On his first qualifying lap Drew ran a 12.66 and the second lap looked far better as the rev limiter hit hard on the middle of the back straightaway.  However this would upset the car entering turn 4 and lap two was not what we expected.  With all other qualifiers picking up around .2 on their second lap that could have been a pole or new track record but we had to settle for 4^th fastest with the top four witin .05 sec of each other.  Next time we pull the rev limiter chip and let Drew do his thing!!  An 8 pill was drawn which would put Drew in the 5^th starting position with the invert.

Drew fell in line in the fifth place at the start and would ride there for about twenty laps making a pass for fourth following the #11 Dick Dunlavy car.  Drew followed the #11 car for around 50 laps, all over him trying high and low to pass him but each time the #11 car would seem to know where Drew was going and block his every move (a sure sign the spotter was helping him drive a little).  Around lap 70 Drew and the .#11 car would move up one position as Harold Fair Jr. who was running 2^nd would drop out with mechanical problems.  On lap 76 the opportunity Drew was waiting patiently for opened when the #11 car slid up on the track between turn 3 and 4 and Drew stuck his car in the opening getting along side the #11 to make a pass for 2^nd.  At that point the #11 lost it spinning sideways, Drew caught his left front corner, they straightened out and who knows what happed next, but when the smoke cleared Drew’s #21 Aluma Trailers, Amsoil, Impact Racing race car was head on into the wall in front of the flag stand.  The front end was pretty well crushed in and water leaking from the radiator.  Our night was ended early but they new we were there!  Drew was FAST!  The car doesn’t look as bad as originally thought with no frame damage, but we need the radiator, front bumper assy, straighten out some stuff, new right fender, hood, both front fender extensions, rebuild the nose, duct to the radiator and we will be back in business.  We will however miss the Stan Perry Memorial $10,000 to win race at Angola Speedway on Thursday June 10 and the Ft. Wayne race the following Saturday June 12.  We will be ready for them at Columbus Speedway Saturday June 26^th for the next Main Event Racing Series points race.

Thanks a  bunch to our sponsors Aluma Aluminum Trailers, Elmer Schaeffer Amsoil Dealer, Impact Racing Safety Products, and Mid America Properties for their support!

Our first test at KilKare Speedway saw the new car take off very well, it showed signs of speed and Drew felt the handling was much more solid than last years car.  BUT, on lap 17 the bolts pulled out of the panhard bracket on the rear end causing about $800 in damaged parts and the end of our practice.  The following week we got it back together and tested again at KilKare Speedway very successfully, making small adjustments and getting some very good times, putting in around 45 laps and feeling real good about our first race at Angola the following week.

We tested again the night before our first race May 8^th at Angola, got 3 laps in and the oil pump on the motor froze up, ending our practice session and our hopes at making the first race and the chance to run for the Main Event Series Championship!  Bummer!  The motor was dead, a broken timing gear put us out, the motor was taken out and brought to Rhyne Competition Engines to be rebuilt in only 10 days!  We had no time to test any more, barely got the motor in the car in time to make the next race at Midvale on May29th.  With the late start getting the new car going and all the trouble we had with it and lack of sponsorship we had to cancel the Toledo ARCA race we had on our schedule for May 23.  We have also taken the ARCA race off the schedule at Iowa Speedway July 10 for the same reasons as well as no time to get a good shakedown of the ARCA car at Toledo before hitting 160 mph at Iowa.  We still are planning on racing the ARCA races at Mansfield and Toledo later in the year but Rockingham is most likely now off the schedule too.  The Main Event Series had had to cancel races at Mansfield and added one at Sandusky.

Midvale Race May 29

The weather was great, a bit hot at 85 degrees as we pulled in to the Midvale Speedway May 28^th at 5 pm to practice for the 75 lap Main Event Race number 2 the next day. We hit the track three times with the car running very good and times to reflect that with best laps in the 14.0 range.  Before we would hit the track one last time with a full fuel load dark clouds came up, we loaded the car, and a down pour got us a little wet.

Race day saw a “green” track and some tweaking of the setup as we were only 23^rd fastest out of 26 cars that first hot lap session.  Next time out we improved to 15^th fastest and the final test session scuffing in out new tires we were 7^th quick and back to our 14.0 speeds of the day before with some to go in the car as it was very loose now with a little more stagger in the new tires than we really wanted.  The pole last year was a 13.8 and we were confident we could have a shot at a front 6 or 8 start if we get the loose fixed.  Our first qualifying lap was a 14.1, the second lap saw Drew wiggle considerably off turn two with the same result!  We didn’t get the loose out of the car with the adjustment we made and ended up 15^th fast where we would start.

We made a right rear spring change and sent Drew out for the feature.  At the drop of the green flag Drew took it easy, there were a couple cautions before we finally got started single file.  Drew came over the radio “the car is perfect”!  He bided his time through several cautions moving up to around 10^th when the longer runs started.  This is a very heavy braking track and from the spotters stand I could see that the front brakes were cherry red and the rears were not!  A bad sign!  He also came across the radio saying the car was missing, which turned out to be a plug wire but kept Drew from driving as hard as he wanted.  Drew went high to make a pass as he thought it would stick, but found that by now with the brake situation he had more rear brake than he wanted and almost spun loosing about 4 positions on the track.  He adjusted his brakes to give more front and continued to survive and move up through the field to finish a very respectable 7^th behind Gary Whipkey, Don Harvey, Jr., Mike Miller, Jimmy Carter, Donnie Hill and Charlie Schultz, all very respectable and good drivers.  The really good news is Drew brought the new car home with just a very minor dent in the right rear quarter panel.  A good shakedown outing for the new car and a driver still a bit rusty in his first race of the season.  With a little improvement to the car we will be faster!

Now it is on to the third race of the season June 4^th at KilKare Speedway.

Thanks a bunch to our sponsors Aluma Aluminum Trailers, Amsoil and Dealer Elmer Schaeffer, Impact Racing Products, and Mid America Properties.  Without their support we could not be here!

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.