On Friday night at Luxemburg Speedway, I started 3rd in my heat race and ended up getting the short end of the stick on the start. The front two cars were a little out of control down the frontstretch, so I checked up coming into turn 1. Brian Bruechert got under me, and I touched tires with him and Greg Wichman to my outside. Everyone made it through without further incident, but I was playing catch-up right out of the box.
I finished the heat race in 6th, setting me up with the same starting spot (3rd) in the semi-feature. The top 3 would advance to the feature, and on the start I settled into the 4th position behind Jeremy Cota. I had started to reel in Cota in the waning laps, but ran out of time and finished in 4th.
On Sunday night, we went back to Seymour Speedway for the 2nd time this season. Originally we had 20 cars sign in for the sportmod division, but 4 drivers showed up late. The original heat lineups were 2 heats of 10, which turned into 2 heats of 12, making things very interesting. Cautions marred my heat race, for both incidents on the track and also some rain showers passing over the facility. I started in 10th place and finished in 7th when the showers eventually ended our race.
I would start 14th on the grid for the feature, and early on the car felt pretty good anywhere I wanted to run. Again, cautions would fly early and often, and before I knew it I was restarting in 8th place on the final restart. I roasted my tires a little coming off of turn 2, and that allowed Aaron Muhle to get by. I regathered myself and stuck to the bottom of the track, tight to the tires where there was a little bit of bite left in the track. It looked like I was headed for a top 10 finish, but Chummy Arneson and Brad Lautenbach came charging on the outside of everyone in the final laps. Rob Charapata would also get by me on the final lap, handing me a 12th place finish on the night.
Overall I was happy with how the car worked this weekend, we’re getting back to the adjustments that got us several top 10 feature finishes to start the year. We’ll be back at Luxemburg this coming Friday night, then heading up to Door County and Thunderhill Raceway on Saturday night.