June 11th, 2011 - Dells Raceway Park Recap

What a great weekend of racing! We made our way to Wisconsin Dells for our first visit of 2011 to Dells Raceway Park. We've had good success over the years at this particular track, but we had made some huge changes to the car (mostly visual) and hadn't raced in almost two months. This weekend was the unveiling of our new racecar body and graphics package, and if I do say so myself, it looks pretty sweet! Now it was just a matter of whether it was as fast as it looked good.

We went through practice and we were running maybe around 10 fastest, which was a little disappointing. We made a gear change before our final practice and scuff session, and actually put in the wrong gears. However, the gear change alone gained us nearly 3 tenths of a second per lap on our lap time, so we knew it was a step in the right direction. That change probably moved us into top five fastest in practice.

For qualifying, we put the correct gears we needed in there, but didn't really know what to expect because we hadn't gotten to practice with them in there. There was a slight drizzle in the air, and we were up for qualifying. Most of the field had qualified already, and our first lap nearly put us in the top spot. Second lap clicked in at 14.548 seconds, about .150 seconds in front of the next fastest car, and putting us in the top spot. We held it until Brian Back ran a bit faster, making us 2nd fastest overall and thats where we stood.

The most exciting thing for us going into the rest of the night is, we usually run the race about as fast as we qualify. Alot of the other cars can throw down one or two fast laps in qualifying, but don't come close to running that fast of time in the actual race. We raced the heat race and just felt out the car with the other guys out there. We got to run with Bill Prietzel a little bit in the heat race side by side, and Bill and I were just feeling the two grooves out while racing each other. Little did we know it would be a preview for the feature race.

We started the feature race in 8th position, and after a caution flew after 5 laps, we had moved into the 4th spot. We restarted in 4th, and after a few laps, had moved into 2nd place. Bill Prietzel had started on the front row, and was leading the race from the green flag. He had built nearly a half a straight away lead when we finally cleared into 2nd position, and in a matter of a few laps were on his bumper. Bill is an unbelieveable racer, he's won races probably before I was ever even born. He's tough, and very hard to rattle because he's seen everything. As any veteran would, he is going to use every inch of the track that you give him, and he's not going to make too many mistakes.

We battled for a number of laps, all the time with the 97 car of James Swan looking for an opportunity also. Bill and I were even side by side when the caution flew at around lap 20. That put us restarting side by side in the front row, I would be starting on the inside with Bill choosing the outside line. Dells Raceway Park this year concreted an inside groove in turns 3 and 4, and thats why Bill chose outside because it's difficult to restart on the concrete.

We restarted and Bill got about a half car advantage. Going into turn 1 on the second lap after the restart, I heard a pop in the cockpit and the exhaust got really loud. I was slightly tentative from that point, because we had just put the exhaust out of the side of the car and this was the first race with it like that. With exhaust fumes getting heavy into the car, and the car starting to get really loose on me, it seemed like something wasn't right. Entering turn 3, the car felt like it got slammed into, and then the exhaust got even louder. We ended up losing a couple spots because the car had been getting so much looser that it was hard to control. We ended up finishing 4th, equalling again our best finishes in Mid Am races.

What we found after the race is that the exhaust tip had come loose and broke a clamp when we made some contact with another car. That exhaust tip was hanging there and I eventually ran it over when it fell off going into turn 3. The exhaust was then pointed right at our right rear tire, which heated that up which made the car looser and looser as the race went on. It may be disappointing that we felt like we could've won the race, but we're excited to be the only Minnesotan's racing against some of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan's best driver's and teams, and running right with them.

We're excited for the next one at Madison International Speedway for the Firecracker 40 on July 1st. We have a little bit of fixing to do to the exhaust system, but we'll be there and hope you can join us!