Saturday Night July 18, 2015

Saturday night found the #32 team at the pit gate at 5 pm. a little later than usual,  but we had already done our tire break in and worked on our setup issues last Wednesday night when we rented the track, plus it was blistering hot, not a good time to tweak setups.  Got our pits setup, went through registration and tech went out for a trial run--the only thing we could find out was "did it start? would it stop? would it turn left? Yes to all three.  The track was so slick you could hardly run, track temp was 126.7 degrees, so we just parked it with the intention of getting another run in right before qualifying.  The track temp only dropped by a couple of degrees, so we just went into qualifying with what we had.

Qualifying:

Connelly qualified on the pole by the narrowest of margins 11/1000 of a second over Brian McArdle #44 who was back after last week's absence, qualifying third was Joseph McArdle, #44jr., followed by Dawson Keener in the 04, Robbie Johnston, #96, Brad West, #94, Conner Okrzesik #14, Treyce Capers #01, Dustin Harvison #15, Brandon Slater #5, Fred Laing #6, Michel Beasley #114, William Wilson #16, Wyatt Heffington #1, and Devin Corry #18, all within one second of each other.  If my math is correct--and it rarely is--that one second equates to 100 feet on the track and the top two qualifiers are separated by about 11inches--real close.  So I look for a really competitive race.  We have 15 cars available to compete tonight.

Heat Race:

Our heat race had 8 cars in it with Connelly starting on the pole, he got a good start and led all of the 8 laps, it was an uneventful race with only one quick caution on lap 3 caused by a spin.  Top 5 in the heat race were: #32 Connelly, #96 Robbie, #44jr. Joseph, #15 Dustin, #14 Conner.

Feature Race:

After winning the heat race Connelly threw the invert dice and rolled a three putting him in the third starting position, with Robbie #96 on the pole and Brian #44 outside front row, Brad #94 outside second row, and Joseph #44jr rounding our the starting front five. Connelly got a good start then a quick caution before the completion of lap number one--complete restart.  He got another good start and had the lead by the end of lap one.  Brian and Joseph battled for second place for about four laps allowing Connelly to get away form both of them by about 8 car lengths.  Right at halfway  (10 laps) a car spun bring out the yellow.  On the ensuing restart Connelly got a good start then right past the start finish line the #94 got into the side of Brian in the #44 which triggered a Daytona type "big one".  I counted no less than 8 cars involved.  Connelly was clear of the wreck and said he looked in his rearview mirror and all he saw was smoke and cars spinning and getting into  each other.  Resulting in a red flag which lasted the better part of 15 minutes, we had run the first half of the race in 3 1/2 min. at least 8 cars went off the track for  repairs including Brian in the #44, so they all had to go to the rear, however they all came back on to run the rest of the race.  The field then went into a "yellow fever" mode with the remainder of the race having 4 more yellow flags and two more red flags.

Brian worked his way back up to second, the repairs he made behind pit wall seemed to help because he then ran the fastest lap of the night for any legend including qualifying, with a 13.015 which was quick considering the track temp. It seemed to take forever to get the last 3 laps in.  The top three in the Pro division were Connelly #32, Brian #44, and Brad #94.  The top three in  the Semi Pro division were Robbie #96, Dawson #04 and Conner #14.  It should be noted that Treyce Capers in the #01 was exiting turn 4 looking at the checkered flag for his first podium finish when he spun dropping him to sixth, man you gotta keep that thing under you    SSR began a new payout procedure tonight.  Even though all the legend classes (4) run together they began paying separate prize money and trophies for each division--a really good idea.  The race took over 55 minutes to run with the first half only taking 3 1/2 minutes. Long night we got home at 3:45 Sunday morning.