Oh So Close

 

Friday night found us at the George and Russ Scheffler Memorial race at Beaver Dam Raceway. There were three divisions of cars, Grand Nationals, Modifieds, and Late Models. I don’t know why they call the cars the names that they call them. The late models may have gotten their name from the gate/ticket people. Time trails were scheduled to start at 6:00 PM, and there were still cars in the line at the gate at 6:15. I thought they all might be farriers in they’re other life. We (Taco Dave) race in the Modified Division.

The Modifieds had a great car count, which lead to five 8 lap heat races, two 12 lap B-Main Features, from which the top 3 finishers from each race transferred to the 20 lap A-Main Feature at the end of the evening.

Dave drew a 8th place starting position in the second heat. He just couldn’t quite connect and finished 7th in the race. So, that meant he had to go through a B-Main for another try at the A-Main.

Dave started 7th in the 2nd B-Main, got tangled up trying race, and spun out and was facing the wrong way between turns 3 and 4. That put him to the back of the line up for

the restart,  and then had a smoking great race. He finished 2nd, hurried to the scale, (the top finishers in have to weigh their cars to make sure they are in the weight parameters), and then hurried to the trailer. The car really had been smoking. There was oil all down the right side. It turns out the valve cover gasket had blown a gasket. We had a spare in the trailer, and the pit crew went to work. We had to get the repairs done, as well as any adjustments while the Grand Nationals ran their Feature. Everyone went to work and we got ‘er done.

 

The line up for the A-Main had been posted while we were working on the car, and Dave was 19th out of 21 cars slated to start the race. Holy Smokes that’s a long ways to the

front! As they came around turn 4 and the green flag was waving, the racing got under way. The car set up was good for the track conditions, and Dave was able to work his way up through the cars. A caution on lap 8 found Dave in 12th place. As the race restarted Dave was on the move again. Lap 15 and 16 found Dave racing with our pit neighbors from each side of us, and working on moving up into the top 5. But, in lap 17 a car took a bad bounce out of the rut in turn 2, tangled with another car,

which ended with enough damage to the 16 car that Dave wasn’t able to complete the race, and had to be towed from the track. Bummer! But, even with not being able to race to the end of the rack, Dave still ended up 14th out of 21 cars that started the race. And at the end of the race, only 12 finished.

 

And, I would like to congradulate the winners of the A-Main Feature Race.

1. A5 Andy Araco
2. 21F Nick Firari
3. 33X Dan Roedl
4. 15S Don Scheffler
5. 19B Jimmy Berkevich Jr.