Friday Night 4-26-13

Friday night found the 32 team at Sunny South Raceway just 10 minutes after gate opening, which was good as we had some tires to break in. We got the car prepared, registered and through tech and was the first car on the track.  The track was very slick and everyone was loose, Connelly almost spun by himself and was not really pushing it.  We got our new tires on and got a heat cycle on them, need to finish them up next time.  We knew we wouldn't have much practice time as there is only a little over an hour for all classes to practice.  We got in a couple of practices in preparation for qualifying, but man that track was slick, everyone was sliding around. 

QUALIFYING:  We were in the second qualifying session and I had Connelly at 13.10 with the hand held stopwatch, not bad for such a slick track.  Then they anounced that the track's computerized lap timer had malfunctioned, so all Legend drivers  were called to the tech barn to draw chips to determine heat race starting positions.  There were 10 Legends registered and Connelly drew 8th starting position--deep in the field.  We had a really good field of 10 fast cars: #7 of Hunter Lewis, #32 of Connelly, #66 of Andrew Johnson, #04 of Dawson Keener, #96 of Robbie Johnston, #44 of Joseph McArdle,#33 of Dalton Chipley,#59 of Terry Meyers, #53 of Jeremy Lundy, and  the #2 of Billy Elmore, Jr., a really competitive group of cars. 

HEAT RACE:  The start found Connelly deep in  the field in 8th place after one lap he was up to 6th after 3 laps he had worked his way up to 5th, at which time a caution came out as a result of the #33 and the #2 getting together.  The #2 of Billy Elmore broke his steering wheel in the accident and was forced to retire from the heat, he would be able to make the feature.  At the restart Connelly took the "Choose" which put him outside front row in second, but he was on the outside, which brings with it the chance of being "frieght trained" and winding up deeper in the field than before taking the choose.  Fortunately Connelly was able to get back to the inside in third place, so he went from 8th to 3rd in about 4 laps with the help of the "choose" behind the #44 of Joseph McArdle (who started on the pole) and the #53 of Jeremy Lundy.  The first 3 cars were never more  than a few car lengths apart with #44 and #53 right on each other, with Connelly about one or two car lengths behind.  Coming to the  white flag the #44 and #53 got together spinning both cars, forcing the #53 to retire and put the #44 to the rear of the field. Connelly avoided the spinning cars as did the #7 and the remainder of the field.  At the restart for a green, white, checker (two laps of competition remaining)  Connelly started single file from the front with the #7 right on his rear bumper, coming out of turn two Connelly got loose and went up the track allowing the #7 to get under him giving him a second place finish in the heat race.  The top 5 were:  #7, #32, #66, #04, #96, all in all a very entertaining race with a lot of passing and some hot action.

FEATURE RACE:  After the heat race Connelly said, I don't know what to do to the car it is so loose I can hardly drive it.  So I told him lets tighten it up, we took it to the tech barn and put it on the scales and made a chassis adjustmen to tighten it up--didn't want to go too far, as a slightly loose car is faster than a slightly tight car.  We were slated to start second in the feature as a result of our second place finish in the heat.  Howerer, our luck changed as the #7 who had to throw the big 3 foot dice to determine the number of cars to be inverted, threw a 2 inverting two cars, putting us on the pole for the feature.  Now we had another decision to make, we had an old set of almost worn out tires that we knew would be wicked fast for about 10 to 12 laps, we just didn't know if they would last the whole 20 laps of the feature, if we get a caution about halfway through they would cool off and be right again for another 8 or so laps. If we use a brand new just broken in set of tires they wouldn't be quite as fast at the start and it might not be enough to win, what the heck go with the fast tires and we will try to hold them off.  At the start Connelly made a good start got out to about a 4 or 5 car length lead which he was able to hold on to for 12 laps.  Then just as we suspected the tires started "giving up" we started going back to the #7 in second and #44 in third (no caution to cool the tires) on lap 13 the front 3 cars went down the back stretch side by side 3 wide which won't work in turn 3 and 4, Connelly fell back to 3rd with the #7 in the lead,  the #44 then passed the #7 for the lead, Connelly then passed the #7 back for second place with two laps to go which  is where he finished.  What a race, this one had it all, one car got out front and stayed thare for over half the race, then second and third ran him down passed for the lead and second place which then changed twice in the last 4 laps with the top three finishing less than a tenth of a second apart from 1st to 3rd.  All cars finished on the lead lap which speaks to the quality of this field of cars and drivers. The top 5 being #44, #32, #7, #2, and the #96.  This was a very entertaining race with the top two drivers being 16 years old driving like a couple of pros, I would have driven from Metairie to Mobile to watch this race even if I did not have a car in it.  Can't wait for Fri the 3rd of May the next race.  We'll be there.

Friday Night 4-1-13

Again Friday night found us at Sunny South Raceway looking forward to another night of racing.  There was an extremely fast group of cars racing tonight.  In addition to the #44, #7, #32, #2r, Jeremy Lundy had his fast #53 there, also Billy Elmore, Jr. has a new car a beautiful green '34 Ford coupe #2,  Billy is an experienced Legend and Pro Challenge driver and has been very successful at SSR, expect him to be fast.  Additionally the #96, and #04 of Dawson Keener who won the most improved driver at SSR last season.  The #39 of Daniel Thompson was back, #33 of Dalton Chipley and the #94 of Brad West is back, he was involved in the crash with Connelly in the blue 32 last season and had extensive damage to repair. Also available was the #66 of Andrew Johnson.

We had taken a big swing at the handling of the car in preparation for this race and when Connelly got the car on the track he said it was handling perfectly--good news.  We qualified with a time of 13.035 which is very fast as the track was still green.  In the heat race Connelly and Jeremy Lundy put on a show  they ran nose to tail for the entire 10 laps with Connelly winning by a couple of car lengths.

Connelly threw a 4 with the big dice which gave us the 4th starting position outside second row.  We ran 4th for a good portion of the race, made a pass for third, got passed back.  Jeremy #53 spun right in fornt of us bringing out the caution with 2 laps to go.  We were now third with two to go, on the last lap Connelly got under Joseph #44 going into turn 3, they got together, Joseph spun, Connelly got into him and by the time he got off of Joseph two cars passed putting him back to 4th.  This all happened as the checkerd flag was being shown to the field.  Top finishers were #7 first, #94 second, #66 third, #32 fourth, #04 fifth.  All in all not a bad night we showed better than our finish, but it was a double points night and we didn't get hurt too bad on pointgs.  The damage to the car looks like no more than bent bumper tabs and a grill mount bracket, very fixable.  It doesn't appear  that any signifigant damage was done.  This season is setting up to be a very competitive one.  There are several cars and drivers that are capable of winning on any given night.  Looking forward to next race already.

Friday Night 3-15-13

Friday night found the #32 crew at the track rearing to go, we had made some adjustments to the car trying to get it to turn through the center of the turns better and in practice we felt like we gained on it a little, but still no cigar.  There was no qualifying as the track transponder was acting up, so we drew chips to establish heat starting positions.  Connelly drew low chip and sat on the pole for the heat. 
The cars that competed tonight were #7 Hunter Lewis, #32 Connelly, #2r Skyler Fleming, #44 Joseph McArdle, #11 Dustin Smith, #96 Robbie Johnston, #66 Andrew Johnson, #33 Dalton Chipley, #54 T.J.Thompson, and a second #54 from Texas Clayton Green.  A very strong field.  Connelly had a terrible cold, I do not know how he was even able to drive.  He wound up second in the heat to Hunter Lewis in the #7.  In the feature we started outside first row, which is a tough spot as you are  usually 4th by the time you can get to the inside lane where you can race, which is exactly what happened.  During the course of the race we would make a pass, then get passed back, we finished fourth .084 of a second behind the leader, there were four cars within .084 of each other at the finish.  It was a very entertaining race, Connelly was not satisfied with a 4th place finish, but under the circumstances we will take it.

Opening Night Friday Night 3-1-13

That's right we are racing on Friday nights this season.  We pick Connelly up from school at 3:10 and go straight to the track, which works out well as we stop at Grand Ban Subway for dinner and get to the track before opening.  The 32 during practice wasn't rolling through the center of the turns to Connelly's liking and we were losing time there.  We tried some air pressure adjustments that didn't help much we qualified third and ran second in the heat and held on to second in the feature.  There were 10 cars for the first race.  Under the heading of everything that is old is new again Skyler Fleming has a brand new car it is just like his old 34 ford sedan painted a sharp grey and bearing his old 2r number.

Betty's camera malfunctioned and we did not get the feature race but I do know the results of the feature were the #7 of Hunter Lewis was first with Connelly #32 second, Joseph McArdle #44 third, and Skyler Fleming #2r fourth.  Will try to do a better job reporting in the future.  Looking forward to next race already. 

2013 Racing Season

I have been terribly remiss in my attention to our Blog.  The 2013 season is well underway and I have not put up one post and for that I apologize.  To bring everyone up to date, we had to get the 32 front clip replaced  as a result of the wreck last race in July.  We had that done and replaced all of the right front suspension parts as well as a new oil cooler, steering box and much of the right rear suspension parts as well including a new rear end housing. We had the car "set up" and put new tires on it and felt we were ready for the open test date in mid Feb.

The 2013 season kicked off with an open  test date on Feb. 16 and we spent most of the day breaking in tires.  The car felt good and Connelly turned in some fair times.  The track was very  green (no rubber put down) and was not very fast, but we were pleased with the car's performance considering all the repairs done.  For a mid Feb date, the weather was great and we enjoyed the outing.  Connelly was overjoyed to finally get back behind the wheel of his baby.