APRIL 19, 2014

We were supposed to race last night, but the race rained out so it was pushed back to Saturday, either way tonight is race night and we are here to race.

QUALIFYING:

We got un loaded, registered and went through tech, I thought that tonight would not be a difficult night as the car was pretty good last race and all we did was to scale it nut and bolt it and load up, however the car must have caught a virus, because it  was awful.  In practice it  was loose entering, wasn't rolling the center very well and the rear end was stepping out upon braking.  It was a mess.  We tried a couple of adjustments with very little gain. in qualifying we were way off in 4th place.  Qualifying order was 1. #7 Hunter Lewis, 2. 44jr. Joseph McArdle, 3. #14 Conner Okzresik, 4. #32 Connelly, 5. #96 Robbie Johnston, 6. #94 Brad West, 7. #44 David Pickett (substituting for Brian McArdle), 8. #4 Ramaey Whittington, 9. #33 Dustin Smith, 10. #01 Treyce Capers, 11. #18 Devin Corey.  A very fast field of competitors.

FEATURE RACE:

In qualifying, the car was terrible, Connelly went to Brian McArdle and explained what the car was doing and asked for some help, he made a couple of suggestions which were pretty aggressive fixes, but when you don't know what to do you ask for advice and follow it.  We made the changes that Brian suggested and lined up for the feature.  The invert was a 4, now we are on the pole again with a car that we don't know exactly what it is going to do when you run it down into turn one hard with 10 snarling cars behind you at full throttle.  Connelly felt that being on  the pole gave him an escape route in  that he could run it down into the infield if it got away from him.  The car stuck, and did it ever stick.  Connelly led the first 16 laps, the # 7 finally got clear of traffic and got to us and got by.  We then ran second for all but the last three laps.  With three to go there was a wreck involving  the #96, #14 and the #4 with the #96 having to go on the roll back and retire from the race.  With three to go there would be a double file restart Connelly got a good start and tried to go inside of the #7 for the lead, but he covered  the move and we got a little too close to the grass and got the left front into the  grass and almost lost the car coming out of turn two, and we lost a position to the #44,  So now one mistake puts us third, on the next lap he tries to get it back and gets into the back of the #44 and has to check up allowing the #44jr. to get by putting us in 4th place.  On the last lap we ran very close to the #44jr. almost pushing him down the back straight a way, going into turn 3  he got very loose, we could have tried to pass him but would have probably wrecked us both.  A third place trophy and a check for $40.00 just ain't worth it,  so we just settled for fourth.  We lead the race for 16 laps ran second for another 6 only to make a mistake with 3 to go and finish fourth.   Again we had a solid second place car and didn't get the finish we should have.  We will have to get our "stuff" together if we want to reach our goals.
Final finishing order:#7, #44, #44jr., #32, #14, #94, #4, #01, #96, #33, #18.  Got to get better at finishing these races.