Edition 46, August 20th - 2009

Mad at Madison

The rescheduled Big 8 finally was on our horizon and I tried to gather a support group to go and cheer on the #97 Swan piloted Chevy. Pat and I met up with the entire Berge family and picked a good spot in front of the start-finish line to record the qualifying times for the LLM series race later that night. Mark Blume was already with the team in the pits offering his support wherever he could lend it. We had already qualified for the 38 lap Big 8 race so with our past good fortunes at other tracks I felt that this might be a night of picking up some extra points.

And then qualifying began. We watched some of the good teams posting low 19’s and a couple of mid 19’s. The Hankscraft sponsored #97 rolled on the track and as it came out of turn one for the first of two lap qualifying we were sidewise to the point that you could see the number on the door. I knew either James was over driving the car or we were way too loose. Adam Berge looked at me and said, “This car hates Madison”. And I have to admit that we have had more misfortunes at this track than any other, albeit no fault of the track or management, we just have more problems there.

So with our 19.404 best qualifying lap, we would need to race into the field from a heat race for the late model feature. But our primary reason for being there was for the Big 8 race, so the team worked feverishly to improve handling. We knew our stagger was not what we wanted and we made changes that we hoped would help the car stick in the corners.

We would start 16 th in this 23-lap field, so our work was cut out for us especially with friend Kyle Shear on the pole and hot shoe Kenseth one row in front of our starting position. The 97 entry tried to find a hole to move up but in 10 laps we had actually lost two positions, and on lap 11 we tangled with the #87 entry spinning both cars. Our accident partner continued on and we went to the pits with a torn up fender. We did not return for the remainder of the race while repairs were made and would finish last in this race, (and the Madison curse continued).

But we as spectators were here to watch racing and wait for our entry to return in the LLM model feature. We focused on the Shear and Kenseth entries. Kyle worked his butt off to hold the lead and did against all challenges, including great pressure from #25 Kalka. Kenseth continue to try to pick his way through the field and with ten to go was scored in 10 th position. Lap 28, posted Kalka in the lead and Shear in fourth position, as Kyle had to race his way back to the inside. Three to go and Ross moved to fourth and only 17 cars remained in the race. With two laps to the finish the #25 Kenseth entry went to the outside and passed his teammates to take over sole position of 1 st and then pulled away. When the checkers fell the top three were Kenseth, Kalka, and Shear.

We really do not want to talk about the regular LLM feature as we started 20 th and finished 16 th in a car that still would not handle correctly. But we are racers, and we move on, learn from our bad experiences, and plan for the balance of our season. Our goals remain the same, and we resolve to finish the season on a high note with three points races and other non-points races left in 2009.

Please join us in supporting a really great driver, Mr. James Swan in his quest for rookie of the year in the Big 8 series.

RACING TO THE CHECKERS

Jim