It was a long weekend. We started out going to Golden Sands Speedway on Friday night with the Midwest Dash Series. Ran this track last year 1 time. So we had an idea of what to expect. But the handling from last year came with us again this year. Car was by far better then last year, but still could not shake the looseness going in. Kept working on the car setup. Tried a few different things. But in the end, it was what it was.
Practice times started out good. But started falling off. To help get our RPM range, I swapped to our 13 inch tires. It helped. But the car was still not correct. We had handling issues and the car was running rough for some reason. Found out we lost our 2nd AFR sensor that was there to just plug the hole. Good thing the sensor was junk. But we had a good spare we keep that we put back in. So we thought maybe that was part of the issue. But the car still was not running the way it should have been. We qualified 6th fastest. Kept working on the car, heat race we did not do so well, fell to the back and spun out during the race. But at the end of the race I did finish 6th. Feature time I decided to try a different tire on the right rear. After falling back some because the car running rough, I ended up finishing 10th. But after a DQ, I ended up 9th.
Before we loaded up, I did a quick look over on some things and found my spare AFR sensor was gone again, I knew I was going to have to get another or a plug for it. Got the logs to the computer and we loaded up for the night and went to our hotel.
The next day we found a parts store near by and got us what was needed to plug the hole. I worked on the data logs for the car and found a couple of issues. So fixed them and we headed to Marshfield Speedway for their weekly show.
We went through the car quick and made some changes to go back to what we were at for setup. Kept the 13’s on and went out for practice. Was able to follow someone that is normally fast there and found myself 4th fastest and only 0.236 behind fast time. Kinda surprised and kept working on the setup. We also had the wrong transmission gear for this track.
Making small changes as the car was feeling good and we were just doing what we could with low RPM’s. Seems we had to put on a new right front tire, I was not sure how we would be. 2nd practice we went out and dropped 0.259 off my time. While everyone else was also faster, that put me 2nd fastest.
Now time to qualify. I have not been good at this at all this year. Not sure why, but have not. I was figuring everyone else was going to be faster than me, I still did what I could. I was able to drop another 0.130 off my time but still ended up 4th fastest. Only 0.212 slower the quick time. Not bad at all.
We kept making small adjustments as the car would get better and better each time we went out. So hoping for the best, started outside front row and was doing what I can, as I fell to 4th, I was able to battle it back to 3rd.
Thinking we where close, one more small adjustment I felt was needed for the feature. I started inside 3rd row so I went to defense mode to make sure the start of the race stayed going. Then quickly changed to offensive mode. I ended up being in the outside grove and just started pushing my way through. But I did not have enough to catch the leaders to make a bid. So after running the outside line and getting past 4th place, I settled for 3rd.
Over all, had a great weekend of racing. I can’t thank my crew Heather and Ken enough for their hard work this weekend. Can’t thank my sponsors enough either for all of their support. This racing when and where we want and can is a blast. Trying out different things and having fun. That is the name of the game. With good hard battles and clean racing going on, I am happy.
Make sure you support the sponsors that support racing. These folks make it all possible each week for us.
Lilly Auto Care Center
Josleyn transport
Fisher Valley Felines
Reynolds Heating and Cooling
GDT
Dave’s White Rock
Computers-3s
Blake Liddicoat in memory of Randy Liddicoat
Jeremy Libick Racing Photography
Redneck Fabrication
KP Oil
Legacy auto sales
Andy Bolton
