Tonight is the Regional Qualifier. What this is all about is if you are a Regional winner you are guaranteed a starting spot in the feature of the National Championship race, so if you go to the nationals and do not have a good qualifying run you still have a spot in the finals. The car is more or less ready-we had to burn some midnight oil to get it ready as Connelly had to work in addition to all the graduating, but we got most of it done and got him and Graham graduated and are here at SSR for the regionals. Want to just take a couple of deep breaths and relax for about a day or so, but not so fast we have a race today and tomorrow, so just "suck it up" and go for it. We still had to put one heat cycle on our race tires for tonight, so no time to waste. Got the pits set up, got registered, went through tech, got on the track got the tires finished and "busted them" for a couple of laps. They felt good but the track temp was 134 degrees and we didn't learn much, but we are as ready as we can be.
QUALIFYING: The participants in todays event are in qualifying order #32 Connelly Dubuisson at 12.923, #44 Brian McArdle 2nd, #44jr. Joseph McArdle 3rd, #94 Brad West 4th, #96 Robbie Johnston 5th, #8 Donovan Ponder 6th, #14 Conner Okrezesik 7th, #10 Chad Robinson 8th, #01 Treyce Capers 9th, #15 Dustin Harvison 10th, #30 William Wilson 11th, #18 Devin Corry 12th, # 5 Brandon Slater13th, #114 Michael Beasley 14th, #6 Fred Laing 15th. A very competitive group, the top 5 are all within a quarter of a second of each other.
HEAT RACE: There was a slight departure from the usual regional qualifier format. This year we will have heat races and a dice throw for invert positions, in years past we just had qualifying and race the feature, no big deal you just "dance with who brung ya". Connelly started on the pole in his heat race as a result of his qualifying time, he pretty much led every lap and went on to win his heat. The top 5 were #32, #44jr.,#96, #14, #30. Now go get ready for the feature, the Regional Qualifier. As a result of winning the first heat Connelly had to the roll the invert dice, so he put the fans on the engine to cool it down and went to throw the dice-- he threw a 1, which kept him on the pole, no invert for the feature. He checked the car over thoroughly and felt that everything was as good as he could make it then sat down and rested.
REGIONAL QUALIFIER: It was an impressive sight, 15 cars in the parade lap for the feature, getting ready for 35 laps of intense racing. Connelly got a good start but an early caution came out, "complete restart", did not complete one lap, restarted, didn't get as good a start as the first time and Brian in the #44 snookered him and took the lead, after a couple of laps Connelly un-snookered himself on lap 5 and got under Brian and outside of Joseph to run 3 wide down the front straightaway--he was the meat in a McArdle sandwich, he took the lead and managed to increase his advantage to 3 or 4 car lengths which is where he ran for the first one third of the race. Then another caution, got another good restart, same drill, got out to about 3 or 4 car lengths was able to maintain that until another caution. At this point the race is about 2/3 complete. Connelly got another good restart and again was able to get about a 4 car length advantage over the #44 and held on for the win. A very impressive performance, won the regional qualifier, the $1,000 added prize money, a guaranteed spot in the finals of the national championship race in November, what a great day for the #32 team. Got to get ready for tomorrow, the second half of the Memorial Day Classic, cant wait!!!! The top 5 finishing order was #32 1st, #44 2nd, #8 who had a technical issue in post race inspection and was disqualified, moving the #14 up to 3rd, #96 4th, and #94 rounding out the top 5.
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