Ukiah Regional Qualifier on Memorial Day

5-24-08

 Fred and I arrived at Ukiah Speedway Saturday morning Dave was waiting for us. He went up the day before and ran about a hundred laps of practice with his #3 car. I stopped to talk to Jack Humphries who was driving Samantha’s  #09 car after blowing a motor in his own #49 car.  Dave took her car as a spare just incase one of us had problems.  Fred found us a pit spot a couple of cars down from Dave and across from Jack so I could keep an eye on all three cars.

 With this weekend being the Regional Qualifier there were a lot of fast cars there that we don’t regularly race with, some from out of state one from as far away as Indiana.  The trick to these races it first is to qualify fast enough to make the main event then drive like hell and pray for a lot of yellows to keep the field bunched up, as we are a lot better in traffic.

 After Jack and Fred changed the rear gear in the #09 Car it was time to hot lap and Qualify.  Fred qualified a little faster than Dave who ran a little faster than Jack.

      Jack and Suzy get the #09 car ready to go.               Jack with the new gear and the carburetion off his car won the first heat in a runaway.

 In the second heat Dave took the lead on the first lap, it looked like another runaway with Fred mired back in traffic.  Things went along like this for a few laps with Dave stretching his lead and Fred up on the out side picking off one car at a time. Then on the fifth lap I saw Winchell in the #33 car break free of the pack with Fred hot on his heals.  I though to my self this could develop in to one hell of a race.   By the ninth lap Winchell managed to take the lead from Dave with a move on the out side. Fred saw the move and took advantage of it to pass Dave on the tenth and final lap for Second with Dave finishing a real close third.

Just before the main event Fred operated the scales to help the officals out.

 In the main event Fred started 11^th and Dave 16^th.  With those starting spots the boys had there work cut out for them.  The green fell and off they went.  In the first turn there were a couple of cars that got together and Fred gained 6 spots putting him 5^th and Dave 8^th.  Everything was going good until lap 17 when Dave lost power and pulled off the track, Meanwhile Fred was running anywhere from 5^th to 8^th.  At the end of the race Fred finished 7^th in a hard fought battle with Cody Burger in the #63 car.

 After we got all the cars back to the pits and got a battery charger on Dave’s car. Jack came over to give back the #09 car if Dave needed it. But after a few minutes on the charger it started and ran fine. This made Jack a happy camper because he had a ride in the #09 car for the next day.

 Jack offered us a ride to the motel but Fred said it was just a hop skip a jump up the road so we decided to stay at the party a little longer and walk. Well I’m here to tell you Fred lied, it was it was at least five hops ten skips and twenty jumps, all of it up hill, so when we finely got there I just collapsed and slept for about 10 hours.

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