OPENING NIGHT MARCH 7, 2014

This season the track has made a change to the racing format.  Instead of having qualifying, a 10 lap heat race, then a 20 lap feature, the new format is qualifying, no heat race and a 25 lap feature.  This was done to try and get the out of town drivers, like us home at a reasonable time.  Many times it is 3:30 or 4:00 Sat morning before we get to bed, so we will see how this works out.

QUALIFYING:

After all the planning for no heat races the electronic timing equipment failed so we had to draw chips for a 5 lap qualifying heat, won by Joseph McArdle, Connelly Dubuisson second and Brian McArdle third.  The invert was accomplished by the race director choosing a number (3 tonight) and that was the number of cars to invert.  It has since been changed to a dice being thrown after the qualifying to determine the invert.

Tonight's competitors were the #44 of Brian McArdle, #44jr. with Joseph McArdle at the wheel, #32 with Connelly Dubuisson driving, #7 of Hunter Lewis, #96 of Robbie Johnston, #4 of Ramsey Whittington, #14 of Conner Okrezesik, and the #01 driven by Trecye Capers, a very competitive field.

FEATURE RACE:

After the invert, the starting positions for the field was: #44 pole, #32 second, #44jr. third, #7 fourth, #96 fifth, #14 sixth, #4 seventh, and #01 eighth.  At the start it took Connelly 3 laps to get to the bottom, by that time he was 4th. he stayed there for several laps when the #7 got loose around halfway Connelly made the pass for 3rd.  Brian in the #44 "ran off and hid" from the field with Joseph #44jr. a distant 2nd. we were within 2 car lengths of Joseph and the #7 one length behind us.  There was a caution with the #7 taking the choose, we were able to race our way to a third place finish behind Brian McArdle and Joseph McArdle.  The #7 was 4th, the #96 5th, the #14 6th with the #4 next followed by the #01.  The car wasn't perfect, but Connelly was able to drive it to a podium finish.  We were OK with the results, but Connelly wanted a better finish, but with that kind of competition, we have to drive harder or get faster.  Looking forward to next race.