May 3 2008

In the first practice the car was tight again, so the crew changed the set up and we went out for the second practice. The car was still tight; I came in after a couple laps. The crew changed a bunch of things like the shocks, the bar and the springs. I went out to qualify and thought the car would be loose, well, I go to the first corner but the car was still pushing like a freight train throughout the whole corner. I tried to make it work but we still had a crappy qualifying with a 12.3. I was so frustrated, we have been racing & practicing for 3 weeks and nothing seems to be freeing the car up. After the crew changed everything in the book, again, we went out for the heat, again I was thinking the car would be loose but no shock it was not. I was so livid when I came into the pits. The only thing I heard all winter was how this car is so much better than the car we had last year but it is the same every weekend, so tight it is undriveable. The crew changed the stagger, ride heights and the pan hard before the main and I got about 500 lectures before the main just telling me to believe the car is loose. I went out for the warm up laps before the main, and as I went into the first corner I almost spun out, the car was so loose. I was finally relieved that the car was finally loose; it is way easier to drive a loose car than a tight car. I started moving up & passing a couple cars. I came up to a guy & started passing him on the inside. We were front tire to front tire coming out of the corner when our tires touched & I thought it was ok but then our tires touched again and we totaled the car & 7 others. The wreck broke the frame, all 4 wheels, the rear end, the rear axle, the tail tank, some radius rods and the motor plate. The car was so bad I thought we were going to go back to the beast chassis but with all the help from Jim Burrows we think the car should be done for the race on May 17th – see you there, Sierra

April 26th was our first out of town NSRA race. We headed for Roseberg, Oregon early on Friday morning to make the Friday night practice. The practice went good, the car was loose to begin with but by the third session the car seemed perfect.

I went out for the first practice on Saturday expecting the same car from the night before but the car was completely different. We qualified 8th out of 15. The car was so tight in all 3 practices & in qualifying. The crew loosened the car up for the B dash but it was still extremely tight. The car was a little better in the beginning of the heat but it just kept getting worse every lap. After the heat the crew threw everything they had at the car to try to get the push out, stagger, springs, wing angle & just about everything else fixed. Whatever they did seemed to work for the warm up laps & the first couple of laps after that, but then there was a red flag and the bleeder on my right front tire stuck & I lost most of the air in the tire. The car went to crap after that of course and I was running clear over on the part of the tire that said Hoosier. We then got taken out by someone & I lost my brakes when a fitting broke on the front brake, doing me in for the night.

I race the sprint car on Saturday at Meridian Speedway – see you there…Sierra

She is impressive and only 15. I see she has Indy 500 aspirations ... I hope she makes it.