With the paint and lettering not quit done, the Hawkins Motorsports Team loaded up the sprinter and headed to Hanford for their first USAC West Coast 360 race of the year. Marty was the second car out to qualify and did a nice job of getting up to speed on lap one and that was a good thing because on lap two, the power steering hose blew off and drenched him in oil. One lap was was all he needed to set 7th quick out of the 30 cars that showed up. Still having some steering problems in the heat, Marty was able to drive from his 5th place starting spot to 3rd and make the transfer to the feature. After changing some old power steering hoses, that obviously couldn’t handle the pressure of our freshly rebuilt pump, Marty lined up 7th in the feature. The track was very slick down the chutes and rough in the turns with a tricky cushion way up top. The night ran long as the red lights kept coming on during the other races. The stock car pitted next to us got upside down and the winged sprinters must have flipped at least 4 cars in their main event. Our feature didn’t push off until 11:15pm and was scheduled for 30 laps. With the dust flying, Marty said the opening laps were like being in a pinball machine as cars bounced off each other. On the second restart Marty got hooked on the back of another car and thought he was gonna end up parked to unhook them, but then got hit and sent into the inside berm where his car lifted up enough to let the other car get away. At the other end of the track, he was hit hard enough to get airborne, sending him into another car (and that was all on the first lap). After things settled down, he bounced back and forth between 7th and 12th, had a good battle with Bud Kaeding and finally ended up in 9th at the checkers. The steering worked flawless and our motor ran strong. This is the first time Marty ever ran a Maxim chassis and we made some changes throughout the night to get him more comfortable in the car. For our first race of 2012, with a new car, I think we did ok. Marty was upset after the race, mostly because of the opening laps. He doesn’t like to get run over and hates it even more when he runs over others.

We would like to Thank Chad Vermeil for putting our motor back together and Jimmy VanLare for the steering work. I guess you were right about our old pump not building any pressure (I shoulda sent the hoses too). Thanks to the Faria crew for helping with the hose issues and letting us stay at their house. Thanks to our sponsors, The Toiyabe Group, Santa Rosa Auto Parts, Blakeley Landscaping, The Barricade Company, and HMS Airless Repair for all their support. This weekend we head to Tulare for the Chris & Brian Faria Memorial event. Hope to see you there.