Saturday Night August 25, 2012

Saturday evening found us at the Sunny South Pit gate for 4 pm right at opening. We got there early, as we had a lot to do. We had put a lot of lead on the coupe since Joseph used a different set of wheels than we do and we were underwieght by almost 30 pounds. At home we got the car "legal" as to overall weight and left/right percentages, but the all important "cross" was way off of where we wanted it. Connelly had never driven a coupe in competition so he suggested that we wait until we get to the track to adjust the cross. When we got to the track he tried the car and he was way too tight. We came down, still too tight, came down again, same result, adjusted again still tight, so we put it back on the track's scales and all that adjusting only gained us 2%, we were still almost twice that off. We kept on adjusting until we had the ride hieght at the minimum so we stopped. We would now have to adjust the front and that is more sensitive and we were running out of time. The car was drivable, but not where we wanted it to be, so we adjusted the air pressures for qualifying and took a break.

The Competitors: There was an excellent field of cars for tonight's competition; the regulars of Ronnie Osmer in his #55r, Daniel Thompson in his #39, Jeremy Lundy in his #53, Hunter Lewis in his #7, Joseph McArdle in his #44jr, Chad Robinson in his #10, Dalton Chipley in his #33, Michael Beaslely in his #110, Robbie Johnston in his #96, Dawson Keener in his #04, Brad West in his #94, and of course the Blue #32 driven by Connelly Dubuisson. A good field of 12 cars.

During practice a strange event took place, our good friend and competitor Daniel Thompson in his #39 was testing on track when the #10 spun in the apex of turns 1 and 2, Daniel went to the outside to avoid hitting the spinning #10 and lost controll and hit the outside wall hard, the impact apparently cut the fuel line and the entire engine compartment went up in flames. The safety crew was there quickly putting out the fire and more importantly Daniel got out unharmed. Another competitor Jeremy Lundy got to the burning car first and helped get Daniel out, however the #39 was finished for the night. The car appears to need a signifigant amount of reapir before being ready to compete again. I offered whatever help we could give and will respond when called upon. The whole #39 team are good people and fine competitors and we want to see them back out there. The most important thing is that Daniel is OK, you can always replace broken parts, you know the rest of the saying.

Qualifying: Connelly in the Blue #32 qualified 5th out of 11 cars (no #39) starting him inside second row for his heat race. Not bad for a tight race car. In his heat race he finished third which would start him fifth in the feature

Feature: Connelly started fifth in the feature and held position for the first half of the race. Ronnie Osmer was always less than a car length behind, ready to "pounce" when the opportunity presented itself. They both were in close pursuit of the #10 and both finally made the pass. Connelly and Ronnie put on a really good race for fourth place for the remainder of the race. Finishing order was the #7 first, #53 second, #44 third, with Connelly #32 fourth and Ronnie in his #55r finishing out the top 5. The most hotly contested race for position was put on by Ronnie and Connelly for fourth place. Hey good racing is good racing no matter what positions are involved. We will work on the car if at all possible as the next race is Aug 31 and that is a short week. Looking forward to the next race already