Saturday June 23, 2012

After all of the craziness of last Saturday's race (there must have been a full moon somewhere) we were back at Sunny South Raceway with the #32 repaired and ready to go.  We checked the morning newspaper and found that the I-10 was going to have two lanes closed all weekend, so we took an alternate route and got to the track ten minutes after the gates opened.  We got the car registered and teched got on the track and we were OK but the track temp was 119 degrees and loose.  We found out what we needed to know and finally got the last set of tires broke in (I would still like to get one more heat cycle in them).

 We had the usual competitors available the #44 of Joseph McArdle, the #7 of Hunter Lewis, our old friend Tucker Yance was back with his repaired #4, the #04 of Dawson Kenner, the #39 of Daniel Thompson, the #55r of Ronnie Osmer, the #59 of  Terry Myers, and of course the #32 of Connelly Dubuisson.

Qualifying, we qualified third behind Joseph McArdle in his #44, and the #7 of Hunter Lewis. We were 2 one hundredths of a second behind the #7 and about a tenth of a second behind the #44, not where we wanted to be but the car just seemed to not like the heat.  We were a full tenth and a half of a second off of where we were three races ago. 

In the heat race we started third and advanced to second by the end of the first lap, the #7 got under us and passed a few laps later coming out of turn 4.  Then both the #7 and Connelly passed the #44.  Connelly finished second in the heat race out of 8 cars, we still weren't as fast as we would have liked, but we finished 2 car lengths behind the #7 and about 5 lengths ahead of the #44.  Not bad for a car that was slightly off.

Feature Race; Hunter Louis the #7 driver, by virtue of his heat race win threw the big dice to determine the number of cars to be inverted.  He threw a 6 putting us in the 5th starting position.  The #04 who was to start on the pole opted to go to the rear of the field to avoid a situation like the one at the start of last weeks race.  By rule that moved the whole inside line up one position, now we are starting 3rd.  At the start, Connelly got a good start and was second coming out of turn two, he ran about 1 to 2 car lengths behind the #39 for a few laps then we were able to get under the #39 and take the lead for a couple of laps.  Joseph got under us in the #44, and he and Connally battled for the lead for a couple of laps.  Connelly finally over drove turn two and got real loose and slid up the track and went from fighting for the lead to fourth in one quick move.  Connelly was able to re pass both the #39 and the #7 and settled into second again, by now Joseph in the #44 was a half a straightaway ahead of us.  Now the bizarre comes back into play, as the flagman prepares to display the white flag indicating one lap to go, the handle of the flag accidently pushes the button on  the flag stand that turns the caution lights on around the track, so now the flagman is trying to end the race with a checker flag and everybody is slowing down to honor the caution lights being accidentally activated.  The flagman and race director decided that the only fair thing to do was to give the field a "green-white-checker" finish.  This gives the field the green flag to restart, then gives the white flag indicating one lap to go then the checker flag ending the race.  The finishing order was; the #44 first, the #32 second, the #39 third, the #04 fourth, the #55r fifth, the #59 sixth, the #7 who had mechanical issues was seventh, and the #4 who also had mechanical issues was eighth.  Not a bad night considering we were a little bit off, but we brought the #32 back in one piece and have already begun looking for that one and a half tenth of a second.  Hopefully we will get it back in time for the next race as we are certainly looking forward to the upcoming race this Saturday night.

Saturday Night June 16 2012

After a two race absence we finally made it back to SSR, Connelly was chomping at the bit to get back in the car.  We had run into that I 10 traffic snarl again and got to the track an hour later than we wanted to.  We had tires to break in and we wanted to try a couple of things to get the  car to handle better.  With the temps getting into the 90's there wasn't a whole lot of speed in the track.

We had a great bunch of cars racing tonight, the #83 of Joey Padget, the #53 of Jeremy Lundy, the #7 of Hunter Lewis, the #44 of Joseph McArdle, the #59 of Terry Myers, the #55r of Ronnie Osmer, the #04 of Dawson Kenner, the # 39 of Daniel Thompson, and of course the #32 of Connelly Dubuisson.  All very good and fast cars.  After a few practice sessions on the track we were not where we wanted to be but it was time for the drivers meeting then qualifying.  Connelly qualified 3rd just 4 one hundredths of a second out of second place.we started the heat in 3rd behind the #83 of Joey Padget. got to second and hung there for a while then the #53 got under us going into turn 3 and we just couldn't hold him off.  We hung there for a couple of laps when a late caution came out and bunched the field up and we got passed by the #7, wound up 4th in the heat.

Then came the feature and things got crazy.  Joey Padget by vitue of winning the heat race threw the big dice to see how many cars would invert, he threw a 6 which ment that we would start 3rd. behind the #59 of Terry Myers with the #44 next to him and the #7 of Hunter Lewis next to us.  The #53 heard a rattle in his brand new engine and withdrew before even coming on the track.  The rest of the field settled in behind the #83 of Joey Padgett who startrd 6th.  After a false start, we had a do-over, Connelly got a good start and got under the #59 almost to the rear of the #59's door, as they went into turn one it appeared to me that the #59 came down a little on Connelly and they got together pretty hard.  Connelly came off so I could acess the damage.  he was toed out way more than we wanted, but this was a double points night and we had to get as good a finish as possible.  After the restart we were last because we had "worked" on the car during the caution.  The car wasn't handling well but he was able to maintain position.  After a few more laps there was a caution when the #7 and the #44 got together racing for the lead in turn 3 and damaged both cars.  A crew member of the #7 took exception to the official's call on the placement of the two cars involved and got into a shouting match with the flagman.  A scuffle insued when track security was called.  It wasn't officially a fight as I don't believe any punches were thrown, it was mostly pushing and shoving and grabing, although the combatants did go to the ground.  On the restart we took the choose and went to outside of the first row where we settled into second place and managed to hold on to it to the finish.  Aparently we got our rear bumper inside the right front wheel of th #55r and knocked his valve stem off and he was forced to retire.  I hate that it happened because the Osmers are great friends and Ronnie is a very good up and coming driver.  All in all we came away with a better finish than we deserved, but sometime you get one that is worse than you deserve.  We had a good points night and are thankful for that, looking forward to next Saturday already.  When we checked the car over on Monday we found that we had bent the right front steering arm and we were toed out one and 5/8 of an inch when it should have been 1/8", no wonder the car wasn't handling.