the shower he was so wet from sweat, and he said "I drove my butt off and I think I got everything out of the car", which I agree he did. All and all a very good outing, this was Connelly's breakout race.

Due to the rescheduling of the two rainout races we will be racing for the next 4 consecutive Saturdays. Connelly is at Charlotte,NC as I write this with the McArdles for the big $100,000 race he is helping pit crew for them. Good luck to them.