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First and foremost I am VERY disappointed in the turn out. You have all of these so called drivers bitching and moaning about payouts so somebody works her tail off to get sponsors and posts decent pay outs and 12 cars showed up. I know its a busy time of year but the cars that did show were all top notch racecars.
We had a LONG day, mine was 23 hours. Our problems started in the first practice session with handling and brakes. The second session the starter and clutch went out, the car started getting hot and we lost second gear in the tranny. Third session we got a little closer with the handling, had to push start the car in third gear to make it.
In between the 2nd and 3rd practice I broke out my compass and headed over to the parts trailer looking for a starter and some brake pads. He didn't have anything I needed so he asked me what car # I was. By the time I made it back to the trailer there were 2 starters and a set of brake pads other drivers had brought over. I didn't hear it but I guess they announced over the PA that we needed these parts. AMAZING, I had never seen a track do this or other racers so concerned about us making the race, GREAT SPORTSMANSHIP.
We just barely made it out for qualifying after making several other repairs and changes and successfully qualified near the back thanks to a clock error which gave us a 3rd lap. Before the race started we were thrashing on the car pretty good to improve the handling.
All the restarts were double file which kept us close and made for some good racing. We had to start in third gear which hurt a little bit but MSeay did a good job learning the track. As the race went on you could tell he was gaining confidence in the car and pretty soon we were looking pretty good. We got lapped by the leader only who was DQ'd after the race, everyone else was at least half a lap back from him. Four laps later the caution flew which was perfect timing for us because 3rd gear popped out. The final 15 laps of the race Mike had to drive with one hand on the wheel and one on the shifter. With 2 or 3 laps to go Mike passed the 5th, 4th and 3rd place cars when they got a little out of shape but he let them back by because we were a lap down.
If we weren't lapped by the car that was Dq'd we may have had a chance to finish 2nd or 3rd. Mike was pretty racy at the end and it would have been very interesting. After the long day we still had a lot of fun and we will be back again. Thanks to Sheri for organizing this and getting the sponsors and thanks to all the people willing to help us out. That alone made the trip worth while.
We had a LONG day, mine was 23 hours. Our problems started in the first practice session with handling and brakes. The second session the starter and clutch went out, the car started getting hot and we lost second gear in the tranny. Third session we got a little closer with the handling, had to push start the car in third gear to make it.
In between the 2nd and 3rd practice I broke out my compass and headed over to the parts trailer looking for a starter and some brake pads. He didn't have anything I needed so he asked me what car # I was. By the time I made it back to the trailer there were 2 starters and a set of brake pads other drivers had brought over. I didn't hear it but I guess they announced over the PA that we needed these parts. AMAZING, I had never seen a track do this or other racers so concerned about us making the race, GREAT SPORTSMANSHIP.
We just barely made it out for qualifying after making several other repairs and changes and successfully qualified near the back thanks to a clock error which gave us a 3rd lap. Before the race started we were thrashing on the car pretty good to improve the handling.
All the restarts were double file which kept us close and made for some good racing. We had to start in third gear which hurt a little bit but MSeay did a good job learning the track. As the race went on you could tell he was gaining confidence in the car and pretty soon we were looking pretty good. We got lapped by the leader only who was DQ'd after the race, everyone else was at least half a lap back from him. Four laps later the caution flew which was perfect timing for us because 3rd gear popped out. The final 15 laps of the race Mike had to drive with one hand on the wheel and one on the shifter. With 2 or 3 laps to go Mike passed the 5th, 4th and 3rd place cars when they got a little out of shape but he let them back by because we were a lap down.
If we weren't lapped by the car that was Dq'd we may have had a chance to finish 2nd or 3rd. Mike was pretty racy at the end and it would have been very interesting. After the long day we still had a lot of fun and we will be back again. Thanks to Sheri for organizing this and getting the sponsors and thanks to all the people willing to help us out. That alone made the trip worth while.
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