April 13, 2006
Hey race fans! I’ve got some exciting things to write about. My first race was this past weekend at Motormile Speedway. I got out of school on Friday and headed to VA to work on my racecar. About halfway there, it started storming real bad and it was not calling for it to get any better. I was a little worried it was going to rain out the races. As I predicted, woke up Saturday to rain, but we made the trip to the track anyway. Unfortunately, as we made our turn into the track we received the call informing us it had been cancelled and rescheduled for Sunday. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t mind not having to ride out the rain all day and besides, the weather was suppose to be better Sunday.
My crew and I loaded up in our trucks and left my hauler parked at the track. I think everyone was happier with racing on Sunday instead. We woke up bright and early Sunday morning to sunshine. Got to the track and saw a lot more cars were there compared to the haulers that were left the day before. A little intimidating, but was going to make for a good night. We went straight to work on getting the car ready for practice. We ended up 7th fastest our first practice out of 26 cars, not bad. Did not make any big changes for the 2nd practice. The first part of practice, we scuffed our sticker tires for qualifying and to use in the race. This is all new to me, because you definitely don’t have the need to do this on dirt! We changed back to our old practice tires to finish with and that’s when I ran the 2nd fasted time of the day in my division. That gave me a little bit more confidence.
Time to qualify…….that confidence I was feeling……no where to be found and I’m still nervous. I had some great coaches that told to me stay calm and run a smooth lap. I thought 10th may be realistic, but I shocked myself with a 5th place start. Now, I was ready to race! I couldn’t wait to get in the car.
At the start of the race the sun made it hard to see down the front stretch. The car felt good, but then started to get real loose. I smacked the wall and got stuck in the outside lane, dropping back to 9th. I worked my way back to the front and hadn’t messed up things to bad… until a couple of cars in front of me spun and I got a little tangled up with them. No major damage. I was able to stay out and keep on racing. I had a 6th place finish and everyone seemed pleased with my performance. I was satisfied with how the day went overall in my Bass Pro Shops/ Tracker Boats #33 machine. I’m anxious for the next race to get here, so stop by the site next week and see how race #2 goes.
