July 28th, 2009

I've come to believe that it just isn't in the cards for me to win a race when the California guys are involved. Or maybe I'm getting to the point where it's time to consider retiring from racing. Either way, this past weekend was a huge disappointment. During the week before the race the car was prepared like normal. Just as I've done a hundred times before. This week though I apparently re-assembled the fuel pump incorrectly. When I went to prime and start the engine on Friday night the cable drive for the pump broke. I thought I had twisted the cable and it would be no problem. My good friend Kevin Gerhardt from Fresno loaned me one of his extra cables and Verlin and went to work changing it. After 45 minutes of intense work in a blistering sun we realized the pump was bad. After securing a new pump we thought the problem was solved. However we kept plugging up injector nozzles for some reason. We still haven't nailed that one down.... Finally, with no practice laps we went to qualify and ended up 5th, less than a hundredth from 3rd and barely a tenth from quick time. Unfortunately that the was highlight of the night. In the heat I got trapped behind Jeff Kelley on the start and found myself shuffled back to last place, 7th, at the end of the first lap. I was only able to get back to 4th. In the main I started on the outside of the front row and fell back to 5th within a couple of laps. On the 21st lap while exiting turn 2, I get turned sideways. I don't that anyone was "at fault", it was just some hard racing. From what I'm told Austin and Ron touched just slightly which shoved Ron up into my left rear. I went sideways with Ron's front tire caught between my nerf bar and left rear. As I slid sideways I thought for sure that I was going to go for a wild ride. On the restart, from the rear, the engine felt like it was on 2 cylinders again. I suspect our lack of bottom end power that kept me from being able to pass off the corner and the engine misfire at the end were both due to plugged injector nozzles again.

The weekend wasn't a complete loss. I was able to have dinner on Friday night with Kevin, Julie, Cody and Courtney Gerhardt and Michael Lewis. On Saturday we found ourselves pitted next to my buddy Tony Hunt, who's one of the nicest guys racing on the Left Coast. I also had the pleasure of spending some time before the Sprint Car Main Event with Michael's dad, Steve Lewis whom I met over 20 years ago. Steve is one of the classiest, smartest and most successful men in open wheel racing, fielding the white #9 midgets for many years. The list of successful drivers in Performance Racing Industry #9 Ford's (and Toyota at the end) reads like a who's who of winners: Stan Fox, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Jason Leffler, JJ Yealy, Dave Darland, Dave Steele are just a few that come to mind. It was a real pleasure to reminisce for a few minutes with Steve. 

July 17th, 2009

It's good to be back home for a weekend off. It's been a busy past few weeks with trips to Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Denver and Beaumont. That along with trying to fix the pavement car after a wall incident followed by losing a clutch and having to pull the motor out. Makes me tired thinking about it all. So, I'm home for a week and can finish up the car for the July 25th event. This years Utah-California Challenge event at RMR will be pretty lame. A couple of California cars will be coming but that's it. Tommy Hunt who is in a lousy position was forced to make it a non points event for the California guys because of RMR's age policy. So instead of 20-22 cars we'll be lucky to have 14. Our car should be mostly ready tomorrow morning. The only things left to do are put in some new thrust bearings in the front axle, then block and scale the car. I'm kinda thinking that next week might be good to try brushing off the golf clubs and seeing how bad my game is. My first serious rounds were in 1997. By 2001 I was down to a 3-4 handicap. But I got involved in racing again and I gave up the clubs. I've been thinking lately that I need something else going on in my life besides work and race cars. The obvious choices would be a relationship, a pet or another hobby/sport. I'm gone out of town too much to be a pet owner again. The relationship thing doesn't look very promising so maybe I'll start playing some golf again. We'll just have to see if the 2007 crash did too much damage to my arm.

July 5th, 2009

We finally turned the corner last night. We didn't get the elusive first Main Event win of the year, but we're sneaking up on the competition. Verlin and I worked on the car throughout the week getting the clutch into the engine, installing the engine and installing a new torque tube assembly. The car was mostly finished on Thursday with some final touches on Friday. I can't say enough about how lucky I've been to have such good help this year. I was pretty wound up all Friday night and Saturday morning. Once we got to the track we were pretty consistent throughout the day. We made only 2 chassis adjustments and never removed the hood. We were third in qualifying behind Chuck Groat and Kipp Posey. I wish I knew how Chuck always get's the fast time. In the heat race I fell in behind Gregg on the first lap and followed him for the next 5 finally squeezing past him and getting our 2nd straight Heat Race win. In the Main Event, I grabbed second place on the opening lap behind Mike Daniels and stayed on his bumper for the next 19 laps. The top and middle grooves were really slick tonight so it was a stay on the bottom track. I stayed right on Mike's bumper thinking he would make a mistake and we'd get a Main win but he never bobbled. Hat's off to Mike, Guy and their team.

I'm off to Texas this week and Denver next week but I'm very excited about the outlook for the Western States Focus race on July 25th.