Sorry for not getting the story done sooner but we have spent every available moment looking for a new a new motor while we get Old Smokin Joe rebuilt.
I arrived at the track last Saturday morning with high hopes of doing well. It was then that I found out that I had left the canvas top to our ez-up tent at home. I though to my self this is not the way to start a race day.
We ran well in hot laps and it’s a good thing to as we only got two sets because the track had to weld up the pit gate that was falling off and this all took time. I tried to hard during qualifying trying to make the dash, I had heard that Ron Blevin's, the driver of the #98 Legends, daughters were going to be the trophy girls. We ended up qualifying 6th. My Sister's fiancée David Ball in the #29 car did manage to win the door handle to door handle pure stock dash, I pit for Dave during his main events. So I ran down to his car get my picture taken with the girls where I found Paul Murarik, driver of the #57 truck and crew chief on my modified, he also pits for dave, waiting to get his picture taken with them. When the time came we crowded in with David the rest of the crew and the girls and got our picture taken.
In the heat race we started 3rd and managed to pass one car, got passed by two, finishing 4th after eight laps, not the stellar performance I had in mind.
We lined up 5th for the main event. On the start I managed to get under Martin McKeefery in the #27 car and stay right behind Kelly Martin in the #38 who was pushing the #58 car of Rick Andrews through the turn. On the next lap we got under Jack Humphrey in the #49 car, this moved us into 3rd place. We stayed here until lap 7 when Mark Bailey #40 and Ryan Mosher #52 came by me like I was painted on the back stretch wall. On lap 11 we lost two more spots to Frankie Winchel #14 and Chuck Scott #15 leaving us in 7th with David Winchel in the #0 car hot on my bumper. On lap 22 David got a little impatient and tapped me in the left rear causing me to almost spin as he came by on the inside. With David in front of me we started gaining on Rick and Kelly. We were just about to catch them when Kelly's front bumper fell off bring out a yellow on lap 26 sending him to the pits where my sister and the crew of the #29 pure stock put it back on for him. On the restart I though I would make a pass on inside of David when he made the same move on the inside of Rick. By the time we got to turn 1 with everybody was on the inside I was running out of asphalt real fast and decided it was time to get in behind David before I ended up in the dirt. We both managed to get by Rick coming off turn 2 putting us 6th where we finished 4 laps later with Old Smokin Joe really hot and smokin.
Just a reminder, that there is a car show on Saturday the 26th at THE NEED FOR SPEED die-cast and memorabilia store in Lockeford. We did this last year and it turned out great. There is going to be good food and drinks we will be there around 9:00 a.m. to start setting up see you all there.
THE NEED FOR SPEED CAR SHOW
Fred #55