Edition 45, July 28th - 2009

Duel in the Dells 2009

The week of July 19 th was best described by driver James Swan as his hell week, as no less than four and perhaps even five race dates were planned for the seven day period. After a great opening and showing at Slinger on July 19 th, (2 nd); the team performed admirably at the Slinger Nationals on Wednesday, July 22 nd; (3 rd) On to Golden Sands for a Limited Late points race on Friday, where the car qualified very well and also ran very well in our heat race only to fall through the field with an ill handling car in the feature. We would move on to Dells Raceway Park on Saturday to determine if we really had a bad set up and if we could shake this monkey off our back.

We were glad to compete at the Dells Raceway Park, as the management’s hospitality has always treated us very well and it is the home track of sponsor Hankscraft, and DRM Industries. We would now see if we could dial the car back in on handling. This also was one of the weekends where our former racing competitors, Mid American would also race their second in a series “Duel in the Dells”. It was good to walk around and talk to our former teammates from Mid Am as it was one of our favorite racing experiences, and we grew friendships that are still deep.

I caught up with the team in the Dells pits about one hour before qualifying. What was sad faces at Plover the night before were much more optimistic after the Dells practice session. A shock change and adjustments had brought the Chevy back to life and driver Swan reported a somewhat loose car, but nothing that so drastic that wholesale changes would be necessary. With threatening weather on the horizon, the racing schedule was modified, and we lined up for qualifying.

We would qualify in the middle of the pack of the 23 cars entered this night. The first qualifying attempts for our competitors posted in the mid to high 14’s until Rich Schumann laid down a nice 14.269 on his third lap. In practice we had stopwatch readings in the 14.340 range so we knew we should qualify decent but would be hard to take the pole from Rich. A very smooth qualifying run on the second lap by the #97 posted a 14.307 on the scoreboard which would lock in a second place fast time for the cars entered. The team felt very good about the way the car looked on the track in race trim and elected to basically leave the car alone for the feature. Due to the field inversion, we would start 11 th on the inside for the 40 lap feature race.

From the green flag start, the Swan piloted Chevy moved towards the front and by lap 4 had raced up to 8 th, and two laps later we were scored in the 7 th position. Lap 9 the caution flew for the #29 entry and we were posted 6 th in line. The yellow hanky flew again on lap 10 and we were 5 th on the restart. Laps 18 and 19 were under caution for cars spinning in turn one, and we maintained our position. With 10 laps to go we attempted to dive under the #57 entry and had a fender alongside but could not complete the pass. With everyone’s tires wore down, we had to stay in line till the finish and were scored 5 th.

All in all the team was pleased that the car could come through the field, and handling was much better than at Plover. We believe we have the shock package figured out and will verify our suspension package before the Kaukauna Big 8 race on August 4 th. Then back to the rescheduled race at Madison on August 14.

All in all the team performed very well this past week, and though we are never satisfied until we get to victory lane, we were quite pleased with the results.

RACING TO THE CHECKERS

Jim