In what would prove to be our final race of the 2011 season, we headed out to Seymour Speedway for their Fall Classic special. The track was pretty much locked down from the opening heat races, taking on rubber and becoming a one lane track on the bottom.
The track conditions made for some pretty uneventful races, but we wanted to see how the car would react on the dryslick having struggled the final few weeks of the season. We left our heat race setup in the car, and while it wasn’t terrible, I didn’t quite have enough traction to hang on the outside. I dropped to 6th with a few laps remaining, and narrowly missed recapturing 5th at the checkers.
That finish would put me on the pole for the semi-feature, and I took the early lead off the start. However, a caution would force a complete restart, and this time Jake Solin got the jump to the head of the field. I settled into 2nd place, and after a few more caution flags flew, I found myself sitting in the 3rd position. It seemed like forever racing single file on the bottom of the track, and finally the checkers flew and I transferred into the feature.
Starting 18th in the feature, I was waiting for the bottom groove to open up to make my move, but was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time as Joey Taycher suffered mechanical issues right in front of me.
After finally getting around Taycher, I was back about a full straightaway from the rest of the field. It only took me about 3 laps to rejoin the pack, which made me very happy with how the car was working on a surface we had been struggling with. I did get caught up in the only wreck of the race, and did have a little bit of front end issues from it. At the checkers I was fighting to grab the 15th spot, but Russel Franks broke coming off of turn 4, so I had to check up and ended up 17th.
With the 2011 season concluding for us, we will be tearing the car down and prepping for next season. The chassis needs a little TLC from the early wreck in June, but other than that we will be checking over suspension parts and getting everything cleaned up for 2012. Thanks to my 2011 sponsors for your support this season, and to all the fans who congratulated me on a very successful 2nd season in the IMCA sportmod division. See you at the track in 2012!