As we prepared for practice, we took note of the many more street stock cars here for an unknown reason, but was glad to see competition and car count go up to make things more of a challenge. For the first time in practice sessions for a very long time, we didn't have the pylons set up on the track and had a chance to use the whole track for all three practice sessions. So that I did, we must have a large mojority of the kinks worked out in our car, because she was finally running well for all practice sessions, not perfect, but well. However for the eliminator race, we made a change on one of our tires that we felt was beginning to wear out and cause some handling troubles, but this prooved to only get me eliminated much faster than were to have just kept the wearing out tire, but that was the best race to try anything, so we did. For the heat race, I did not have much to work with in my starting position, and went up and down, and finally came out of the race in 7th place.
The starting line up for the feature race, was, to say the least interesting. Just looking at how the cars were arranged, I knew problems would come up early in the race. Sure enough, first lap first turn, cars got together and were stopped on the track, and with me on the outside, I"d run out of places to go and ended up hitting my left front corner into one of the stopped cars and getting his bumper lodged in under the car. After the restart however, I somehow managed to gain a lot of positions very quickly. However, was unable to find a way around the 22 car, and got stuck trying to pass him anyway possible. Inside, outside, bumping him through the straightaways to try to scare him, but nothing seemed to be working. After some time of trying, I had finally managed to get a very good run on him on hte outside andable to hold that run through the turn and had finally gotten the position, but as we were driving into the corner, the 22 car had blown a tire and slid right up into the side of me, causing the car to turn sideways and slide up together towards the wall. However i managed to crank my wheels enough to turn the car downwards and away from the wall at the last minute just avoiding major damage. With this second accident I again had to go to the very back of the pack, and with only limited time left I was only able to work my way up to a 14th place finish, very dissappointing after working our way from 19th to 6th or 7th, but thats racing!!
The day started out very hot, making it to be even warmer in the cars, but we came prepared with a lot of water to prevent from overheating. However, in the warmer weather, it seems the car doesn't like to handle quite as well. It's usually not until later in the night, when it cools off that the car will come to. SO as per norm, we spent all of practice fighting the car trying like no other to get a handle on her. Loose in the first practice, an over adjustment made it tight for the second practice, and finally loose again, but close for the third practice. I think the majority of the handle was simply due to scrubbing in new tires purchased for, as my dad says, my birthday present. For the heat race, the decision was to stick with the new tires, and try to tighten it up just a little. The starting position for the heat was less then desirable, but if I coulkd drive a smart race, I could still walk away with a top four, putting me at the front for the feature. All was going well and I was running fourth with less then half the race left, until a lapped car was in the way, and I fell back to fifth. However, just keeping the pressure on the driver, he made a minor mistake, allowing me into the hole and taking the position on the final lap.
This now set me up with a solid starting position in the feature.
I have to start this off with a HUGE thanks to my father. With exams this week, I had been unable to work on the car, and he had done everything on the car to get it race ready for the night. As well, I know without the help of Vic Tibbet and Bob, the car would never have been ready and looking as good as she did, so thank you for everything you guys did.
After rushing, and still working on the car right up to friday afternoon, until about 5:15, she was ready to race, and we got it out to the track. As I went out for the first practice session, the car suddenly, got extremely loose..on a straightaway, almost causing me to hit the wall, so i let off the throttle to allow it to calm down, and it was fine again, but as I accelerated once again, my wheel and axle came out of the left rear, shooting a good 40 feet in the air. Just our luck. However, again with the aid of the crew and people from crew's all over, including Dave Lawrence who almost missed the second practice session because he was helping us out, the car was ready to go again by the third practice session. So I decided to push the car and test what she could do, as we had limited time to figure out how it'd run. We made it through that practice session with no problems, and a decently running vehicle.
The heat race was a little scary. right off the start, the car at the front of my line didn't go, and I dropped to the very back right away, but luckily the car was handling pretty well, pulling great and I was able to work my way from the back. As well, smart driving helped, and i was able to use lapped cars to my advantage and gain a few spots, even using that outside line some. On the final lap, I made a pass that got me to fourth, leaving me with a good starting position for the feature.
Starting fourth, on the outside, again, I was a little nervous. Going into the first turn, the pack seemed to get into single file, so I made a move on the outside, but drove the car in too hard and slipped up the track some, so another driver decided to stick his car into the hole and make it three wide. Which is how we ran from about middle of turn 1 all the way to around middle of turn 3. This caused me to lose quite a few spot, but eventually it all settled down, and I got into line and could just work on driving the race, racing the track as some tell me to do. A wreck infront of me almost got me collected, but somehow at the last minute I swerved out of the way. As the race went on, the car was getting more and more loose, to the point where i nearly spun out on my own through the turns, but I can take the blame for that, as I told the crew chief to loosen it up a bit more, despite being a little loose already. After everything was said and done, the Traction team came out with a solid 8th place finish, very good comeback from the last couple weeks and from the start of the night. Great job everyone, thanks for all the help and work you do.
This night was quite a bit cooler, which was very nice from the last week. For this week, we did a bunch of work over the week, making sure the axles would not ever leak again, brakes were completely fixed, everything was ready to go for the night. The practice sessions were great the car was handling well, not perfect but well, and I was later told that I was running my best times ever in those practice sessions. So as to say that things were looking optimistic for the races ahead.
The heat race, I was having some butterflies about, as I was starting on the pole, even knowing we had a fast car, I was still a little on edge. For the first little while of the race, I held off the pack and lead, but made one minor error, which cost me the lead, and I fell right back to 5th place. I had continued running there for a the majority of the race until in the final lap, two of the cars ahead got into a bit of a scuffle, causing one to spin out, and so we came out of there with a fourth place finish.
After finally settling in line, and not being nervous anymore, I had managed to turn my quickest lap yet, even better then in practice, so I was feeling fairly confident about the feature ahead. We were starting fourth.. on the outside again, dropping that confidence level a bit. AS the race started we had a great start and i was trying to help the car ahead push it faster and make the pass on the outside, and as things sorted out, I was able to get into line in fourth. However, on lap 4 I felt a large hit in the rear going into one, causing my to get a little sideways, but I had recovered, until being hit yet again in the rear quarter panel, turning me sideways. The car came to a stop sideways in the middle of turn 1 and 2, with the large mojority of the pack behind me, so I knew i was in for a large impact, and sure enough, I got absolutely smoked in the left rear quarter panel, spinning my car around, where I was again hit in the right front fender. The car looked pretty terrible, almost unrunnable, however, keeping spirits high, as soo as I was pulled into the pits, the crew, as well as people from crews from MANY of our competitors were right there to try to get her fixed up. Somehow they pulled it off, they changed the LR tire and pulled away all the metal that would cut down the tire, and we were back out running. Except the track threw the green one lap too soon for us and when I got out I was a lap down, but running quick. For the rest of the race it went cautionless and so I was pretty much running alone for the whole race, finishing a mere 15th, ahead of two cars who had pulled off the track. Thank you to everyone who helped out that night to get the car back out on the track to complete the race, we really appreciate the help.
This was by far one of the hottest days of racing we haver had all year, so as to say some of the drivers were not looking so forward to the heat. For the first practice session, the car's handling still was not all there, mainly due to the brakes were continuly going soft and not working properly. We had made a bit of a change to the car to try to give us more power over the break we'd had. I had to get used to the power, as for the practice sessions I had a tendancy to get on the throttle too quickly and end up just spinning the wheels and scrubbing speed. And that, in combination with a tight racecar does not make out to be a fast car, we had work ahead of us.
This week, was our Eliminator, but i was starting very close to the front, but luckily it had given us an extra chance, to feel the car out and try to get it handling. The race was going well I had hung in there for a while, but by about lap 5, Dan Monaghan had got underneath me and despite trying to hold down the outside line, it simply would not happen, and I was eliminated. However, by now, we noticed a bit of a leak coming from the right rear tire, which would also greatly affect the handling as it was getting onto the tire patch and on the track. FOr the heat race, I was starting near to the front, but on the outside. Unfortunately, it was a matter of getting freight trained all the way to the back, and trying to just run with the pack, giving us a disappointing last place in the heat race.
So as usual I was starting at the rear of the feature, which seems to be where I'm most comfortable. We still had the differential fluid leaking out of the rear end, but that seemed to have little effect. The car was running great for the first while of the race, infact so good that I had actually made the large majority of my passes on the outside of cars. And had worked my way from the back of the pack up to fourteenth in a mear 5 laps. However, by this time, I had somehow managed to get a hole in my tire, and it was slowly going flat all race, making the car tighter and tighter, so thats where we ended up was 14th for the night. We'll go get um better next week.
Practice was getting a little frustrating as we had a terriblew push that we could not simply figure out, so we turned to Dave Lawrence and asked him to take the car out and give his thoughts on the car. He came in and determined that a great deal of the push I was feeling had to do with the brakes. Sure enough, after bleeding the braking system and heading out for the third practice session, we finally managed to get the car loose. Things were looking optimistic going into the heat race, as fgor once we finally had to tighten the car up. Unfortunately, it did not take long for the brakes to become soft again, and the same old push was back, ontop of the push from the lack of brakes, was the push we put into it for the handling after the third practice session. So yet again for the heat race, just trying to keep the car on the bottom of the track was a job in itself, let alone trying to make passes.
I have started to become ammune to starting at the back of the feature, as it seems to happen week in and week out. Before heading out for the feature, we bled the brakes again, loosened up the car just a bit, and hoped for the best. My starting position was not the best, as the car ahead of decided not to go on the green, and i fell to the very back before turn 1, so I had lots of catching up to do. As well the officials decided to try withhold throwing the green flag until a new place on the straightaway, and this caused problems for many drivers, and we could not anticipate the start as we had the previous year. The car was handling a great deal better, and for a the second time in the night we were a touch loose, but nothing I could not handle. After a few cautions and some smart driving, simply just waiting for a hole and going for it, I had worked my way all the way up to 7th as the checkered flag dropped. Great night for the Traction Heavy Duty Truck Parts team.
With this being the first actual race we've had all year, I came into practice full of butterflies in my stomach. The unkown of a long winter, and even with practice days under my belt, I still felt nervous not knowing how the car would handle when it came to raceday. It took a until about the second practice session for me to get back into my groove of finding the line, how I'm supposed to be driving the car into the corner's etc. As per norm, the car was handling fair, a little push at the end of practice, but nothing that couldn't be adjusted to get the car working the way she was at the end of last year. SO going into the heat race, I was not particularily confident with how the car was handling, but I figured we could do well and have a good starting position for the feature. However, I was wrong, a small error while adjusting the car for the heat made a LARGE handling difference in the car, and I faded throughout the race to near the back, finishing a disappointing 8th in the heat.
This finish set us with a difficult starting position in the feature, and much to work on before heading out for the race. The weather started to cool off and lucky for us the car usually tends to run better in the cooler weather, so I had some high hopes for the feature. The race had been going well, and I was making excellent headway towards the front, getting up to about 14th before we hit a caution as a car hit the wall with a significant impact. After the green flag dropped again, it gave the tires time to cool down slightly, and get some oif their handling back, as it was developing a push. Although the we didn't do terrible, I finished the race in the eleventh position, trying desperately for the final 3 laps to pass the car ahead for tenth, but just could not find my way around him.
After working through the week to try to locate the problem to the push in the car, it remained a mystery and was deemed to be driver error. So I went out for the first set of practice remembering all the little things I needed to drive the car properly. After getting these little skills into line, the car handled better, however we still had improvements to be made. On this day we were really pushing on time, as I was unable to stay for the full practice time, as I had a wedding to attend. Thankfully, on that final set of practice that I stayed a little later for, the car really came together. After Dave Lawrence had passed me, I decided I was going to try and push the car and try my best to stay with him. Surprisingly for me, the car was handling excellent and I managed to keep up with Dave for the most part, losing only a few car lengths over a number of laps.
Now we're just waiting for racing to start on the 30th of April, we're ready to race and hope to see you all out there, I could certainly use your support!
With the car still very clean, scratchless and unraced, Hilary was still looking beautiful. On Easter weekend the Annual Autorama took place in the Western Fair Buildings. We had a rather elaboprate set up for interested fans to look through with a sign giving the details of the car. The year make, model, whom had done the work and much appreciation to the sponsors, Traction Heavy Duty Truck Parts, Castrol Synthetic and London Driveline. At the front of the car was a nice display of my racing through the years from sprint cars to Jr. Cascar and up to the Street Stock Series, in combination with an album of pictures and the write ups of last yeqars results on the table. Again, many interested people wondering about the cars and when and where we would be racing come racing season. Even questions on how to build the cars and get into the series. I met many new interesting people and we were lucky enough to have a picture of the car in the Wheels section of the London Free Press on the following friday. Thanks to all the fans who came out to support the show, it was a blast.