Twin 100 Lappers at Southern National Motorsports Park

Southern National Motorsports Park

Practice

David and the Moon crew fresh off a win at Shenandoah
Speedway, were excited to get back to the high banks at Southern National.  They worked all day Friday and Saturday to
find speed in the Circle K/On the Run 33 car.
They struggled and David thought the car handled decent, but didnt have
the speed they needed.  Even with new
tires they weren’t satisfied, so the crew worked very hard to make adjustments
during pit stops, as David worked hard trying to diagnose the handling
situation.  After not finding anything to
help, they made an educated guess, and made some whole sale front end changes
for qualifying.

The 33 machine ready to roll!

Qualifying

With a fresh set of tires and a big adjustment, David went
out for qualifying.  David sat on the
pole for 4 cars but then the big bullets came up. The top 2 late models in
points nationally were there as usual, and most of the top ten were also. David
held on strong in qualifying, eventually fell to 7th, which is still an
outstanding run. He was only a tenth of a second off the pole, after a big
change in the race car.

The first 100 Lap
Feature!!

David started on the inside row 4, in the 7th starting spot,
ready to go for another win in the 33 Gazzu Energy machine.  David felt strongly about his car and started
his march to the front, he moved into 6th, and started working on 5th early in
the race.  There were many changes in
position as David battled with the top cars in the nation.  The car wasn’t as strong as David had hoped
for but the top 7 cars all ran under a blanket.
David could see the leaders for most of the first 100 lap event.  With many cautions late in the race, David
shuffled position between 5th and 7th.
The final restart put David on the outside lane, giving him an
opportunity to gain or lose positions quickly.
Unfortunately his car wasn’t strong enough  on the restart to hold Lee Pulliam off, last
years national champion, but he fell in behind him.  After David had held him off most of the
race, he now had to work on passing him back.  He was bumper to bumper but couldn’t stick the
car on the inside to complete a pass. They equaled out and David almost had
passed one other car with a few to go, but once again couldn’t complete it
because of the tight condition he had. He ended the race in 7th, hoping for an
invert to the pole for the second race.

The second 100 Lap Feature!!

David started once again from the 7th position, since the
pill pulled for the invert only included the top 6 unluckily for him. This time
the crew had made yet another large change to the front end of the car to give
him the ability to pass cars on the inside better. It worked well and David
started picking off cars after the drop of the green flag.  He moved up to fifth when a one car wreck in
front, moved him into the top 4, in the first ten laps of the race.  David began working on the reigning track
champ for the 3rd position.  David was
sitting fourth with second and third place both less then two car lengths off
the nose of his Late Model.  He made
moves on the two cars in front of him but could not get a good enough run to
complete a pass.  The car was much
improved from the first event, but David still looked for just a little bit
more to compete for the win.  He played
with brake bias, and his radiator fan which turned out to be in operative, to
try to help his machine get better forward drive off the corners.  Most of the race went green flag, the few
cautions that ensued David held off the cars behind him, and the entire top
four pulled away by a straightaway.
David almost took the podium finish away from the eventual 3rd place
driver in the late laps, but with lap traffic he couldn’t quite make the pass,
and the checkered flag flew. The entire top four finished within a short
straightaway of each other.  After the
fourth place finish David’s excited to go back to SNMP to compete for a win
against the top cars in the USA.

The view from the bleachers before all the racers arrived.

David and the team
are currently looking for more financial support to be able to go back and make
a win happen! To race against the best you have to bring the best, and the
research and development phase for David Polenz Racing has been costly to do
so.  If you would like to sponsor the 33
machine, to help David get back to the track, please contact us at
polenzmotorsports@hotmail.com or jeff@polenzmotorsports.com. Thanks everyone!

Look for to the minute race day updates on David’s profiles
at www.Facebook.com/davidpolenz33,www.twitter.com/davidpolenz33,
andwww.instagram.com/davidpolenz33.  See
you at the track!