Tonight found us arriving late as we encountered a huge traffic tie up outside of Slidell, we left an hour early but it took us 1hour and 40 min to go 4 miles 6 lanes of traffic reduced to one--what a nightmare. We had to shake down the car start breaking in tires. We got on the track and the car was not to Connelly's liking. Just couldn't get it to "feel right". He got it "close" but in a series as competitive as this one you really don't want close.
QUALIFYING: Connelly qualified on the pole with a relatively slow 13.122, however the track did not seem to have a lot of speed in it. The track was very hot at qualifying 126 degrees. The remaining competitors in order of qualifying were the #44jr Joseph McArdle, #96 Robbie Johnston, #14 Conner Okresik, #15 Dustin Harvison, #94 Brad West, #01 Treyce Capers, #6 Fred Laing, #5 Brandon Slater, and #1 Wyatt Heffington. The #32 was a sight to behold, a new unpainted white fiberglass body with a black and orange hood complimented by a black deck lid with an orange
fleur-de-lis on it, going down the straightaway away from you it looks like a car with the trunk open, all this with a blue painters tape #32 on the passenger side door. It desperately needs to go to the paint shop.
HEAT RACE: Connelly started on the pole and led start to finish. The top 3 were #32, #96, #01. It was a uneventful heat which was great after last race wreck fest.
FEATURE RACE: Connelly threw a 4 on the invert dice, starting us from outside row two. He got a good start, got to the inside by lap 2 and had the lead by lap 4. Connelly went on to win closely followed by the #44jr of Joseph McArdle, the #96 of Robbie Johnston, #14 Conner Okrzesik, who wrecked his primary car in his heat and had to go to a back up for the feature (lucky he has a backup) and #01 of Treyce Capers for his first feature top 5. Congratulations Treyce. We are looking forward to the July 18th race, but we have a lot to do before then, thankfully we have three weekends before then to get it done. It should be noted that #44 Brian McArdle was not here tonight to race.We look forward to seeing him soon.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Saturday Night June 6th, 2015
Got to the track and went through our normal routine, got a practice session in, car was OK but not perfect. When they called the cars to the grid for qualifying it started to rain--dried the track than another shower, so qualifying was cancelled--dried the track again and drew pills for starting positions in the heat races.
HEAT RACE:
Connelly drew inside last row in heat #1, 7th out of 8, he got a good start and worked his way toward the front, by lap 5 he had the lead and went on to win the heat, followed by Brian in #44, Conner in #14, Dawson in #04, and Chad in #10. We had a total of 16 competitors going for the win tonight, a very respectable field of cars.
FEATURE RACE:
At the drawing for heat starting positions the announcement was made that there would be an invert of 4 cars. Connelly was to start from the outside of row #2 fourth place, but Brian failed to go through tech after the heat race and was disqualified for the heat race resulting in him having to start last in the feature, he was scheduled to start from the outside of row #1 allowing the entire outside line to move up one spot when he went to the rear. Now Connelly is starting outside row #1. We managed to get the lead and held on to it for the first 3 or 4 laps when the #01 spun and was collected by the #18 and #5 a red flag resulted and all three were retired having suffered significant damage. After the restart we continued to lead, with Brian in the #44 working his way up to second. We still had a nice lead but a caution bunched the field up putting the #44 right on our bumper. On the restart we got pushed all the way down the backstretch, missed our braking mark, in the next turn we had a "bump and run" executed against us and the #44 got under us going into turn #3 coming to the checker, the two cars got together coming out of turn #4, the #44 "wheel hopped" us--his right rear went over out left front---the #04 then slid sideways into the rear of our car, the #10 then got into the #04. The #44, #32, and #04 had significant damage. The race finished with the #14 winning and the #96 in second and I think the #94 third. The #44 finished 11th and Connelly finished 12th after leading the first 19 laps, but the lap that pays the prize money is the 20 th. We felt like we could have been raced a little cleaner, in fact the race director warned the #44 for the pushing incident, but the wreck still happened. Could both sides have "given a little" and avoided all of the "carnage", probably!! what caused the wreck???? opinions differ but it is what it is. We need to get a whole new body on the car and have it checked out. We will be at the next race if we can get it all done. This race took its toll on race cars, four had to be taken off on the roll back, the #18, the #01, the #32 and the #04, the #5, #10, #44 were able to limp off under their own power but had significant damage. Hopefully we will get it all done and be ready for the next race.
HEAT RACE:
Connelly drew inside last row in heat #1, 7th out of 8, he got a good start and worked his way toward the front, by lap 5 he had the lead and went on to win the heat, followed by Brian in #44, Conner in #14, Dawson in #04, and Chad in #10. We had a total of 16 competitors going for the win tonight, a very respectable field of cars.
FEATURE RACE:
At the drawing for heat starting positions the announcement was made that there would be an invert of 4 cars. Connelly was to start from the outside of row #2 fourth place, but Brian failed to go through tech after the heat race and was disqualified for the heat race resulting in him having to start last in the feature, he was scheduled to start from the outside of row #1 allowing the entire outside line to move up one spot when he went to the rear. Now Connelly is starting outside row #1. We managed to get the lead and held on to it for the first 3 or 4 laps when the #01 spun and was collected by the #18 and #5 a red flag resulted and all three were retired having suffered significant damage. After the restart we continued to lead, with Brian in the #44 working his way up to second. We still had a nice lead but a caution bunched the field up putting the #44 right on our bumper. On the restart we got pushed all the way down the backstretch, missed our braking mark, in the next turn we had a "bump and run" executed against us and the #44 got under us going into turn #3 coming to the checker, the two cars got together coming out of turn #4, the #44 "wheel hopped" us--his right rear went over out left front---the #04 then slid sideways into the rear of our car, the #10 then got into the #04. The #44, #32, and #04 had significant damage. The race finished with the #14 winning and the #96 in second and I think the #94 third. The #44 finished 11th and Connelly finished 12th after leading the first 19 laps, but the lap that pays the prize money is the 20 th. We felt like we could have been raced a little cleaner, in fact the race director warned the #44 for the pushing incident, but the wreck still happened. Could both sides have "given a little" and avoided all of the "carnage", probably!! what caused the wreck???? opinions differ but it is what it is. We need to get a whole new body on the car and have it checked out. We will be at the next race if we can get it all done. This race took its toll on race cars, four had to be taken off on the roll back, the #18, the #01, the #32 and the #04, the #5, #10, #44 were able to limp off under their own power but had significant damage. Hopefully we will get it all done and be ready for the next race.
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