August 31st, Angola Speedway-HOSS
Results
Angola Speedway, Angola, IN (3/8 mile paved)
Qualified: 26th 13.466 sec
Heat: Started-8th, Finished-6th
Feature: Started-9th, Finished-8th
On Sunday, we loaded-up the sprint-car and headed to Angola Speedway for our second race ever in the
sprint-car. A large field of cars, 32, showed up for the annual sprint-car classic at Angola. The
car was handling great during the practice sessions with only a slight push off of the 4th turn. For
qualifying, we took the push out a little, but the car was still a little tight off of 4. Our time
ended up putting us in the 1st heat with a lot of the fastest cars. During the first lap, the car
that started inside of me pushed very bad in the 3rd and 4th turn which almost forced me off of the
track. I was able to recover though getting passed him and started hunting down the next car. Just
as I got to him though, I over-drove the car into the 3rd turn and spun-out. Lining-up for the restart, the car the forced me up to begin let me by which was very nice of him. After the race, he also apologized for running me up the track. Anyway, on the restart I was able to get passed the next guy putting me 6th which is where we finished. The top 4 finishers transferred directly to the A-main, so we had to run the B-main. The car raced very well as it was able to hug the bottom of the track in the turns, but we found out we needed more gear. So, we made the change and got ready for the B-Main. There were a lot of fast cars in the B as well since 3 of the top 7 qualifiers also failed to transfer directly to the A-Main. The B-Main line-up was established by our qualifying times, so we ended up starting 9th. I took the initial start rather cautiously not knowing how agressive these guys would be. Two cars passed me going into 1, but I was able to get one of the them back right away. Again, the car handled great on the bottom and the gear change definitely helped get off the turns. However, 3 cautions slowed the action, and after the 2nd caution I was starting to get nervous with our fuel. After the last restart, I was able to get up to 8th, but the car was starting to stumble down the the straights. Luckily, we did have enough in the remaining 5 laps to finish the race in 8th. The car did end up stalling on
the way back to the trailer though. I have to thank Gary Patynko for coming along and helping us out along
with our usual crew of my dad and Dick Ross! Well, we only have one more race left in what seems to be this short 2008 season! On September 20th, we
will be racing the sprint-car at Baer Field Speedway in Ft. Wayne, IN. Hopefully some of you, I'm
looking in your direction Ft. Wayners, are able to make it out to the track to enjoy some racing
action!
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