First two races of the season
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Well, it's amazing we were able to run the last two weekends with the weather the way it's been! Practice night at Knoxville on April 22nd was postponed to the 29th due to rain.
On Saturday the 23rd, we traveled to 34 raceway in Burlington, IA to run our first 410 race of the season. The night started and ended well but we had to fight through a few rain delays to get there. We were 19th quick out of 39 in qualifying, waited through the first rain delay and finished third in our heat race. We sat through another rain delay while the stock cars were out, and another delay right as the we were going out on the track for the feature. We started 13th, made some nice laps and finished up 13th in the 30 lap feature. We didn't hang around long after that for fear of the motor home and trailer getting stuck in the mud.
This Friday, the 29th, we headed to Knoxville for the make-up practice night. It was very windy, but thankfully we had clear skies. The weather forecast for Saturday seemed like it was an almost sure cancellation, but when we woke up it was gorgeous! Saturday morning we got the car ready for the Knoxville Season Opener. We spent the afternoon going through the Knoxville Hall of Fame and celebrating Austin's 27th birthday.
We started the night off right by running 4th quickest in hot laps. We drew first on qualifying and didn't a great time and started on the pole in the heat race. We ended up eighth which started us seventh in the B Main with 6 to transfer to the A. We had a pretty good run and finished fourth, advancing to spot 22 of 23 in the feature. With 2 laps to go we were in 16th when another car drove over the left front and nose wing going for the position in turn two. We spun and did a full 360 but Austin did a great job coming out of it and managed to keep going and not hit the wall. We lost two positions in the incident and finished 18th. It was a good night overall, just taking advantage of all the laps we can get!
Next week we're off for a wedding, but we'll see you the 14th at Knoxville again!
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