MARCH 21, 2014

On a sad note we learned tonight upon arriving at the track that Brian McArdle had been injured at work.  He was using a hand held high speed grinder and the grinding  wheel shattered and struck him in the inside of his left forearm and severed an artery and some nerves and tendons.  He had to be rushed to the hospital and have emergency surgery to stop the bleeding. He is in a sling and cannot drive his personal street car let along a race car.  We will keep him in our prayers and hope he can be back in the #44 soon.  He is at the track observing--once you get racing in your blood you've just got to be there.



QUALIFYING:

Tonight in qualifying the #7 laid down a blistering qualifying lap of 12.888 the #32 was at 13.108 a full .2 of a second off.  Wow that is huge, but who knows, we just will have to run the race and see how it shakes out.  The rest of the field qualified at #96 3rd, #14 4th, #44jr. 5th #4 6th and #01 7th.

Participants tonight are:  #7 Hunter Lewis, #32 Connelly, #96 Robbie Johnston, #14 Conner Okrezesik, #44jr. Joseph McArdle, #4 Ramsey Whittington, #01 Treyce Capers.  A very stout field.

FEATURE RACE:

The invert was thrown and was a two which put Connelly on the pole, we had been adjusting on  the car and didn't have a chance to try it (that is the problem with no heat race you loose that "test session").  So now we are on the pole and I know he will drive it in there to try and keep the position the question now becomes "will it stick"?  Connelly got a good start and just as I expected drove it in deep and the car stuck perfectly and he came out of turn two with the lead and was able to lead for half the race.  Then #7 spun us entering turn three, that put us to the back for bringing out the caution but they also put the  #7 to the back for spinning us, so now we are 6th and the #7 is behind us.  We worked our way back up to third with the #7 still behind us and with two laps to go, he was on out tail, we gave him enough room to pass us on the inside but he spun us again. leaving us to finish 5th.  What a bummer.  The #7 felt that we were blocking him, but we drive the same line as him and he is so much faster he should have been able to get by without spinning us.  We had a solid second place car but wound up 5th.  The finishing order was 1st #96, 2nd #44jr, 3rd #7, 4th #14, 5th #32 6th #4, 7th #01.