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Redo a Heat Race
Written by Administrator   
Wednesday, 01 July 2009

     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 lincoln_sw09_034.jpginto 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.

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Trailer Cam
Written by Administrator   
Saturday, 20 June 2009

Trying out a new feature to Senter Racing tonight, the Trailer Cam. Hope it works well andtrailer Cam 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.

 

Shopcam Page

iPhone Version

 

 

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Granite City In-Car
Written by Administrator   
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

 aim_smartycam_lowres.jpg 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.com www.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. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Clarksville Magic
Written by Administrator   
Monday, 18 May 2009
clarksville_5-16-2009_small.jpg

     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 adjusimg_2103.jpgt 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 Bleeders ARS Shockscalled 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.

Bleeders
     Of course I have to thank all the companies who support us through the year. Stallard Chassis, FTZ Engines, Accurate Machine Works , Keizer Wheels, Holthouse Farms, Xtreme Graphics, Fire Service Plus, ARS Shocks, Killer Coatings, Clayton’s Body Shop, Perry Farms, Senter and Son’s Gin, motorstands.com, Stren Flex, Intense Fabrication , Mettec Bolts, RaceBumpers.com, Ringers Gloves , ButlerBuilt Seats, Braille Batteries, Saldana Race Products, Conroy Pneu Control , Indico Pty Ltd , Raceseng Design , and Indy Race Parts and Aim Sports.

     I have feel like we have a good combination with engine/car and other manufacturers. I can’t wait to get img_2124.jpgmy 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 .

 

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April Showers
Written by Administrator   
Friday, 01 May 2009

    sen_eb_2009_2.jpg 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!    

     This season I have several new additions to my race program in the way of sponsorship. I’ll be posting more on this in the following days but many thanks for the support of the following for coming on board: RaceBumpers.com, Ringers Gloves , ButlerBuilt Seats, Braille Batteries, Saldana Race Products, Indico Pty Ltd , Raceseng Design , and Indy Race Parts . Of course I can’t forget my main sponsors and associate sponsors for helping through the years: Stallard Chassis, FTZ Engines, Accurate Machine Works , Keizer Wheels, Holthouse Farms, Xtreme Graphics, Fire Service Plus, ARS Shocks, Killer Coatings, Clayton’s Body Shop, Perry Farms, Senter and Son’s Gin, motorstands.com, Stren Flex, Intense Fabrication , Mettec Bolts, and Aim Sports . My racing program would not be possible without the help of these businesses.     

     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.

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2009 Winternationals Final
Written by Administrator   
Sunday, 01 February 2009

    img_2017_medium.jpg 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.

     I have to thank my family for supporting me fully and letting me get away early skipping the major ice storm that came through our home state. I also have the thank my crew, Tommy and Pete, for working their tails off keeping the car clean, maintained, and fast. As-well-as keeping the trailer clean, and keeping everything in order. My Sponsors; Stallard Chassis USA , FTZ Racing Engines , Keizer Wheels , Senter Farms, Fire Service Plus, Motorstands.com , ARS Shocks , Accurate Machine Works , Xtreme Graphics , ButlerBuilt Seats , Killer Coatings , Braille Batteries , Clayton's Body Shop, Saldana Racing Products, Hoosier Tire , Intense Fabrication , AIM Sports , Indy Race Parts , Stren-Flex , Design 500.

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