August 15, 2015 – Saturday Night Races – Heat Win #7 – Finished 2nd

August 15, 2015 – Saturday Night Races – Heat Win #7 – Finished 2nd

Heats: Started 5th, Finished: 1st (of 9 cars)

Feature: Started 4th (of 18 cars), Finished 2nd (Finishing Order: 13, 51, 78, 88, 27, 6, 04, 77, 44, 98, 15, 66, 72, 49, 3, 2, 47, 20)

Comments:Another great day for races – mostly sunny and high 70’s with low humidity should make for some good power later in the evening when temps drop. Our goal this week is a simple one: to “suck less” than last week. Some would be happy with a 4th place finish, but we know that’s far from a good performance for the 51SK crew. We’ve got the car AND driver and should be performing at a higher level than we have lately. We made some pretty big chassis changes this week so it should be interesting to see if they result in better on-the-track performance. If they don’t, I’ll just dial them back out of the car.

5:13pm – So much for low humidity and cool temps (mid 80’s by mid day) – clear sky and muggy conditions made track very slow during practice. We had a small distributor issue that was quickly solved. Only 4 cars of 18 were turning laps in the 14.6’s – 88, 72, 13, 72 and 51. Starting 5th in our heat and it looks like it will be a challenge as our heat lineup is the 15, 98, 44, 72, 51, 6, 76, 27.

Heat race was pretty good as Rob was able to power to the front with some good clean moves down the back chute off turn 2 to take the lead. Care was pretty good – we can dial it in better. Feature lineup is going to be tough starting 4th as there is really no outside groove yet. Here’s the starting lineup:

04 – 72
13 – 15
78 – 6
98 – 88
27 – 3
15 – 47
98 – 66
44 – 49
20 – 3

8:52pm Feature was a battle. There was a long green flag run early in the race. Car was pretty good. First caution came with 22 laps to go and Rob restarted 3rd behind the 13 of Christopher who was in the lead and the 78 of Monahan who was in 2nd. Next caution came with 3 laps to go and the front row was the same, Rob was still in 3rd and the 88 of Rocco was on the outside in 4th. Just before caution, 72 got black flagged for overheating while running 3rd with Rob in 4th – in-car GoPro camera was picking up fluid on its lens and Rob was indicating the car suddenly was getting very loose (he didn’t know who, but it was the fluid being dropped by the 72). On the restart with 3 laps to go, Rob almost got a nose under the 13 in turn 2 when he moved up the track to protect the lead, but Rob couldn’t make it stick. We’re happy with the performance and will be looking for a better run next week.