Weekly Update 5/7/11

David Making Laps During Practice

Once again David was amongst the fastest cars during the three rounds of practice this past Saturday. This was the first two tire night of the season so we bought two practice tires to go with two used tires that had 100 laps each on them. We had the same combination of tires for the race and it was a good way to get a good feel for how the car would be in the race. David was the fastest car in the first practice and was in the top five in the second and third practices. 

When it came time to qualify the track officials decided to go to a new format which took getting a bad draw out of the mix. Now each car lines up and goes out on cold tires, they each get three laps and the best lap is their qualifying time. It used to be eight to twelve cars would get six scuff laps and then wait their turn to go out, which gave the first few cars out a huge advantage over the later cars out. The new way of qualifying makes it much more equal. David was the last car to time trial and ended up timing in fourth quickest and after the invert he would start the 75 lap feature in fourth.

75 Laps of Tight Racing

On the initial start of the race David ended up racing door handle to door handle with the third place car until David got around him to complete the pass on lap five. At this point he closed in on the second place car within just a few laps. David and the second place car raced in very close formation for several laps. As the race was getting into the closing laps, the fourth place car got back in to the mix making it pretty exciting to watch. There was some contact going back and fourth between all three cars and everyone did a great job hanging on and not crashing, probably a real crowd pleaser but tough watching being the car owner/crew chief. At the finish line David ended up in third. It’s a good solid finish which feels good after the part failure on opening night, so we’ll take the third place finish and head back to the track next weekend and go after it again. 

Tornados 100

Powered by On The Run

Next on the schedule at Old Dominion Speedway is the Tornados 100 Powered by On The Run. Joe Murphy from On The Run was instrumental in coordinating this event with Old Dominion Speedway. On The Run and Tornados have added to the normal 100 lap purse and that should bring more cars to the track and make for a very exciting night.   

Come on out and see David and his GazZu Energy, On The Run, Sun Drop Chevy crew as the try to bring home their first win of the 2011 season. Qualifying starts at 5pm and racing starts at 7pm.