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.