There's moments in your life where you question what it is you are doing. Luckily, for me anyways, this wasn't one of them. 🤣
Let's back up a bit. We headed to South Sound Speedway last Saturday for race #10 of the Vintage Modified season. We had high hopes that maybe we've stumbled upon something that works with our setup, and luckily the car fired off pretty good. We also felt like maybe we knew what adjustments the car was asking for as well. Practice saw us firmly in the top-5, and qualifying backed that up. I thought we had qualified 3rd, but looking at timing and scoring on the internet later shows that we were 4th. 2nd through 5th were all separated by 7/100ths of a second. I've said before that this class is no joke, don't sleep on the Vintage Modifieds at South Sound Speedway, it's some of the best racing you'll see anywhere.
There was no Trophy Dash this day, because the Speedway had 5 classes running and when they run 5 classes they skip dashes and go straight to Heat Races. Kind of a bummer because we would have been on the pole for the dash. Oh well, let's get to the gettin'. Lining up for the Heat Race we would start inside row two, so third of six cars. We did make the fast heat, which is good. And we were also fast enough to matter, which is extra good. After the green flew I went to work just trying to follow Fulmer in the 75, who started on pole. Bob is fast so I had some assurances he would take the lead and I could just follow him under the outside line. That high side is a tough row to hoe, unless you're Dominic, then you just blaze by everyone on the outside. Some day I'll figure out his secret! 🙄😕😒
I think I thumped Bob in the rear a few times. It seems my corner entry was much deeper than his on this day, so for that I apologize. But it was also go time. 😁 I'm not sure if it was lap two or three, but I was working my way by Eric Lee in the 18L. I pulled him off turn two down the backstretch to a pint where I could no longer see him beside me and I set my car into turn three trying to run down Bob. Then I felt a massive thump from behind and my spotter started saying "Caution, the 18 is in the wall..."
I'll be honest here, I have no clue what happened. I set my car in the corner and suddenly the yellow flag was out. I lost sight of Eric to my right well before the middle of the backstretch, so from my seat I was well ahead of him before we entered the corner. I set my car in like I normally would, leaving room on my outside just in case. Eric's version of the story is that I slammed into his door and shoved him in the wall. I don't know how I could have done that when he wasn't up alongside of me. If our tires contacted, that's one thing. But there's no way I slammed him in the door. He simply wasn't up that far, I don't care what he says. Also, it's racing. I'm not out there trying to stuff someone in the wall on purpose....ever. I don't force someone off the track just to keep them from passing me. And to top it off, I don't have a mirror in my car, so there's no way I could look up and see where he is to "block" him, because I literally can't see back there. I reply on my spotter to tell me who is alongside me, and he does a great job....when someone is alongside me. In this moment my spotter had said "Clear" while we were still entering turn three, which seemed in line with the fact that I had lost sight of him on the backstraight. Is it possible Eric dove into turn three extra deep? Sure. But even at that, I felt I left room out there.
After the caution we went back to racing and I managed to make a move around Bob to take the lead with one lap left and go on to win this Heat Race. I needed it, and the crew needed it. Again, I now it's just a Heat Race, but moral is a thing, for everyone.
Now, this is where things started getting crazy. I had several different people tell me that Eric told them he was going to wreck me in the Main Event for wrecking him. Eric is very adamant on Facebook that he never said that to anyone. But I'm here to tell you, I had more than one person tell me this. My mamma told me a long time ago "If there's more than one person saying the same thing, they can't all be lying." 🤷♂️
As my typical luck would have it, I was lined up to the outside of Eric for the Main Event, giving him the perfect opportunity if I tried to actually make a pass. I kind of knew what was coming, so when the green flag flew I just sort of lifted off a bit and sure enough, he came off turn four and drove straight up to the wall in front of me. Yup, saw that coming. Whatever, I'll sort it out later. I fell in behind him and ran down the backstretch headed into turn three. I set my car in a bit to his outside going into turn three thinking "Well, let's see if he will leave me space out here." Then everything went bonkers. A couple cars spun up in front of us and Eric made an evasive maneuver to avoid them. Right at the same time that he made that move, he got absolutely blasted from behind by another driver who didn't get slowed up in time, which shoved him right up in front of me. My car launched off his right rear tire, sending me straight up in the air. There was a point where I was literally looking at just sky, I lost sight of the racing surface completely. in my mind, I was visualizing the car coming down on top of the wall and ripping the fence down.
It's a crazy moment and you really don't know how you will process it until you're in it. I honestly don't think you do process it, I think your mind just takes over and you start acting on instinct. Luckily the car came down, very hard, on the racing surface short of the wall and somehow I flicked it to the left and parked it just short of the wall. Don't ask me how, it just happened. So I fired it back up and drove off to rejoin the rest of the field. Now, I've had some people ask me "Do you think Eric did that on purpose for retaliation from the heat race?" No, absolutely not. I have the video that clearly shows him just getting blasted from behind the moment before he ended up in front of me. It's just my continual dumb luck. Every time I have a fast car, these things just have to happen. 😒
When we went back to racing after the restart, the car was just absolute junk. I've never driven a car that loose, all you had to do was think about stepping on the gas pedal and the car would just jump sideways. I really didn't even think about the fact that I had the entire car four feet off the ground, in my mind I was just totally confused on how we missed the setup that badly, how did we get so far off? I soldiered on with my insanely loose car trying my best just to do anything at all with it. It was fast enough to keep up with a couple guys, but not fast enough to do anything but follow them. In the end, we came home 9th out of 11 cars and I sat behind that 18L car the entire race. But I did everything I could to not even touch him, even if it meant getting on the brakes way too early going in the corners. Not a great run at all but I guess I'll just lick my wounds and carry on.
At least I could see Logan Cole in the 3 car, only two spots ahead of me. So that was good.
After the race was over we started assessing damage, and honestly it's a wonder we even finished that race at all. The damage from the lap one flying incident had completely destroyed the left front shock, it ripped the sway bar mount out of the left frame rail and the right control arm, so the sway bar was just dangling there doing nothing. It knocked the rear end out of square, it knocked the toe out and the radiator was completely out of the mount, laying on the front bumper. Oh, and my radiator fan was MIA. 😕 That doesn't mention any of the body damage, bumper damage or nerf bar damage. We've got a huge pile of work in front of us, and only one weekend to do it all. So this is going to be a rough turn-around before our next race. It's the late-season push, and it's turning into a pretty major push.