July 25th, Baer Field Speedway-HOSS
More details at the Baer Field Speedway website!!
Results
Baer Field Speedway, Ft. Wayne, IN (1/2 mile paved)
Qualified: 20th, 16.166 sec
Heat: Started-7th, Finished-5th
Feature: Started-20th, Finished-18th
Sorry about the late update, but it has been quite the busy week! Last Saturday, we made our first trip to
Ft. Wayne this season! We were looking for a good run considering our relative success there last
season. Our day ended up pretty eventful though. During the first hot laps session, I was definitely
not ready for the slick track conditions, and ended up spinning the car coming out of the 2nd turn
just after the drop of the green flag. Thankfully, nothing was damaged on the car. After putting on
some new tires, the 2nd hot lap session went much better. The car was still a little loose coming
off the turns, but much better than the 1st session. The track was really starting to cool off by
the time we went out for qualifying which made the car feel much better. We didn't make many changes,
and clocked in as 20th fast. With 26 cars in pits, we would have to race our way into the Feature,
otherwise we'd have to go through the B-Main. Even though we were starting 7th in the heat, I knew
we were just as fast or faster than the cars starting on the front-row since the first 6 positions are
inverted. At the start of the heat, we end up being nose-to-tail with the front-row cars as the
faster cars quickly made it around them. Those two cars were being rather racy though, and I thought
something would happen between them. Sure enough, on the 2nd lap they got together going into the
3rd turn. They almost came to a stop right in front of me, but I was able to get by them on the
low-side of the track. On the restart, we started 5th which is where we needed to be. I wanted to
stick with the pack, but the car got really loose coming off the 2nd turn. This completely over-heated
the right-rear tire causing the car to push off the turns for the rest of the race. Luckily, we were
able to come home 5th though, and made the feature out of the heat. We didn't make many changes for
the feature until we noticed the left rear tire loosing air in the pits. Thankfully, we had plenty
of time before the feature was run, and were able to get the cut tire replaced. For the feature, we
were starting in the back where the only place to go was forward. On the start, I was able to make
up a couple positions, and settled into a rythmn for the race. The car handled great during the
feature, now we had to make it 30 laps. A caution came out on lap 19 which bunched everyone back
up. I noticed during the caution that the brakes were getting a little soft, so I dialed a little
more rear brake into the car. Off the the caution, the car handled great or at least it hadn't
fallen off as much because I was able to start picking off cars about a lap at a time. I had moved
up about 4 positions and setting up my next pass off of 4 when the more rear-brake I had dialed in
during the caution took over and I spun. I guess that was a little too much. The track crew pushed
me up to the top of the track, but push-truck never got off me and I couldn't get the car back in
gear. I thought maybe the track crew noticed I had a flat-tire, so I didn't wave the truck off. So,
we ended up getting pushed back to the pits with 5 laps to go. All in all, we didn't loose out on
anything though because I probably wouldn't be able to make-up the positions I had lost due to my
mistake. It ended up we didn't break anything on the car, rolled it in the trailer at the end of the
night, so it was a pretty successful night. I have to thank Ben Hamm for stopping by the pits and
catching up! Also, thanks to anyone else who was cheering us on in the stands! We have already
starting making our adjustments for our next race at Ft. Wayne on August, 29th where we're looking to
improve on our Baer Field finishes.
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