Good and bad night of racing

What a night at the track. We took the car to Perris Speedway for the second shake down run preparing for next season. The track stayed smooth and tacky with the cool weather we had here in SoCal last night, perfect for racing, once the cars put a few laps on it. When Billy went out to hot lap, the car was looking good, but down on power. (New motor blues.) Ultimately we decided to go ahead and run anyway to shake down the chassis.

Billy went out for his heat race and ran it at full throttle around the track and got up to first after just three laps and was running strong until a late caution came out. Upon the restart the motor stumbled and he was passed, but was still able to finish in the second position. That gave us a starting position of tenth for the main event.

Going into the main event with 19 other cars we were hoping for a top five at best. As the cars came to the green flag it was a clean start for the first couple of laps and Billy was up to fifth when two cars got together coming out of turn four. At the restart Billy was able to split two cars and was in third position. Things were looking very positive at this point and another yellow flag was thrown. When the race restarted Billy had a couple of cars looking underneath trying to pass him, yet even with the motor not running at full song he was able to hold them off and move up to second when another yellow flag came out. Billy was able to get a better restart this time and the next few laps he was battling for first.

After working the first place car for three or four laps Billy came out of turn four side by side with the leader when the lead car came down on him, This caused Billy to spin into the back stretch wall nose first at an incredibly high speed. As the car slid both right and then left and back right again pointing the nose of the car towards the outside wall, the nose made contact with the wall and the third place car hit the right rear pushing him around causing the rear of the car to hit the wall sustaining damage to both ends. Once the car came to a stop the 18 cars behind had to go both high and low to avoid potential contact at full speed with a now damaged car sitting precariously in the middle of the back stretch. Thank God all the drivers made it around without any further contact. As bad as it was with the contact from the third place car, it most assuredly saved the car from hitting the wall much harder and rolling down the back stretch. I never did check to see where we finished, after the contact the car was parked for rest of the race.

Overall it was a good night out for the car, we were able to learn more about the chassis and its likes and dislikes as to the set up. The motor is still in need of some fine tuning to come up to speed for the 2008 season starting in March.

This coming weekend Billy Griffin will be driving the Fringer Motor Sports Super Late Model for a national race in Las Vegas. I will post an update as to how things go against 50 of the best racers here on the west coast.

One last thing, after spending 10 hours breathing the dust and smelling the racing fuel, that Double Double from In and Out Burger sure tasted good. Thanks Billy.