April 12th-13th, 2008

First Race of 2008

This past Saturday was the Budwesier Modified Nationals, opening day for the Waterford Speedbowl. The #2 car had been on the track prior, the #30 wasn't finished until 9 hours before the track opened. The #2 spent the first practice and heat race dialing in their car even more, while the #30 spent its time shaking down their car. The #30 ran a completely neutral set up during its first practice and heat race to see where they were with the new suspension, and we ran laps in the same time we ran at the end of last year with a set up on it, so we felt good going into Sunday's race.

Sunday came around and the pit party began, alot of people came over to wish our team the best, most of them were Wednesday night drivers who I'm sure wants us to do good on Saturdays so we don't go back to Wednesday anytime soon. After the pit party the #30 went straight to the tech pad to get an OK from Tommy Fox and the rest of the tech team on the #30's ride height, which was a little to low for the rule book the day before, it was fine after some suspension adjustments to raise it up.

Finally after what seemed like forever we finally got the call to get in our cars and get the season under way. The race went green for sometime until coming out of turn 2 the #30 start to show smoke, then alot of smoke, then it spun around down the backstretch almost collecting the #04 at the same time. After no contact with another car or wall I was checking my gauges when I saw black smoke by my feet, thinking I was on fire I scrambled to get out of the car. Luckily their was no fire but after looking at the car after the race I noticed it looked like black smoke because of the gray interior paint with black padding and me wearing a dark visor for the race. After getting pushed back to the pits it was clear what happened, the car overheated and blew the water line right off the radiator and it got on the engine's exhaust to cause the smoke and on the tire to make it so I couldn't control it. I was in the pits when I was told to get back in and fire it up, my Dad (The Crew Chief), Glenn Estes, and some help from the #04 crew they were able to reattach the water lines and fill me back up with water, I didn't even lose a lap because the track had alot of cleaning up to do from all my water I lost. I got back in line on the track without a hood and was just gonna ride around and try to use it as a practice.

With about ten laps to go the car was feeling good and the water temp was fine so I thought lets go get them, I started to run some really fast laps, the fastest I have done so far when going to make a pass on the #2 water started to hit my windshield, it was over heating again, I quickly shut it down and coasted into the back pits where I sat until the next yellow came out, instead of finishing the race I felt it was in the best interest to park the car until we fix the over heating issue, which at the moment appears to be caused by an error in the radiator.

All in all it was a good showing for both cars, the #2 stayed in the top ten most of the day and wound up finishing their, and the #30 was turing its best laps to date, so both cars seem to be moving forward in progress, which is good for a young team with little experience in this division. We would like to thank our sponsors who without their support would not even had been at this first race. And congrats to Randy Churchill in the #05 on his win.

This page was last updated Monday, August 25, 2008 1:03 PM

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