When you love a place as much as we love Calistoga, it always adds a little pressure to perform well there. I remember the night my car popped out of gear while qualifying and then I started one spot out of the transfer in the semi, only to have someone flip on the opening lap. The show was running late, so they called it right there leaving me on the sidelines for the main. The year before I had finished 4th. The year after, my race car was gone. That was the only night my car ever popped out of gear during the entire time I raced sprint cars. My wife and I believe we aren’t in control of everything (Thank God) and that things happen for a reason.

This past weekend we headed to Calistoga for our first winged race in almost a year. After racing four straight weeks in central California with none of our sponsors or family there to watch us go forward, we were happy to be racing close to home. It was also the first time with our bigger motor in the car. Ron Nicholson and the Toiyabe Group went out of their way to get our 410 freshened up at Bailey Bros and we had a lot of work to do to get things ready. Our Schnee chassis had been working so well without the wing, that we didn’t want to risk any of those parts, so we just about changed everything on the car. Marty swapped out the long front axles for the shorter wing ones, the front radius rods, the rear arms, rods, bird cages, and all the torsion bars. He installed a shorter pitman arm, the short side nerfs and larger fuel cell. We added front wing mounts and of coarse the wings and hydraulic slider assembly. The other thing we had to do was change over to Goodyear tires all the way around. That was a big part of our decision to even race at Calistoga with the wing guys. The new series changed over to Goodyears and we didn’t have any. One new tire can cost you over $200 and you need 4 just to put the car on the ground. We didn’t think we were going to run this race until we saw the tires that the outlaws left behind in April. Then we heard more than once that if we switch back and forth between the tire brands, our beadlock rings will stretch and the tires will come loose, so we installed completely different rings with these tires (and that would bite us in the end).

The last big change about running Calistoga was Calistoga itself. Besides the new chassis, motor, tires and wings, Calistoga had a new surface and shape. I have always come to Calistoga with the same set-up in my car and Marty’s car. It was given to me by Duke & Scotty McMillen who have owned championship cars for decades. Things have changed over the years and I’ve had a few guys question my set-up and last year we ended up running the car very neutral on a heavy rough night at Calistoga and it worked well. I guess I thought that the new track was going to be tacky or maybe rough, so I started with the neutral set-up and that was a mistake. The wind was catching the wing so hard going into the corner that Marty bounced off the fence in qualifying just trying to keep it straight. Then to compound the problem, the motor was pulling so hard and the chassis was getting such good forward bite , that the front end was barely on the ground. Marty made a couple nice moves in his heat race to get into a transfer spot, but then almost drove it into the fence at the end of the back chute. I don’t know how he kept it out of the wall? Mike Benson and Jeff Griffin were watching closely and helped me figure out what was going on, so we made some changes just before the semi and Marty took one last shot at making the main. The car finally looked comfortable and he was able to drive it in straight. He started passing cars right away and was once again in a transfer spot, when the left rear tire went flat. Of course, my first thought was that we were running used tires, but it turned out that the beadlock had failed. I’m not sure if it was too loose or if we shouldn’t have run a beadlock that we never ran before, but it was just like when my car popped out of gear almost 15 years ago. It has never happened before and it will probably never happen again. So there we sat, watching the main event roll off without us. Our biggest fan support up in the stands and after all that work to get stuff changed over for one weekend of racing.

I still believe that things happen for a reason. If Saturday night hadn’t gotten rained out, I would’ve had a completely different set-up in for Sunday. We would’ve gotten past the beadlock problem and made the race, but then we might’ve been in the middle of one of the big wrecks that took out so many cars. Marty hasn’t wrecked in so long that I don’t remember the last time, and after watching him you can’t say that he doesn’t try hard enough. I thought he was trying a little too hard to overcome a car that was just a handful most of the night. Someone said “It just wasn’t our night” and I guess that’s how you have to look at it. I just feel bad because Marty worked really hard and our sponsors came through big time. Thanks to all our fans and sponsors that came out to Calistoga this weekend to support us. Thanks to Bailey Bros for building us a really solid motor. We put 30 nights on this 410 before taking it in to get freshened up and Sam said it looked pretty good inside and rebuilt it within the quote they gave us. We would recommend Bailey Bros to anyone who wants it done right. This week Marty will graduate from high school with honors, then it’s off to Watsonville & Santa Maria on June 17th & 18th for some non-wing Western Classic Racing action with the USAC/CRA bunch! We’ll probably kick some butt and nobody will be there to see it, but I’m sure we’ll see you all back in Calistoga for “The Louie Vermeil Classic” in September.