June 19th, Sandusky Speedway - Spring ISMA featuring Super Modifieds
Results
Qualified: 19th
Heat (8 laps): Started-6th, Finished-6th
Feature (30 laps): Started-19th, Finished-12th
First of all, I have to say that the results above are to the best of my knowledge. The official results
can be found on the WOWMS website: www.wingedmidgets.com, and should be updated either Monday or Tuesday.
Second, this was our first week of racing since March along with our first race with the midget. All I
can say is WOW, it feels good to be back. :) Anyway, on to the racing action. Having never even seen
Sandusky Speedway before, we actually hit the set-up pretty close during our hot lap sessions. The
gear we used was probably a little too high, but we left it in for qualifying and ended up with what I
thought was a decent time. However, being a rookie, no matter what time we ended up with, we still
have to start at the tail of any race field for at least 3 races. At the start of the heat, I tried
to move up quickly on the outside. Unfortunately, I was not able to get past the pole-sitter, 78,
whose car was not handling very well at all. About the second lap, someone ahead of me made a pretty
bold move under the ill-handling car going into the third turn. It looked to me like someone was
gonna end up spinning, so I let up a little. Then, I thought the 78 was definitely going around, and
I took evasive action which caused me to spin and bring out the caution. Well, we got pushed-off
again, and restarted at the end of the field. A few laps later, the 2nd place car blew an oil line or
something which caused him to spin in the middle of 3 and 4. They decided to red flag the race to
clean the oil up. Once everyone got refired, we ran NUMEROUS caution laps to try and run the oil-dry
in. About caution laps later, we restarted. On the restart, I saw I would probably have to pass the
78 on the outside. We rode there for a couple laps before the car ahead of me was able to pull it off
in 1 and 2. So, I was going to follow through right with them. I couldn't pull it off in 1 and 2
though, and tried in 3 and 4. Well, apparently not all the oil dry was cleaned-up on the high side of
the track because in the middle of the turn the car just broke loose, and I ended up spinning again.
After that, the officials called the heat race complete. So, for the feature we started 19th. At the
start of the race, there was an incident about mid-pack which caused car to flip in 3 and 4. So
again, the race was red flagged, and everyone was physically ok that was involved in the accident. On
the restart, the car handled very well, and I was able to stick with the field quite well. Each time
I was ready to make a pass though, it seemed the caution came out. Finally, things got settled down,
but the more green flag laps we ran, the more the car started to push. The more the car pushed, the
greater the distance became between our next competitors, and the more tired I got. About lap 20, the
leader had caught us and put us lap down. I think he had made it up to the next 2 or 3 cars before
another cautiong came out. Under that caution, I could tell I was really getting tired. We had been
in the cars for almost an hour now, and I just wanted the race to be over. There was one more caution
before the end, but we did make it home in one piece which is all I wanted to do in our first race
out. Well, that's about it for this week. I have to give enormous thanks to Dusty Miller and Alex
Straub for helping out this week-end. Without their help, I think dad and I would have had and
extremely tough time getting anything done. I hope everyone had a great Father's Day!
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