Weekly Update April 23, 2011

David taking the lead in the GazZu Energy, On The Run, Sun Drop #33 Chevy

Finally Mother Nature Cooperated At The Old Dominion Speedway And The 2011 NASCAR Late Model Season Got Underway.

First up on the schedule were three rounds of practice for the NASCAR Whelen All American Series Late Models, David and the team were anxious to get started in practice and fine tune the car for the nights events. The GazZu Energy, On The Run, Sun Drop Chevy was in the top five fastest cars in all three sessions, but more importantly David was very happy with the car and felt that it would qualify and race well.

At 5:00 PM it was time to line up for qualifying. David didn’t have a favorable draw, but the team came up with an idea of how to overcome the draw. After the qualifying session was over David had timed in second fastest just 4/100’s of a second off the pole speed, so the team’s idea paid off and David would be starting the 100 lap feature in the second spot.

David Started second in the feature and quickly took the lead going into the first turn, only to have the pole sitter wreck behind him. Since the wreck was before the first lap was complete, the race would have a complete restart. This put David back on the outside of the front row and moved the third place car up to the pole position. On the restart David was up to the task and once again, by the end of the first lap he took the lead. David was able to pull away from the rest of the pack quickly, Once out front he drove a good steady pace, just enough to stay in the lead. After a few quick cautions early in the race, the race got in to a long green flag run. By lap fifty, David had a about a half of a lap lead over second place. Just a few laps later there was a caution for a bad wreck right in front of David. He was able to miss the wreck, but the caution tightened the field back up.

On the restart, going in to the first turn, David realized that we had some kind of problem on the car when he pushed the brake pedal and it went to the floor. He was able to hold on to the lead for a few more laps, but with no brakes the car was a handful. As the race went on it became apparent that there were more problems then the brakes. The handling on the car went away and David had to slow his pace. He ended trying to run out the remaining laps of the race dropping back to seventh place. You could see the brake rotor glowing red and getting worse with each passing lap. Then with three laps to go the car finally broke. The problem ended up being a broken left front spindle which also caused the brake problem. Even without finishing the race David finished tenth overall. Most likely because of the pace he set early on in the race that put many cars several laps down. 

It was a tough end to an otherwise great day for the GazZu Energy, On The Run, Sun Drop Team. Not really the way the team wanted to start the season, but the car was fast and it was a faulty part the relegated the team to the tenth place finish.

The next race is in two weeks on 5/7/2011 at the Old Dominion Speedway and with the performance of David and the car, the team has a lot of confidence that they will rebound and come back to perform strong again.