September 27, 2013

Friday found us leaving Brother Martin High School at the normal 3:15 time and proceeding to Sunny South Raceway. We had an uneventful trip and arrived at the track just a few minutes after gate opening. Got to our pit stall, unloaded, got registered and went through tech and got on the track in the first group. Connelly laid down a fast lap in practice of 13.03 which is very fast for a track that was still pretty hot. We felt that we couldn't gain anything by more practicing, so we just checked it over and got ready for qualifying. It felt good to not have tires to break in or adjustments to deal with.

The cars available tonight were the #7 of Hunter Lewis, the #32 of Connelly Dubuisson, the # 44jr. of Joseph McArdle, the #44 of Brian McArdle (who is just back from kidney transplant surgery three weeks ago. His doctor said he could go back to his normal activity, I am not sure that the doctor knew what Brian's "normal activity" was).the #04 of Dawson Keener, the # 94 of Brad West, the # 96 of Robbie Johnston, the # 7b (Hunter Lewis' backup car) driven this week by Andrew Johnson, and the #33 driven by Dustin Smith. A very impressive and competitive field of cars. In the practice session for the pro challenge cars the #55r blew his engine (connecting rod through the side of the engine) and emptied the entire crankcase of oil in the middle of the "groove" from the center of turn 3 to the entrance of turn 1, after an extensive cleanup the track was just barely raceable.

QUALIFYING: The timing system at SSR records the lap times to the thousandth of a second and the #7 and the #32 posted identical times for qualifying to the thousandth of a second a 13.169, the #44jr was third followed by the #44, then #04,the #94, the #96, #7b, with the #33 rounding out the field.

HEAT RACE: Since the #7 went out to qualify first he was awarded the pole with Connelly relegated to outside front row. With all of the fast cars tonight I figured we would be in fifth or sixth position before we could get to the bottom. The heat went just about a I figured we were in fifth by the time we could get to the inside where could race, we raced in fifth for several laps and was having difficulty getting by the 04 when with three laps to go Connelly drove it in to turn three very hard, made the pass on the 04 but was carrying too much speed when he hit the part of the track that had been oiled down by the 55r and he spun the car. He went from fourth to ninth in one spin. With only three laps to go he wound up finishing in 8th place a net loss of 8 points toward the track championship.

FEATURE RACE: Due to our poor finish in the Heat we started outside of the last row with a mob of really fast cars in front of us. The invert was a #5 so the up front cars were scrambled. After a caution on the first lap creating a complete restart, things settled down with Connelly working his way up through the field and by halfway he was in fifth. Shortly thereafter a caution came out, we took the "choose" and in one lap was third. We worked our way up to second, but another caution came out and since we hadn't completed one full lap in that position we had to give it back, got back to second as a result of the #7 and #44 getting together in turn 4, the #7 fell back to about 5th then another caution and another restart. The #7 was driving very hard and had gotten up to third behind us and the #44, with two laps to go we were right on the tail of the #44 when the #44 broke a rear trailing arm bolt and began to slide, we were still at middle of the turn speed and our right front wheel went inside of his left rear, at that moment the #7 touched our rear bumper (something that happens many times in the course of a race) and we got into the #44, then the #04 hit our rear bumper launching him into the wall on the exit of turn 2 taking the #94 with him. Connelly was able to drive the car away but with all of that contact he came off the track to check on the safety of the car. Which now relegated him to last place among the remaining cars. The officials red flagged the race and called it complete, awarding finishes and points by last completed green flag lap, which would have placed us second. A very "heated discussion" ensued and the finish as announced was reversed and we were given 6th place since we left the track. The net result was a loss of another 12 points. The finishing order as recorded was #7, #7b, #96, #33, #44jr, and #32. This race was to be crucial in our chase for the track championship. Next weekend will be the final race of the season "The Dixie Clash" a normal program for Fri. night with just qualifying and a 30 lap feature on Saturday. That will be our last chance to regain the lead in points.