2024 RACING RESULTS

Our season kicked off with Steven back in Mike Blake's #81 at Auburndale Speedway.

We were chasing brake problems again, but Steven won the heat race anyway, and had the fastest lap time in the class.

He lined up 4'th in the feature.  On lap 2, he was passing third place when that car tried to pinch his car into the infield.  Steven held his ground and they ended up tangling.  We had to change a tire, and despite having almost no brakes, Steven got back to fourth place.  Overall, an unsatisfying night.  On to the next...

This was the fifth place hardware from Southern Sprint Car, 2023.

Here are the team's winter quarters.  We work outside under the sun and clouds!

CITRUS COUNTY SPEEDWAY

1-27-24

The race night that wasn't!  This feature race rained out on lap 8, and will be made up at a future date.

Since there is nothing else to show, here is a picture of the shop dogs, Gunnar and Kaya!

SHOWTIME SPEEDWAY

2-3-24

This was weekend #1 of the two weekend Dave Steele Championship.  This first night consisted of time trials, and twin 35 lap features for the winged cars.

We were unimpressive in qualifying.  Steven was 7'th and I was 9'th out of 17.  

In the first feature, I was running decent, but dropped out around half way with over-heating issues.  Steven's car had missed the set-up and he finished 7'th.

A different story in feature #2.  Steven said they "fixed it" and that his car was very fast in hot laps.  He started on the outside front row, and expected to win.  However, the pole position car ran Steven up to the forth lane and ran into his left front wheel.  This damaged a steering arm, so the left front was flopping and vibrating the rest of the way.  He ran around 25 laps, but the problem was getting worse, so he parked it.

With a good car under me, and some attrition in the field, I made it up to 5'th.  The last real sprint car race I was in took place in 2018, and was about 20 pounds ago.  At this point, the long day, the mounting tires, the working on two cars and twin features all caught up with me.  I was out of breath for the last 10 laps and got passed by two other cars, so I ended up 7'th.

SHOWTIME SPEEDWAY

2-3-24

The second week of the Dave Steele Championship was a non-wing 125 lapper.  It was not a productive weekend for us.  We had one practice session, and went out to qualify.  Steven timed forth quickest somehow, and that was the highpoint of the night.  During the race, the handle quickly went away, and the 81 was super loose.  Even by wingless sprint standards, it was too loose to contend, so Steven parked on lap 51.

CITRUS COUNTY SPEEDWAY

3-2-24

This weekend was the first edition of the Children's Dream Fund 50 at Citrus.  We made the Friday  practice session and were around fifth quickest.

The track put on a bar b que for the teams after practice.  It was a good chance to unwind and meet some of the teams that travelled into town for this event.  Fun!

Fozzy was in charge of qualifying!

Steven qualified 8'th out of 26.  Good luck was with us because the track inverted 8, so we were on the pole.

He was very fast from the start, and drove away to a straightaway lead in the first 10 laps or so.  In fact, he set the fastest time of the race by a full 0.2 seconds!  And we were collecting lap money too.

Sad to say....things changed around lap 10.  No conclusive answer yet, but we appear to have had a shock problem because the car went from very fast to very bad in an instant.  Steven dropped back until lap 23 when he finally parked it.  Damn!

3-16-24

AUBURNDALE SPEEDWAY

One of those nights.....

Steven ran one lap of practice, and noticed that "his foot was cold".  That could only mean that we had a fuel leak.  Sure enough, a cast fitting on the fuel pump had cracked and was directing a stream of fuel right on his shoe.  It took me several hours to get the leak stopped, and we missed all practice and the heat race.

So Steven had his first laps in #85 for 1 1/2 years.  He was going pretty well and was headed for a good finish.  Then the engine over-heated.  I'm glad my driver pays attention to these things!  We'll brush off this night and try again.