Edition 44, July 8th - 2009

We Must Wait for Madison & Kenseth Comes Close

I picked up my good friend Kirk as he arrived at the Madison airport from hometown Jacksonville Florida. We had both purchased pit passes for the Swiss Colony all-star race June 30 at Madison Speedway. Kirk, like me is a race nut, and I invited him to hang out with our #97 Swan piloted limited late race team and perhaps get a few autographs from the Wisconsin all stars. The weather was damp and cold and luckily I had thrown warm clothes for both of us in my car.

We found the Hankscraft race team in the crowded pits. “How’s the car?” I asked. Better now said driver Swan. The new shock and spring package we were going to use did not work at all on this track, and there they laid on the floor of the hauler, nice and shiny new but useless in this set up. So I asked crew chief Don how the car was, and he replied we think we got it dialed in better than it has been at this track, so with this new confidence, Kirk and I went up to the pit stands to record the LLM qualifying.

The first set of cars posted mid 19’s and then the #19 entry laid down a nice first lap of 18.887. Of course all eyes were on the Ross Kenseth entry that had a decent first lap, then he bested it with an 18.756. The #28 flirted with fast time on his second lap but the Kenseth Farm and Fleet entry would hold the pole. We qualified fairly late in the order and posted a 19.303 on our first lap and a 19.303 on our second lap, HUM, makes one think of how exactly identical times could be posted by one car. With only 14 cars making it into the feature on qualifying time; and a cut off of 19.105, the balance of the field was set by last chance races. We made a few changes and finished a very respectable third in our heat race, which qualified us for the feature.

The Madison Speedway officials made a decision that with a full grandstand and possible rain on the way they would cater to the fans that had come to watch Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, and a host of others race against Wisconsin all-stars, in their 100 lap race feature first and we would race after that one concluded. I was not pleased with this decision as I felt this would be a very long night waiting for our race, but I never realized it would be over one month later, as the rains did come after the 100 lap feature ended and we are re-scheduled for August 14 at Madison.

So we went up in the stands to watch the all-star race. Matt Kenseth was on the pole and Tony Stewart would start fifth with many local hot shoes trying to beat the best from NASCAR. By lap 15 the Dewalt entry was still leading and Tony had dropped back to the 12 th position. Lap 35 scored Matt leading and followed by the #52, #8; #80, and #77 cars. Matt was not able to run away from the other racers but he was lapping some of the slower entries. Mid point break at lap 50 scored Kenseth, followed by #52, 8, 80, and 71. Tony was 11 th.

And so the second half continued with the yellow and black entry chased closely by the #52 Chris Wimmer and the usual cast of cars mentioned previously. The Wimmer vehicle dogged the #17 at every corner. Lap 75 was yellow flagged for a one car spin with no others collected. And finally with ten laps to go, the teams knew it was time to take it to the front if they had the horses, and #52 got under Matt for the lead and was able to hold off any other contenders. He took the checkers and was followed by the #17, #39, #87 and #14 Stewart entry.

All in all it was a good clean and close race with no equipment tore up. We wished we could have raced this night as we were picking up some momentum, but everyone will have to start the same as us. We are just happy to be in the show and believe we have something to prove to ourselves and to others. Hope to see you all at a track near you in the near future.

RACING TO THE CHECKERS

Jim