Labor day weekend marked the last race I would run before headed off to start another chapter in my life, college. Both my Dad and I worked our tails off and was able to put two complete cars together, with the help of borrowed parts from Jimmy VanLare. Unfortunately, it was no Cinderella Story as our weekend was plagued with bad luck. Continue reading
- Tag Archives CRA
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CRA at Ocean
After a disappointing DNF at Hanford I was ready to get back to Ocean Speedway where we managed to get a 5th earlier in the year. Running again with CRA, only this time we kept the 360 in, unfortunately do mainly to time. Either way, we were ready. We arrived in Watsonville where is was rather cold, and the track was looking fairly decent. In hot laps the car felt good and I was anticipating a good night. However, the folks at Ocean had different thoughts. After hot laps they went out with tractors and scrapped the cushion off. The result was not surprising. Slow laps on a slick track. Unfortunately for Dustin Baxter, who had his first run in a 410, was not prepared for the changes that had been made to the track. Heading out early he hauled the car into turn three, where it managed to slide all the way to the wall, and then proceeded to launch out of the park. Thankfully Dustin was alright, but wasn’t able to get the car back together. After qualifying the track prep again went out and worked on the track for a good half hour. Putting the blade on it and ripping it up, while putting some water on. Being in heat one we weren’t ready for the changes. We qualified 10th which put us in the third row of our heat, and pretty much just stayed there to finish 7th. I wasn’t very excited about not getting the car to go forward, but thankfully we did not have to run a semi. We lined up 12th for the main, but once again wasn’t ready for what the track had to offer. The top was nothing to get a hold of, and my set-up made the bottom feel like a row boat in the ocean. I tried every line I could think of but still ended up in 14th. Needless to say I was frustrated. Instead of showing up to race against the CRA group, we showed up to race Ocean Speedway. It might have got us this time, but I wont let that happen again.
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Hanford USAC/CRA May 19th
We haven’t raced with the CRA boys since the Gold Cup in Chico last year, so we were excited to bolt in the 410 and head to Hanford. Our great friend and sponsor, Ron Nicholson had our 410 freshened up at Bailey Bros. last year and we are still trying to figure out how to get all that horsepower to the ground. We didn’t qualify very well and finished 6th in our heat as the car just seemed loose. The CRA guys don’t have any trouble getting it to the ground. They run cockpit adjustable shocks on the car that can cost around $2000, and they know how to tune em’ during a race. We have one cockpit adjustable shock on the left rear, but our biggest struggle was once again tires. While most guys were on the wider and softer HTW right rear tire, we still had the harder DT3 that CRA ran last year and we didn’t have $500 for a couple new tires. We must’ve changed the gear 4 times throughout the night in an attempt to stop the wheel spin. After throwing some drastic stuff at our set-up, our pal Steve Ostling (USAC official and former New Mexico Sprint Car Champion) made a deal with Bruce Bromme for a nice used tire. After working out the trade details, we mounted it up. I started 14th and right away could feel the difference. We had a long green flag run and I worked my way to 8th before the yellow came out for a car that spun. The yellow seemed to last a long time and I think the tire cooled and sealed over, because once we went back to green, I just couldn’t get a hold of the top like I was earlier. I drifted over turn two and lost a few spots and had a great battle with Rusty Carlisle. At the end, I finished 11th and was really happy with how well our 410 ran. We want to congratulate Danny Faria who got his first CRA win in a commanding drive….Nice job! We also want to Thank Ron Nicholson and The Toiyabe Group once again for the motor work and all the support they have given us over the years! Thanks to Jimmy VanLare at VanLare Steering Repair for their support as well! Finally we want to Thank Steve-O and the Ron Chaffin gang for the tire! OH YA…and THANK YOU Grandpa for the use of your truck! It takes a lot of great people to keep us racing, and we can’t thank them enough.
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