Saturday Night July 30th 2011

After waiting for six weeks between races and having the July 16th race rain out, Connelly had already gone into racing withdrawals and it was fixing to go South from there. As we pulled out of the driveway in Metairie, LA it was raining, Connelly said he was racing even if he had to go to rain tires. We arrived at Sunny South Raceway around 5:30 the sun was out but we drove through a rain shower about 3 miles from the track. Got lucky, it didn't hit SSR. At registration I let Betty pull the chip for starting position, she drew 8th out of 11 cars, said she was sorry and will let the drawing to me or Connelly.

In practice the car was "snappy loose" out of two and four, which ment it was probably tight and when he hit the throttle at the transition out of the banked turns onto the flatter straights it would snap loose on him. He was turning some pretty good lap times so we let it alone. In the heat race he got loose coming out of two, got into another car and a third car spun so we restarted in 10th. Connelly worked his way back up to 8th which is where he would start the feature race. We took a half turn out of the left rear hoping that would help the tight and solve that "snappy loose" condition, it worked. For the feature, I told him to feel the car out for at least a couple of laps before leaning on it, which he did. He then proceeded to drive the best race of his brief legend career. He started passing cars and worked his way through the field, with about 4 or 5 to go we got a caution and he restarted 4th. Made a nice pass for third and was pushing the front 2 at the end. He crossed the finish line in third place but was first in the Young Lyons/Semi Pro division, and after one of the top two failed post race inspection Connelly was awarded the first place trophy and points for YL/SP and a second place check for the overall second place finish. This was Connelly's first cash prize money and first Legends WIN. The goal he set for himself before the season was to get at least one win and finish in the top 3 in YL/SP points. He is halfway to achieving that goal.

Many of our friends in the pits an grandstand all said that he "drove the wheels off" of that car.
He looked like he had just gotten out of the shower he was so wet from sweat, and he said "I drove my butt off and I think I got everything out of the car", which I agree he did. All and all a very good outing, this was Connelly's breakout race.

Due to the rescheduling of the two rainout races we will be racing for the next 4 consecutive Saturdays. Connelly is at Charlotte,NC as I write this with the McArdles for the big $100,000 race he is helping pit crew for them. Good luck to them.

Double Points Night Saturday 6-18-11

Saturday 6-18-11 found the DMS 32 team at our home away from home Sunny South Raceway. It was a scalding hot day, temps in the high 90's with accompanying humidity, however a fairly nice breeze came up as it got closer to dark which made it bearable. There were a fair number of legends on hand (Father's day weekend). We had 6 Young Lyons/Semi Pro and also 6 Pro/Masters. They ran the heat races by classes, but combined classes for the feature. Connelly drew inside second row as his heat starting position. At the start of the heat he missed a shift and fell back, then got loose coming out of turn 2 on the second lap got passed and was running in 5 th position. You could throw a blanket over the 2nd through 5 th place cars. They were all about the same speed. Coming out of turn 4 for the checkerd flag the #14 got into the #44jr with both spinning giving Connelly the third place finish in the heat. He ran some very respectable times in competition with his fastest lap being a 13.55 but all were very consistant in the mid 13.5's and low 13.6's.

Feature race: New wrinkle, the winner of the heat race throws a huge 3 foot cube foam rubber dice off of the tower stairs with the resulting number thrown being the number of cars inverted at the start of the feature. As a result of the dice throw they inverted 5 putting Connelly on the outside pole with a swarm of screaming hornets on his rear bumper. He was somewhat apprehensive, but I told him sooner or later he would have to start up there and if he ever wanted to do the "choose" the same situation would present itself. He got frieght trained on the inside by almost the entire field, ran a good race with fairly good times and even made a pass or two. He said that he was so concerned about the cars behind him he didn't look out of his front winshield for the first 3 laps. He was "mirror driving" his little butt off. He did come home with a 1st place troophy for the Young Lyons/Semi Pro class. I don't know how that happened because he finished toward the back of the pack, but we didn't ask NO QUESTIONS!!!!!!! All in all a very successful outing and he brought the car home in one piece. He tells me that he needs to be loosened up a little bit, so we will give that a try. If he ain't sliding through the turns he ain't happy. We'll see how happy he is after the next race on July 16.

Memorial Day Race To Glory, and Regional Qualifier

On Memorial Day weekend Sunny South Raceway hosted its 6th annual Race to Glory and Legends Regional Qualifier. The Friday the 27th was the standard format ie. heat then feature program for all classes. On Saturday night the 28 we had timed qualifying for all classes with 20 lap features for the Bandoleros, Stingers and Pro-Challenge with a 40 lap feature for the Legends. There was a good field of really fast cars on hand to challenge SSR's 1/4 mile banked oval. There were 21 Legend cars available. For Friday's program they ran the Semi-Pro and Young Lyons separately as a class (13 YL/SP) and (8 Pro/ Masters). There were cars from Charlotte, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Nevada and I believe one from Texas. Additionaly we had our friends The Massaro family fron Gadsden, AL; Tommy, Traci, the upcoming driver Ryan and his brother (whose name escapes me at this late hour) on hand.

These were to be Connelly's third and fourth legend race, and he had never qualified on time before. His qualifying time was OK a 13.74 which he was not pleased with, but all in all it was a fair lap and gave him the 17 th starting position out of 21 cars for the 40 lap race on Saturday.

On Friday he drew fourth starting position for the heat got to third, then got snookered on a restart and fell to fourth which is where he finished. He had a fairly good feature passed a few cars, then had them take the "choose" and go up to the front and he would have to pass them again. He wound up 9th in the feature out of 13 cars.

On Saturday, I told him to stay in touch with the pack for the first 20 laps than try to make some passes in the second half of the race. He did that and stayed out of trouble. At around the 3/4 point in the race our friend Ryan Massaro got together with the white #91 (Ryan's car is the black and white#91) with the white #91 going for a two flip ride, landing on its wheels against the back wall just about destroying the white #91, fortunately no one was injured. There were a couple of other incidents that required a red flag situation, but no injuries only burised pride.

Connelly wound up finishing 12th. He did get lapped but he managed to lap at least one car that was still running at the end. Man, they had some strong cars there. The winning car came out of Charlote with one of the Plot brothers winning and his brother second. Local driver Cody Logan was third. All in all it was a very good experience for Connelly and the #32 team. Liked to worked me to death. Had to break two sets of tires, we had the hood blow off in practice, I think Connelly forgot to put the front hood pin in, had to repair that. Also in practice had a weld break on the muffler it came off but we were able to retrieve it and Cliff Osmer found a 110 v mig welder and welded the tab back on with the help of Tommy Massaro. I used the old racing fix of two loops of bailing wire to insure that the muffler stayen in place, it worked and we came home with our muffler. As mentioned before Connelly got a lot of "seat time" and I got a lot of practice fixing stuff, and we brought the car home in one piece, all in all a good weekend.

Second Legend Race 5-7-2011

Saturday night was Connelly's seccond legend race. There were 13 cars on hand for the competition with some very strong contenders. Connelly drew third starting position for the heat, the fourth starting position car got slightly ahead of him going into turn one (got to work on those starts) and came down on him and slowed (another rookie driver, bad combination) and Connelly got into him and spun him--complete restart. On the restart he got a better start and after two laps, coming out of turn two Con was completely alongside another car, they got together and we cut two holes in the right front the size of quarters, so much for the heat race.

In the feature we started last with a mis-matched set of tires, the car was so tight he had to hold about 15 degrees of left wheel in it going down the straightaway. He did manage a couple of passes in spite of the handling woes and gained a lot of experience on how to drive a tight race car. All in all a good learning experience. New tires are on their way. Looking forward to the next race.

Connelly's First Legend Race, 4-23-11

After the first race at SSR rained out, Connelly got himself put in the "Report Card Penalty Box" until he pulled his grades up. (No B's no keys) He demonstrated what he is made of and worked his butt off and earned back the privilege of racing. After losing two races to grades, he was ready to go this past Saturday night. We had made changes to caster and toe, so when he finally got on the track he said the car was perfect--his exact quote was"don't lay a finger on it".

There were 13 Legends registered and they split the field between two heats. Connelly drew 4th in heat #2 out of 6 cars, so I moved him back one row to 6th so as to give him an excape route and told him not to pass unless he had a real easy pass. He got hung behind a really slow car and just played cat and mouse with the 5th place car. He handled himself well, so in the Featue I turned him loose and let him race. Of course he started last due to the heat race finish.

In the Feature, he made two really nice passes and there were a couple of cautions. Being hung behind two slow cars put him way back, but once he got clear of them he progressed well. With about 6 laps to go he got lapped, he was about 15 car lengths ahead of the lead pack and when they gave him the "move over" flag he slowed too much and pulled over and let the whole pack go by. He told me after the race "those guys were racing for the win and I didn't want to mess them up, I didn't have a chance for a top three finish, so I didn't want to ruin somebody else's chance for one". All in all he had a very successful outing and he got better with each lap.

Betty videoed the entire Feature and I put it on YouTube. It can be viewed at "Connelly's First Legend Race" hope you enjoy it.

Opening Night, 2011 Season at Sunny South Raceway

Saturday night March 5 was the scheduled opening of the 2011 season at Sunny South Raceway. We had a very successful open test date on 2-12-11 after which we changed the oil and filter, treated the motor to a new set of coils, spark plugs and wires. Connelly waxed the car to within an inch of its life, shined the chrome wheels, greased a lubricated everything that didn't move (he almost got me) but I got away. And guess what, Saturday brought a terrific line of thunder storms complete with very strong winds (up to 55 mph) along with a tornado in central Louisiana. We had over 3 inches of rain and the weather was in a word was awful. Joe McArdle cancelled the race as that line of storms was due to hit the track just about the time the gates were scheduled to open. So much for opening night 2011, Connelly was so dissapointed, you would have thought someone had stabbed him in the heart. The first race is now scheduled for 3-19-11. It is pretty obvious that the "weather god" was not a racer, but there will be other days. Looking forward to them.

Getting ready for 2011 season

We started around the first week in October tearing down the legend to paint and change a few things. We removed the body and all of the inside sheet metal with the exception of the floor. Connelly sanded down the entire chassis, roll cage, all of the tins and anything else that didn't move. He then primed and painted everything two coats of grey on chassis and roll cage. The tins he did in flat black. We had the body painted by Terry at Manhattan Collision center in Harvey, La. He did a fantastic job. We then replaced all of the nuts and bolts for all of the trailing arms and suspension parts. We then installed a new Richardson full containment seat complete with wrap around headrest. Then added a new set of Simpson seat belts before replacing all of the repainted sheet metal. Next the fuel tank went back in followed by the body, fenders, hood, grille and graphics. We had the graphics done by A.J. Fulgenzi of Victory Graphics out of Florida, www.victorygraphicsusa.com. We finished off the rebuild with a new set of tires on chrome rims. I am proud to report that Connelly did 90% of the work by himself, with some supervision and help by me. I think he did a fantastic job. The proof is in the pudding, or in this case the outcome of the job.

This past Saturday Feb. 12th, 2011 was open test day at Sunny South Raceway. Joe McArdle (the track manager) reported that we had 27 cars participate. We arrived around 10:30 went through safety tech and scaled the car, after adding 17 pounds of lead, the weight of the paint, new seat the car scaled almost perfect. With a full load of fuel we weighed 1324 pounds which gives us a comfortable fuel burnoff cushion. The cross and other numbers were almost perfect.

Connelly finally got on the track with the old tires to see if the car felt the same as when we ran it in September. It was close. We then put on the new tires, and proceeded to run them in. On the second 10 lap session on the new tires Con spun going into turn 3, I had put too much front brake in the car, he almost saved it he did a half spin then stopped on the grass and came back in.

We had a few issues; the ignition develloped a slight pop when it was cold, with the help of James Wilson (who we purchassed the car from) got that sorted out, I ordered a new set of red coils today. James helped us adjust the camber and toe and reset the brake bias and the car was almost perfect. We had Cody Logan who raced the car before we got it, take it out and shake it down and he reported it was good to go.

Connelly took the car back out for the final run of the day. He got 14 good laps in turning a fast lap of 13.66 on the1/4 mile banked oval. His fast lap of the day was 13.49. All in all a very successful outing for the opening of the 2011 season. Hope to have many more.