Another beautiful day for racing as 30 fine Outlaw Late Models were on hand to take a try at the $2500 first place prize. Drew and team had practiced a week earlier with a conventional setup on the car and came out satisfied with some times that would get them well into the show on 100 to 150 lap tires. Hot laps saw us trim another two tenths off our practice times and we thought we could be set for a top 5 qualifying spot. But, again we over corrected for a loose condition and ended up with a thirteenth place qualifying position. Better than it has been, but not where we want to be.

The tight Shady Bowl track saw lots and lots of cautions which Drew avoided passed a couple and came up with a tenth place finish, right on the tail of the next four cars, and faster in the race than results show. A full month now till the next race on September 4th at KilKare Speedway, a couple of appearances in between, so we will tidy up the body of the #21 Aluma Trailers, Amsoil, Impact Racing Products, Mid America Properties, Dodge Charger.

Bremen Fest Parade – 8/16/09

It’s always lots of fun to pull the race car through the parade at our local Bremenfest Celebration. Thanks to our local Western Ohio True Value Hardware Store for providing the awesome Simplicity Garden Tractor to pull the car with. WOW! Those things now have power steering, super comfortable seats, tilt steering wheels, and even cup holders. Drew loves to start up the car and roar the motor as we all have fun throwing out candy to the crowd of thousands. And of coarse the crowd loves the noise, egging Drew on everywhere, to make it roar!

Amsoil Appearance at Piqua O’Reilly Auto Parts – 8/29/09

With the Aluma Trailers, Amsoil, Impact Racing, Mid America Properteis Dodge Charger still showing it’s shiny new nose and hood, all polished up, it was off to the Piqua, Ohio O’Reilly Auto Parts Store to do a promotional appearance for our Amsoil sponsor and local dealer, Elmer Schaeffer, who has provided us with the super Amsoil lubricants and other products. You always meet some car enthusiasts at these events, and among them was Rick Monroe who is from Piqua and is the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Starter and Engine Tear Down Official. We had a very interesting conversation and now personally know a top NASCAR Official.

A Win Slips Away at KilKare – 9/4/09

The last run at KilKare for the Aluma Trailers, Amsoil, Mid America Properties, Impact Racing Dodge Charger was a good one with an 8th place qualifying effort which would start Drew in the 3rd position. If it wasn’t for a sputter from the motor on a restart putting Drew back to 17th with about 20 laps into the race, the 6th place finish might have been much better the way Drew was running.

Our goal was to improve on that finish, so we used the same basic setup since it was about as fast as the leaders. Qualifying would see Drew’s 12.69 second lap only .03 off the track record, but he was a bit out done by Mike Stacy who broke the track record with a 12.567 lap. Two other cars would better Drew as he would end up 4th in qualifying. That would start him in the fifth position with the invert and since the 8th place qualifier hit the wall hard on his first lap and could not start.

Drew would fall into the 4th position at the start and patiently ride there pursing the 3rd and 2nd place cars. They would get together on about lap 20 and the 3rd place car would have to go to the tail as he caused the spin. Whew, Drew just missed that one and now was in the third position. Within about ten laps Drew slipped under the second place car to take that position away. By this time the leader had checked out by a straightaway and Drew proceeded to run him down. It took Drew only a few laps to catch the leader, but passing him was another thing. Drew patiently followed the leader for nearly twenty laps with those two nose to tail a full straight away ahead of the field. That lead evaporated as several yellows came out but they would pull away from the third place car each time. Drew complained that the motor did not turn over well on the grid and it was obvious that the battery must be getting low as the motor started to miss at the end of the straight aways.

Another yellow fell on lap 72 with Drew still in second but the eventual winner had worked his way up to third and would get by Drew who said the car was noticeably starting to miss more. There was no holding the next two cars off as the motor was just too weak. Drew fell back to sixth where he would run until the yellow would fall again with 5 laps to go. The field bunched up and Drew would hold the car to the bottom of the track for the final 6 laps to hold off the rest of the field to finish in 6th.

A very encouraging race for Drew and the team but also let down in the fact that Drew was the class of the field, had been patient with the leader just waiting for him to make a mistake, or to make his move, only to have it erased with an alternator wire that came off allowing the battery to be almost completely dead at the end. To top it off, when we fueled the car for the next race we put 22 gallons of racing fuel in the 22 gallon fuel cell. It was completely dry; the motor would not start until we primed it. It would not have made one single additional lap on the track. Drew had gone 215 laps including all the green and yellow laps.

Shady Bowl Speedway – 9/6/09

The threat of rain was in the air tonight as Drew and team visited Shady Bowl Speedway for the third time this year. It was a non-points Labor Day Special with $2500 to win. Since Drew ran so well with the setup we had under the car at KilKare two nights ago we opted to leave that setup there. It worked well as we cut .3 of a second off our previous hot lap sessions at the track. We bolted on 3 new tires to scuff them in and put down a 12.99 second lap in hot laps. The pole for the last Main Event Series Race there was 12.89 so we thought we had a shot at it this time. Not to be as we should not have scuffed qualifying tires for this one. There was an oil down of the track and Drew would put down a 13.00 sec. lap, good enough for another 4th place qualifying run. The pill draw for the invert would be a roll of the dice and the invert came up 1, which set the field as they qualified. Drew would start outside row two.

Drew ran the outside for about 10 laps, the only car to do so, but there was no place for him to drop in line. Finally he got in line in 7th place. For some reason the car went very very loose entering, in the center and off the corner. On lap 16 there was a bad three car pile up between turn one and two and Drew threaded the needle to come out in 4th place. Drew decided he would try adjusting the brake bias and found that to be the cause of the extremely loose condition, he had to make a 12 turn adjustment. The car took off like a rocket!! The third place car fell out with mechanical problems which would put Drew a straightaway behind the second place car of veteran Late Model Driver Bud Perry. He would take no time to run him down only to loose it as they caught lap traffic. Again Drew would run the #10 car down and again they would hit lap traffic and Drew would loose ground. Finally with two laps to go Drew would be all over the second place car but would run out of time to set him up for the pass as the checkered flag would fall for a season record 3rd place finish.

Our next race is the season finale at Columbus Motor Speedway in Columbus, Ohio. It is a $6000 to win, $1000 to start two day show September 26 & 27. The top four cars in series points are in the show no matter where they qualify, the next ten are in on qualifying time, the next 6 come from 3 heats, two from each. And the final 6 will qualify through last chance races. Officials are expecting over 40 of the best Outlaw Late Model teams from the central part of the country.

Our next appearance will be at the Minster, Ohio Octoberfest parade and car show October 4th.

A very special thanks to Aluma Trailers, Elmer Scheiffer Amsoil Dealer and Impact Racing Products. Without the support of our super sponsors we couldn’t have come this far!

For more information call Andy Charlson at 419-305-3772.