Sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we vision it, and yet it works out better than we hoped for.
Want to say thanks to all my competitors. Thanks as well for making Hope feel welcome.
Sorry to Scott Clough again for wrecking his race on Saturday, poor judgment on my part, sent him spinning to the back of the pack. He was in 2nd at the time. I was DQ’d correctly, and sent to the back for Sundays race.
Congrats to Andy and Brad once again for their podium finishes. A big shout out to our resident Gentlemen Rancher and weather man Big Poppy (Bennett)!!! Very cool to see many years of perseverance pay off.
Sunday was a unique privilege, as I got to race with 2/3rds of the field. A terrible start reminded me that I was not quite at the back of the pack as I was quickly passed by Loren and DJ. Loren, amazing start! You passed about 8-10 cars taking the outside of 1, my jaw was dragging as I watched you disappear. Later something else on my car was found to be dragging.
I heard clangs and clunks on the start and knew it would not be the usual race. I radioed to my wife Hope and nephew Brian to look at my car as I came by in turn 2 and see if something looked wrong. The voice that came back through the radio was neither of my kin, it was Hollywood Edwards and he told me “unless it falls off, JUST KEEP DRIVING!” Hollywood proceeded to berate me for being such a wimp and pansy. He challenged me to either pull over and let him start driving, or shut up and race! Thank you to Rick from North Bay Bavarian for the Hard Charger Award. I could not have gotten there with out the coaching of Donny and Jeff Lepper. Jeff through video and data analysis helped me pick up a full second on my lap times. I had my personal best at Infineon in the race Saturday.
Congrats again on Sunday to Andy and Brad of BTM, they definitely know how to set their cars up. Looking back to Saturdays Q Andy beat Scoot by 3/100ths of a seconds to grab 15th and thus the pole for Saturday, Andy was in the cat birds seat for the whole weekend! Another shout out to Paul Blickman for his well deserved podium as well. Paul got the raw end of the stick last month when he qualified on the front row but then was inverted back and had contact with Loren and the wall. Finally his well built car and Skills paid off with a trophy and a late pass on a former Champion to grab the podium! Congrats Paul.
Many of our freshman and sophomore racers were looking very racey and were a pleasure to run side by side with, Dan Riley, Jason, DJ, Glenn Kent, Anil, Joe Powers, and Larry Moore, all the surly veterans as well.
Still I’ll just go with what I see onthe charts: