Rough Weekend

Our highly anticipated return to Lernerville Speedway on Friday, April 17th ended in bitter disappointment.

After drawing a bad pill to start the heat event in 7th (last) place, Butch made a charge towards the front, passing eventually feature winner David Scott with just a couple laps to go and nearly taking second place from Max Blair coming for the checkered flag. His 3rd place heat race finish put him in the redraw for the feature event and he took the green from the 5th place position. I can't say for sure what happened, but coming through turns 3 and 4 to complete the first lap, the 55 of Chris Schneider spun. Butch barely missed him, only to get caught up by another spinning car in front of him. He headed to the pits with heavy damage to the left front of the car, as well as the entire right side and two flat tires. The crew got him back on the track just in time to take the green without missing a lap. Another spinning car caused Butch himself to spin shortly after they restarted the event. About 8 laps into the 20 lap event, it was announced that the race was being cut to 15 laps. What a bunch of crap! There was NO REASON to do that, especially once the race was under way. Butch was caught up in yet another wreck but persevered on and starting making progress towards the end of the event. He was fast through turns 1 & 2 and in one lap passed 3 cars by going to the outside and making it stick. He ended up finishing 7th. If they had gotten to run the whole 20 laps, who knows.

We will have to really weigh our options regarding the next race at Lernerville for the Crates. No transponder data, cutting the race by 5 laps, lax tire rules...the list goes on for why we shouldn't, but we all know why we should.

We all worked very hard on Saturday to get the car ready to go to Mercer and it was a pretty good night. Butch started and finished the heat in 3rd place. He spun on the first or second lap to avoid contact with another car, so he went to the tail of the field and worked his way back to third. He re-drew the 6th place starting spot in the feature and it was a hard fought race. It seemed like every time he made some progress, the caution would come out. He was as far back as 7th and as high as 3rd at times. It seemed like no matter where he went on the track to pass the guy in front of him, the guy was there. If Butch went high, he drifted high and Butch had to lift, if Butch went low, he cut him off and Butch had to get on the brakes. One of those times towards the end of the race, Butch fell back to 5th. On the last lap going down the back straightaway, he pulled even with 4th place and ran into the corner on the high side. It stuck and the next thing you knew, he was beside the 3rd place car at the finish line. He had to settle for 4th but that move on the last lap was awesome!

Next for us is the first FASTRAK Northeast Tour event of 2009. We will be competing at Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, WV on Saturday, April 25th in the FASTRAK "Topless 25". No, they won't be racing without their shirts, they will be racing without their roofs! It is our first ever Topless event and it should be alot of fun. They are calling for beautiful weather this weekend too!

Sunday we plan to make our first trip of 2009 to Tri-City Speedway for their opening event. The emod will not be ready for this weekend, so we will just be running the crate.

Until next time, happy racing!