Thursday, September 4, 2008

We made it through the weekend!

Well, I think it's safe to say that we had a pretty successful weekend at Tri-City Speedway for the Oil Region Labor Day Classic. One of our main goals for the weekend was to make it in to all three feature events and Butch did that in convincing fashion.

On Saturday, he ran a full show with the emod. It was exciting to see him lead the first 8 or so laps of the heat from his first row starting spot. He had to settle for a second place finish but that was good enough to make the pill draw for the first 12 starting spots in the feature. Typical of our luck, he redrew 10th. He ran a solid race in the feature to finish in 10th place. Considering there were over 40 top-notch emod teams there, we were very happy with our performance. The FASTRAK Crate Late Models only ran their heats on Saturday for the $2,000 to win FASTRAK Northeast Tour race. Butch started the heat in 6th place and quickly moved into third, securing himself a top 12 feature starting spot.

On Sunday, the emods ran another full show and Butch charged from him 6th place starting spot in the heat to challenge for the lead, but the leader got too low in turns 3&4 and threw mud onto the track taking Butch's line away. With almost 50 emods on hand, a 3rd place finish in the heat was good enough to make it into the feature with a 14th starting spot. He ran well in the feature and was racing for 10th when another driver made contact with Butch giving him a flat right front tire. Needless to say, Butch was pretty upset. I'm not going to name any names, but apparently there is one driver in particular that just can't stand to get passed by Butch. This is not the first time he had ended our night for us.

The FASTRAK Crate Late Model feature was an exciting one. Butch started in 8th place and was on the move from the drop of the green. At one point he was up to 4th place but as the 30 lap event went on (caution-free) and the got into lapped traffic he eventually dropped back to a 6th place finish. Still, pretty darn good considering the stout competition. We really must congratulate our friend and neighbor Carl McKinney on his first FASTRAK win. He ran a flawless race and I don't know anyone else that is more deserving than him.

We have decided to take a much needed weekend off, although I expect we will end up at a race track somewhere this weekend as spectators - we just can't stay away! Next up for us is a FASTRAK Northeast Tour event at Mercer Raceway Park on Saturday, September 13th. The emods will also be racing there that night, so Butch will pull double duty.

We are still up in the air on running the Pittsburgher at Pittsburgh's PA Motor Speedway. We will definitely run the emod there, but it is doubtful that we will take the crate. While we can run our Goodyear tires for this event, we fear that we would be at a huge disadvantage, and buying 4 new tires for one event just doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now.

I think I have written a book now, so I will leave it at that...see you at the races!

No comments: