Grand Nationals - Wythe

Sorry for the delay...it was a long night at Wythe, then with the trip home and everything, I got a little behind.

After Friday's practice session and qualifying was rained out at Wythe, the crew spent most of the afternoon and evening getting the car ready to run the complete show on Saturday. We drew a #8 pill, which would have been more to our advantage at Friendship when the track got slower as qualifying went. As our luck would have it, the track at Wythe got faster as qualifying went on, so Butch timed in at 33rd fastest in the 53 car field.

For the heat event, he started in 7th position and jumped up in to 4th almost immediately. As the laps went on, the car in 5th place turned him sideways, not once, but twice, and the second time Butch almost spun out, letting 2 cars by. He finished the heat in 6th place, with only the top 3 advancing to the feature event. He then started the 1st of 2 b-mains in 5th place. He quickly moved into 4th and jumped into 3rd on a restart, but could not hold off a hard charging Max Blair. He ended up finishing 4th, just one spot shy of qualifying for the Feature event.

They did run a 12 lap non-qualifier's feature, which Butch started on the pole of. He eventually drifted back to a 4th place finish, but at least we earned a little money for our trip back home.

Overall, Butch finished 31st in the Grand National Points Standings, just one point shy of 30th place, which was the last paid position.

While we would have liked to have run better and at least make one of the features, we feel that the trip was well worth it, as we learned so much about our car, and our race program. We know now what we need to do to step-up our program and we are more aware of what the different adjustments do to the car. The practice sessions were really beneficial - it was great to go out and get more than 1 or 2 "hot laps" for once.

Now it is time to prepare for 2009! Plans are already being set in motion for a new engine and we definitely have alot of work to do over the winter! Check in often to see what is new with the team!