Saturday Night September 15 2012

Saturday afternoon Sept 15 found us on our way to Sunny South Raceway, we got away early as we had a lot to do when we got to the track.  We were very tight at the last race before the huricane and couldn't keep the car on the bottom in the center of the turns which cost us a lot of time.  We had an opportunity before the storm to scale the car and got the numbers to where we thought they should be (this coupe handles a lot differently than the sedan), but we are still "chasing it".  After registering and going through tech we got on the track and were too loose, but the track temp was 132 degrees, so we tweaked the chassis a little to get it quicker, didn't gain much.  We had to wait for the track to cool down some.  After another minimal adjustment we qualified in fourth place.  We wanted to take a big swing at the setup before the heat race, but Mr. Joe said he wanted to get an early start because we had the Bombers and the Mighty Mites on the schedule that night.  I didn't want to get the car torn down and have him call Legends to the grid, so we decided to wait until after the heat plus the track was cooling down which would tighten it up some. 

The cars that were in attendance Saturday were the #7 Hunter Lewis, #55r Ronnie Osmer, #44 Joseph McArdle, #53 Jeremy Lundy, #04 Dawson Kenner, #10 Chan Robinson, #94 Brad West, #33 Dalton Chipley and of cource #32 Connelly Dubuisson.

Qualifying:  The #44 laid down fast lap for the pole, followed by #7, #53,#32, #55, #10, #04, #33, the #94 missed qualifying and was to start at the rear for the heat race.  The top 5 qualifiers were separated by less than one tenth of a second.

Heat Race:  As a result of the qualifying we started 4th in the heat, we were still too loose, Joseph in the #44 started from the pole and lead wire to wire for the win, followed by the #53, #7 and Connelly in the #32 for fourth with Ronnie in the #55r in fifth by a whisker.  It was a well contested close race with the first five cars separated by no more than 150 feet.

After the heat race we went to thrashing on the #32.  We changed the right front spring, Connelly said the car felt like it was "rolling over" on the right front, we then changed the camber in the left front.  Part of the front suspension has to be disasembled to accomplish this and it took four tries to get it where we wanted it.  Then it was off to the tech barn to scale the car, and it was about where we wanted it on cross.  Then checked the ride hieght which was way off due to all the changes.  We adjusted it to where it was close and decided to "go racing".  This violates all of the rules of racing Rule #1 only change one thing at a time, Rule #2 NEVER violate rule #1, but what could we do we wanted to be competitive in the feature, so we took a "big swing" at it.  We would probably start 4th in the feature and that would give us a chance to feel the car out before we really started racing hard.  "Not so fast" Joseph throws the dice for the invert and you guessed it he throws a 4 now we are starting on the pole with a race car that we have no idea what it is going to do, with 8 snarling cars behind us looking for the win, we really felt like all the changes helped it, but who knows.

The Feature:  I told Connelly in our pre race discussion to just hold his line and feel the  car out for a couple of laps then go racing.  He lead the first lap by a whisker and then got into the right front of the #55r with our left rear and fell back to 4th behind the #44, #7, and #53.  The car appeared to be handling better and Connelly was able to close up to the rear bumper of the #53 and ran there for several laps.  We were about 10 car lengths ahead of the #55r who was only a bumber ahead of the #94 when on lap 16 of 20 Connelly suddenly spun on the backstretch the #94 was right behind the #55r and didn't see Connelly spin and when the #55r slowed down the #94 went to the inside and had nowhere to go.  He hit Connelly in the left rear doing fairly signifigant damage to the trailing arms, panhard bar, the pinion angle bar, all associated heims and the right rear axle bearing, relegating both the #32 and #94 to DNF's. Upon examining the left rear wheel we saw some blue paint off of the #55r on the wheel where we had gotten together with him, the wheel was slightly dented and it appeared that this was the created a slight leak which let the tire go down and caused the spin. Connelly said the incident with the #55r was his fault he should have given him more room.  But what can you say, the last time we got together with the #55r in the same place on the track his tire was cut down and he had to drop out of the race.  So what goes around comes around.  Just one of those racing things.  Betty did not tape the final 4 laps but I understand there was plenty of action, it seems the #53 and #44 got together sending the #44 to third, allowing the #7 to win, with the #55r moving up to second.  Congratulations Ronnie.  The final finishing order for the top five was:  #7 first #55r second, #44 third, #04 fourth, and the #10 fifth. 

Now we have a race car to repair, and a short week to do it in (we are scheduled to race again next Friday night)  we will see what we can do.