2nd week of racing, 2nd week with damage
Seems like every time I make an entry on this site lately, I'm thanking Pat McNeal. Well, here goes again! Pat had me bring the car down his shop, the Sunday after the last race and he worked on it for almost 2 weeks. He made a lot of repairs and some new modifications. He even washed it and it sitting outside, already for me to pick up on Thursday.
Car ran good in hot laps. Started 6th in heat race and finished 4th. Could have been a little more aggressive and past 2 more cars for a 2nd place finish, but made no sense to push "it" in a heat race were all cars qualified and top 6 finishers had to redraw for starting spots. Car ran fantastic and I decided to change, nothing for the feature. Started 9th in feature. Got hit in the left rear tire, hard, entering turn 2 just as the caution flag was waving for a wreck in front of me. I thought the whole left rear of the car was caved in, but I never stopped and we drove around under caution for several laps while the safety crews clean up the track. The tire felt good and none of the officials were telling me, flat tire. The green flag flew for the restart and when I came out of turn 4 I knew the tire was completely flat, as the car became instantly hard to control. After returning to the pit area, I discovered that there was no body damage and only a flat tire. I quick ran up to watch my division race from the grandstands. After the race I returned to the pits to load my car on the trailer and look closer at the flat tire and left rear of car. A broken upper trailering arm allowed the rear axle to move in the frame and allowed the sheet metal to cut my tire. Damage is minimal this week, compared to last race. Should not have a problem replacing arm and get car ready for this coming Saturday. Second week of racing this year and 2nd week with race ending damage on 1st lap of feature.
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