Smoke Hound

 Well, a couple of good things. Got a lot of compliments on the car and the weather was great. Also the race track got rained out on Friday night, so the track was in excellent condition, all night. Plus I drew the #1 starting spot for my heat race. I started 1st and lead the whole race, to finish   1st. Car ran great, plenty of power and handled well, with only a slight "push" on exit of the corner.

 Then the bad, well, top 6 finishers of both heat races had to draw for starting positions in the feature. I drew 1st and picked #12, the worst of all possible picks. Starting 12th, we got the green flag, went into 1+2, down the back stretch, everything is OK, pack is really tight, I believe I had some help, but the car spun in turn 3. Now the ugly. With the rest of the pack now driving at me, cars are making all kinds of evasive moves to avoid hitting my car, that is parked sideways on the track. "Little" Pat with a head of steam, tried to avoid hitting me and tried to dive below me, but hit the front of my car with the right rear of his car. We were both removed from the track on tow trucks. I lost the front bumper, nose piece, radiator, bent the frame on right front, hood slightly damaged and numerous braces and bars bent. Pat ripped a rear trailering arm out and bent his rear axle housing. We both had a lot of work, just to put the cars on the trailers.

 We don't race this coming Saturday, so I got 2 weeks to make repairs and try it again.

 Well, Opening Night should have been 2 weeks ago, but the weather caused both races to be cancelled. The car is loaded on the trailer and I'm ready to go, I hope! I believe I have checked everything and loaded everything I may need in the trailer and my truck. Just waiting nervously waiting for 3 pm to head up to Williams Grove Speedway.

 Trying to figure out how to change picture on top of this page. That was my car 3 years ago. New car for this year looks really nice. Check out picture page.

 OK, need more time to upload pics. Pics are in wrong format and I can't do it now, maybe tomorrow.(Sunday)

 First of all, I can't even put into words how thankful I am of all the time and hard work Pat McNeal has put into my car!!! I wasn't planning on racing in 2012 and if I did, it would be 1/2 way through the season before I made it onto the track. Pat worked on my car for over a week in the daytime + at night, fabricating, welding, just about everything, finishing my new car up.

 We took the car to Susky tonight to test it out and had clutch problems after entering the track. I take full responsibility for the clutch. After a couple of failed attempts to get the car to go, we finally disconnected the throwout bearing, started the car in high gear and was able to drive around the track a few laps. Engine ran good and car seemed to handle ok, just couldn't get any power to the track, due to clutch slipping so bad. Know the problem now, with the help of Larry Miller at Miller's Racing Parts and have a game plan on how to fix it before Saturday night's Opening Night at Williams Grove Speedway.

 The car is finally coming together. Been super busy this whole year. My son-in-law with the brain tumor has definetly changed the way my whole family spends their time, but very happy to say he is improving. I was not planing on racing my car at all this season or at least a very late start but with a lot of help from "big" Pat McNeal, if I don't make opening day, I should be ready the following week.