Saturday Night's Alright For Fightin'

You Yanks and your Dirt Oval Racing.  Can I race one of those Short Course Late Models?

Another Saturday night in the books at BFG.  Good crowd for Dirt Oval and a surprisingly good crowd for Offroad practice so it seemed a lot more crowded than it was.  I'm speculating that the turnout was around 35, which is not bad with the holiday right around the corner.  Three heats of Lates, EDM trucks, street stock, sprints and SC Late Models ran.

I used to work Mark.  Now I just race.

Butch Beebe was back in the house as were Mark, Charlie, and even oval newcomer Mike Flipse.  Every week there seems to be a new face showing up.  If a few of them stick, we will continue to have the excellent racing we've had so far this season.  There was the noted absence of Chris Holiday.  I don't think I've been there in the last two years where he wasn't there.  Must have gotten all the points he needed at the last race :)

Once again, Jody Flipse had the fast car in Late Model.  That thing is on rails.  I was able to hang with him in the first heat.  After that, I just didn't have much for him.  My car went from tight to wrecking loose as the night went on.  I managed second in the A, was even leading for a bit, but I had the third fastest car in race.  Late model is getting really competitive top to bottom.  Outside of a little beating and banging in one of the heats, the racing was fast, furious, and pretty forgiving.  

I'm going to try to get out Wednesday night and get some more practice in.  I can't figure out what went south with my ride.  It was so good in the first heat.  I turned 60 4min3sec, some 3.8 laps, which is about as fast as I've ever gone in LM. 

In Sprints, I just felt lucky to finish the main.  I didn't finish any of the heat races.   The first heat, I sheared the pin in my CVD.  In the second heat the switch on my car turned off when it got jarred going over the rumble strips.  I managed second, but only because the others had trouble.  I'm probably over-motored, but it felt so good on Wednesday.  I trued some tires so maybe I got something off.  I'll figure it out by next time.  I need to rebuild the diff too.  That might help.  It's probably as simple as "Big motors eat parts".  

The new Turn 1 Grandstands

The guy who really had it going on in Sprint was Leonard.  In only his second time out, he was dipping regularly below the 4 second plateau and had a car that looked like it could contend for the win if he could have kept it in the racing groove.  I don't know if he's hooked or not, but I would be if I ran that good.

I don't know how it happened.  I hit the wall and stuff just came flying off.

A couple of cars managed to launch themselves off of the track.  One was John Hoard's Late Model.  His throttle must have stuck or something as he flew off the end of the straight like he was trying to get there.  The other was a short course LM. That thing was spectacular.  Someone had video going I think. I'd be interested to see if it actually looked as cool as I thought it did.  

I think the thing that really helped me out this week was practice on Wednesday.  Three hours seems like a lot of time on Saturday.  It's not really though.  Once you get set up and going, you only cycle a few packs through before the heats.  I felt like I really had some decent cars to start the day, which is unusual for me.  I"m typically chasing both cars and throwing parts around trying to get them to work well. 

Street Stocks look fun with 7 on the track at the same time.

We got out of there by 10pm.  That's really nice.  It's Saturday night, so I really don't care, but it sure makes Sunday mornings feel a lot less like they did in college.  It didn't feel rushed and it didn't feel like we were just sitting around.  I would say it was the perfect pace.  A little time between rounds, not so much that you're sitting there thinking "let's race already". Just enough time to turn a few laps to check changes and test fixes.

There was also some fired up moments where a couple drivers and John got a little heated.  It's all good though.  If weren't there, you didn't miss any real drama.  Just a few tempers boiling over for a minute.  Needed a spectacular headline to get you to read the blog, so there you have it.

There are probably several good reasons besides math why I'm not an engineer.  This is one of them.

A couple guys have asked, so here's the deal for Monee (for me anyway).  Heading down Friday morning (January 18th), planning to get there by 10am.  Practice all day until 6pm because they are doing a 1/8th scale nitro race that night.  Back at the track by 8am on Saturday. Racing until whenever it's done, then driving home Saturday night.  This trip could easily be done in one day if your car is close on set up.  They say CW Silvers, 25's, and maybe Oranges work.  Setup shouldn't be too different from what we run but you'll probably need a taller gear. 220ish foot run line maybe?  I would also consider rebuilding your diff and checking your out drives.  Monee has a ton of bite.  Running mod is very hard on your transmission.

It's a fun track and and has been a good race in the past.  It's not a big national event, but it's a good race and a very cool track.  There's two hotels within 4 minutes of the track that are moderately priced.  I think the one we usually stay at is about $80 with taxes.  If you've got any questions about track prep, that would be the place to do it. Monee has been running for over 20 years.  They should know what they're doing by now.

That might be it for race days for me before the holiday.  I always try to get out, but last minute gift buying and holiday events that I probably should have known about come out of the woodwork this time of year.  I do plan to make it out on Wednesday or Thursday to practice as I have a couple of ideas to get my cars back into the mix.

Until next time....