We attempted Drew’s first ARCA race, the Speed Channel televised Federated Car Care 200 at Toledo Speedway October 15 & 16. We had to test the waters some time, so we opted to go for it! We tested the week before and had a fair run and decided to do it. We put one of those big Aluma decals on the hood of the car, and a smaller one on each quarter panel along with an Amsoil sticker on the trunk. Thanks to our sponsors help, without it we wouldn’t be here! They had a real nice autograph signing session a couple hours before the race where a few thousand fans were able to get in line and meet all the drivers. Drew gave a good interview, signed hundreds of his “hero cards”, and handed out a stack of Aluma brochures.
In practice Saturday the #20 Aluma Aluminum Trailers, Amsoil Dodge Charger was pretty tight in the center of the corner (wouldn’t turn). We thought we had it worked out and sent Drew out to Qualify. He qualified 19th out of 43 cars in attendance, .2 second better than we had practiced earlier in the day. The car was much better and we were confident that it would race good.
It was a very rainy day Sunday and the race was delayed a couple hours. Once the rains quit, ARCA targeted a 4:00 pm start time but the jet drier they borrowed from Iowa Speedway ran out of fuel two times while it was drying the track so they left it up to us racers to finish the drying. They went green and yellow to start the race and ran 41 laps under the caution flag before turning it to green when the track still had some moisture in it. That wetness was not good and caused a wreck on the first lap behind Drew. After a single file restart Drew settled in around the 20th position. Others had started to make pit stops about lap 110 but we had decided to take the strategy of one pit stop around lap 150 for right side tires and fuel to keep track position.
At about lap 120 Drew had a right front tire go down at 130 mph and nearly hit the wall. He pulled the car to a stop just a few feet from the wall, saved it without a scratch and took off slow with the tire completely flat now not wanting to cause damage to the car. Drew could not pull the car to the bottom of the track since there were over 30 cars left on the track at speed under him and no yellow flag came out. Finally with Drew slow on the front stretch, the yellow flag came out after he lost two or three laps and he was able to pull into the pits for right side tires and fuel. To our amazement, the ARCA official in our pit area held him for a five lap penalty!! So, now rather than going two or three laps down, Drew would be 8 laps down from this incident. We would later get an explanation that Drew caused the yellow by stopping on the track and that is why he got the five lap penalty! Well, that spoiled our race completely! Then to add to that, ARCA allowed very slow cars to stay on the track after saying in the Driver Meeting that if cars could not maintain minimum speed, they would be pulled in. Drew was caught up behind those cars for about 45 laps and could go no where! Finally about lap 175 Drew was at the head of the lap down line of cars and could take off and blend in with the lead lap top ten cars and he could run with them, verifying that had a fast enough car to run with these guys and be on the lead lap if we would not have had that tire go down.
So, at the end of the race Drew was still 8 laps down but he was able to keep with the lead pack and maintain, not going any more laps down. That tire going down somehow caused the car to go tight in the middle of the corner again, so we have a little work to do. Drew brought the car home with just a minor dent in the right front fender from hard racing on the track. This was a good test of TV time races for us too. It looks like we need to work with the Aluma graphics to make it stand out more on TV. We will work up some prototype decals with them using the same logo but more bright colors so the Aluma stands out more! We want good TV coverage for that Daytona race!
At the end of the day, if we would not have had that blown tire on the right front along with that nonsense penalty, we could have been on the lead lap with a top ten or fifteenth place finish. Cars we were running very well with at the end of the race finished in the top ten.

Updated Future Plans
We have purchased an FLF Outlaw Late Model race car to compete in the Main Event Series races. This race car won 5 out of six races in 2010 with Mike Stacy driving. This will give us the opportunity to have a “big” motor (close to 800 horse power) car for the tracks that require lots of horsepower and a “little” motor (close to 600 horse power) car for the short tracks that don’t take so much power. We hope to be championship contenders again. We are also currently in negotiations with Richard Childress Racing to purchase one Daytona/Talladega car and one down force short/intermediate track car. These Chevy Impala race cars are the ones that brought Ty Dillon to the ARCA Championship last year. The super speedway car sat on the pole last year at Daytona and Talladega and won the Talladega race. The down force car sat on the pole at Iowa Speedway and won the race this year. We have our Super Speedway Chevy Monte Carlo and our two Dodge Chargers up for sale. Our plans at this time are to run 10 to 12 Outlaw Late Model Races next year and 5 televised ARCA races including Daytona, Talladega, Iowa, Chicago, and Kansas. The schedule is open to change and all depends on sponsorship. More races are possible if sponsorship allows.

Thanks to Aluma for their help providing us with this awesome trailer, thanks to Elmer Schaeffer Amsoil Dealer and Amsoil for their terrific lubricants, and thanks to all of the fans that come out to see and support Drew!

For more information contact
Andrew Charlson
cell phone 419-305-3772
acharlson2@yahoo.com
or www.drewcharlson.com