I've been racing for various classes for 16 years now, and I've been to
countless races along the way, and never in my life have I had
something like this happen to me.
Night 1 of the PA Speed Week was a
race to forget, after running second in the first heat and then last in
the second heat race I found myself stuck in the C-Main on a one-grove
race track. I made it to the B-Main, but only managed to squeeze my way
to 12th. Not a good start, but could be worse.
Night 2 started better, just looking at the track (Lincoln Speedway) I
knew I would have a good run. Big track, plenty of grip, is what I love
in a track. I started 3rd in the first heat, behind Dicely and followed
him for several laps before passing him into turn 3, and won the first
heat. In the second heat I was supposed to line up 8th and on the first
lap I found my way to the front to win heat 2. Winning both heats and
getting plenty of passing points should have put me firmly at the front
of the A-Main. I was happy, we fueled up the car for the main and
worked on setup, and then 10 or so minutes after the heat someone came
up and told me we have to re-run the heat race "You've go to be kidding
me!" I said. Come to find out Ben Murphy (whom is related to track
promoter) was late getting to the grid in time and so they decided he
needed another chance to get points. Huh? I listened to them argue, and
just walked to my trailer, and started draining fuel to re-run this
heat race again. All the while I'm thinking, what-if I crash in this
one and don't make the show, what-if I blow an engine and don't make
the show. Here I am going from being on the pole (or close to it) in
the A-Main to being back in a heat trying to make it again.
So I walk back over to the Speed Week promoter and promptly tell them
that if I have to re-run this heat race I'm leaving in the morning
headed home, and I have a good mind to pack my stuff up now and leave.
Do you think that they would allow me to re-do a heat race if I missed
it? They'd be like "Tough S***!" Never in my life have I seen such
blatant favoritism. Its hard enough to win a race in Pennsylvania, let
alone be screwed over by someone's inability to pay attention and then
use his "get out of jail free" card to bail him out. I busted my tail
getting to PA, I worked hard getting my car ready, I payed attention at
the drivers meeting ("We're not going to wait on you they said!"), I
counted the heat races in my head and knew exactly what race was out at
all times (Heat 8 on the track, calling 9 to the grid, 10 on stand-by).
Why should I be penalized by someone else's mistake was all I could
think about.
Well we finally get to this re-do heat race. I line up 8th again, and
Ben Murphy is on the pole. I make my way through the pack and end up
2nd to Murphy who checked out pretty good. In the end this put me on
the outside pole of the feature, not a bad place, but anything could
have happened. Mike Dicely ran 4th in the re-run race (instead of 2nd
in the first one), putting him further back of the main. It was just a
plain sorry way to handle the situation. Penalize 9 other drives for 1
drivers mistake.
In the feature I start outside pole and lead the first 11 laps, after
the caution I look down and Shane Lewis slides under me, then out of
nowhere Jake Murphy slides under both of us, and down the backstretch
he comes up just as I go to turn under him and we touch. Just the tip
of my nose wing caught him and he hit the fence. I narrowly escape
flipping myself. Truly not an intentional move (contrary to Jake's crew
members), I can't say I've ever had to wreck anyone to win a race and
nor will I ever. It was a racing deal, two cars going for same
real-estate. I go over after the race and offer my apology to Jake
Murphy (much to their dismay). All I could do was offer that. Jake's
crew members made it uncomfortable after the race running their mouths
at me, but I can take it.
After the red flag was over, I resumed the lead, and led for maybe 3
laps and got passed by Ben Murphy for the lead, he was going pretty
good and I couldn't manage to keep pace and settled in for 2nd place.
When the checkered flag dropped I couldn't help but think back to that
re-do heat race and the fact that Ben Murphy shouldn't even have been
in that race cause he was late getting to the line. Oh well, to the
scales, and then to the tech area. I watched as Ben crossed the scales
and then they backed him up and tried again, and again, and again. To
no avail Ben Murphy was 4 pounds too light handing me the victory. Now I
hate to win by default, but considering the circumstances of the heat
race situation I'll take this one, because I earned it, I was at the
staging area early for my races, I payed attention to the race order, I
managed to get my job done, and I don't like getting taken advantage of
by favoritism by family members.
In the end, and true to my word, my race team and I loaded up and left
Pennsylvania for home. Like I said above it is hard enough to win a
race in PA, even make a race in PA, to have to worry about this kind of
stuff taking place is absurd. I can go to my local tracks and enjoy
myself without having to deal with this. I have won a PA Speed Week
race (the first for a non-PA driver), I am honored to even be able to
race at a fine venue like Lincoln Speedway, and I have many, many
friends who I enjoy visiting with while in Pennsylvania. I hate that
this sort of thing happened, and hope all goes well the rest of the
races. I hate that Jake Murphy and I got involved in a wreck and hope
that we can race against each other in the future without incident. I
am glad I made the trip up, we had a great time and I had something
happen to me that I could never forget, re-do, re-do, re-do....
Wish us luck this coming weekend at Riverside Speedway for the big ASCS show. Friday and Saturday night.
Trying out a new feature to Senter Racing tonight, the Trailer Cam. Hope it works well and uploads properly. Will really depend on if we have a signal at the racetrack. Timer is set to upload new photo each 60 seconds, I will tune that in if it works right and doesn't cause any problems with the router.
Update: The wireless signal for my in truck router struggled to find enough signal to upload the images. It would almost work, but just didn't have enough to push the images through. I tried for about 30 minutes and gave up on it. We will try again next week on our trip to Pennsylvania.
Update2: Miserable Failure, I still can't get a good signal from the router in the truck to the camera. The trailer walls somehow block too much of the signal to upload a photo. I tried a bigger antenna, but to no avail. I'll keep working on it.
Tom Harris was kind enough to allow me to test the new smartycam offered by AIM, which connects to the mychron and overlays the data. The camera is a very nice unit which can also act as a standalone camera plus it has a built in GPS which will show speed and mapping. AIM also have a reputation of having great hardware which is upgradeable over time so new features will be added through a firmware update. www.aim-sportline.comwww.aimsports.com
Here is a video I took the other night from the POWRi show at Granite City, IL. My TPS settings were off and so the throttle bar didn't work, but all the other features worked perfect.
This story is a month in the making. On April 18th we drove to Clarksville, TN to race the annual $2,000 to win race they have there. Qualified 2nd, Won the Dash, and then 6 laps into the A-Main the rain came. They rescheduled the event for May 16th. It looked like rain may play a part in the event again, but William and his crew do a great job with the track and the surface was in fine shape.
In the $2,000 to win feature I was on the pole so I got a good jump and had a very good car. It would pretty go where I pointed it. I didn’t just run away with the race, as there was some close competition from Joe Miller and Derek King, but we had enough in the end to seal the deal and win the race. I'm extremely proud to say that this is the 5th consecutive year that I've won this particular race. I thought winning last year for the 4th time was special, but this one is truly special considering the way others have stepped up their programs and the racing is much tougher these days. My crew and I pride ourselves on a well built and well presented race car. Its hard enough to win big races once, much less 5 time in succession. See the old articles 2008 , 2007 , 2006 , and 2005 .
I was trying a few new items on the car this weekend. ARS Shocks had sent me some new spring bumpers to adjust on, and I had a new left rear shock bolted on which worked out very well. A few weeks back Joe Conroy of Conroy Pneu Control Bleederscalled and asked if I’d be interested in trying some of his bleeders designed for micros. I jumped at the chance, and broke out my old bleeder tools from the sprint car days. I haven’t run bleeders for a while now because I just never liked the regular style kwik-change bleeders as I’ve had issues with those sticking in the past on the sprinter. These new bleeders however worked like a charm, and allow better control of the tire pressures. I am impressed with the quality of this product. Also Mark at Indico Pty Ltd provided us with some very cool crew shirt to wear, providing advertisment for our supporters and allowing them to look professional at the same time.
I have feel like we have a good combination with engine/car and other manufacturers. I can’t wait to get my new car ready to race in a couple of weeks. Mark, Dave, Kevin and the Staff at Stallard Chassis have once again raised the bar this year. The car looks great and the build quality and parts fitting have worked out wonderful so far. Also FTZ has another bullet for me that I have to pick up next week. I have decided that I will have to skip the Race-4-Life in Sweet Springs, MO, my real job will not allow me to be gone much next week. However we are still on for the ASCS2 Speedweek as well as the PA Speedweek .
It’s been a while since the last update. Things have been extremely busy in the race shop this year, building 7 cars and working on numerous other little projects along the way. Not to mention getting my cars ready for racing as well. This past month has been plagued with rain at most of the race tracks so the season hasn’t really kicked off just yet.
I haven’t quite gotten my 2009 schedule figured out just yet, but I do know we will make the journey to several very prominent races this year. We have the make-up (rain) $2,000 to win Clarksville, TN race on May 16th to go to. The end of May I will venture up to Sweet Springs for the Race-4-Life. And I am already making plans now to attend the ASCS2 Speed week along with the PA Speed week the following week. So a very busy June/July is in store. Of course I’ll be at I-30 to defend my 600 Nationals crown this year. Along the way we will fill in races with the PowRi, Tri-State, I-30, and GA groups. It should be fun and exciting. I get asked occasionally if I’m going back to Australia this winter, and at this point I’m not sure. It’s hard to be away from the kids during Christmas!
That’s it for now, I’ll be posting my 2009 Shop photos soon, and will hopefully upload some youtube videos from my Australian Oval Express series in the next few weeks.
The final night at East Bay proved interesting. I drew a 2 in the initial draw and this put me in good position by starting on the pole of the 2nd heat. I jumped out front in the heat and won easily. They drew an invert for the feature which put me in 10th position. Given the track conditions in the feature this proved costly. I had some hard fought battles with 5th and 4th positions and this cost me time in getting to the front to give any challenge to the leader Luke Thomas. I ended up finishing 3rd in the feature. I didn’t anticipate the track changing quite as much as it did in the feature and didn’t make the necessary adjustments to get the job done.
A good thing to come from the weekend was scoring enough points to secure my 2nd straight East Bay Raceway Winter Nationals Championship, and along with it that nice trophy. Although Luke Thomas and I both had the same finishes 1st and 3rd from the two nights. I managed to snag the tie breaker by having more heat wins. It’s always good to come down the Florida in February and get a good result in this series, because it sets the tone for your season to come. Everyone has new fresh equipment and you have to be on your game to score a good result here. Also, East Bay Raceway is a big wide race track that puts great strain your engine, thus you must have some good horsepower to give you an advantage.
Our complete video section, with updated videos from week to week. Including the ever popular In-Car Cam, as-well-as Highlight Reels, and the view from the Stands. 
A showcase of all our sponsors. To be featured on our Race Cars, Website, or Videos there is information inside to help you out. 
uploads properly. Will really depend on if we have a signal at the racetrack. Timer is set to upload new photo each 60 seconds, I will tune that in if it works right and doesn't cause any problems with the router.
