Well here we go again! Finally back to a full race schedule as opposed to the very limited schedule that I have been running the last 2 years. Well, I will race as long as the money lasts anyway!

After last minute scrambling to get the car ready to race (do I do it any other way?!?!?), I loaded up and headed for the track about an hour later than I originally planned. I did get set up and ready to race on time, but as I hopped in the car to run hot laps, I pushed in the clutch pedal and felt and hear a pop! Then no clutch. Not a good way to start the year, especially since I had my wife and two boys, my brother and sister in law and a couple sponsors in the stands.

It turned out that I had broken the bolt that connects the slave cylinder for my clutch, and the clutch fork. I ran around the pits looking for someone who had a spare that I could use. The parts trailer didn't have any, so I asked just about everyone I knew that might have something to get my clutch fixed. Turns out that Tim Waltner, who was pitted right next to me had a spare. He also climbed under my car and helped me get it fixed. A big thank you, Tim! Anyway, I got it working again just in time to climb in and head out for my heat race. Thank God that I was in the second heat or I would not have made it. With no hot laps and having to my first lap on the track this year be at full speed, was going to interesting. I'm just glad I keep set up notes so that I can have a pretty good idea where my car needs to be set up for various track conditions.

I started 6th out of 7 cars in the heat race and by the second lap, I had moved up to 4th. After that, it was pretty much follow the leader. The car was handling alright, but just didn't seem to be up to snuff. It seemed a bit sluggish. I finished 4th and was OK with that. At least I transferred directly to the A. I have to say that because we actually had a B feature, something we never had last year. Car count seems to be up quite a bit this year. I think we had 24 cars tonight.

In the feature, I started 3rd. By the end of the first lap, I had passed Joe Lee (06) and moved into second. The first caution came out on lap 2. Getting ready for the restart, I noticed that my carburetor was loading up. The green came out and Randy Haberer (409) took off. Since my carb was loading up, my car didn't clear itself and really take off until the flag stand. By then Randy had a pretty good lead. We ran about 3 laps and then I started catching the leader a little. A couple laps later, Greg Edan (38) tried to pass me on the inside going through 1 and 2 and spun himself out. That brought out caution #2. The same problem with my carb loading up was still there. I tried to anticipate the green a little better so that I could try to keep up with Randy a little better until my car got going again. Pretty much the same results. 2 laps later another caution came out. Another restart, same thing, although Randy didn't get as big of a lead on me as he had before. We ran about 3 laps and I saw last years Hobby Champion, Jeremiah Bethke (#33), stick his nose under me in turns 1 and 2 and again in 3 and 4, so I decided it was time to do some defensive driving. I dove down to the bottom of 1 and 2 to basically block him and take that line away from him. Jeremiah tried to get by me on top and by the time we got back to the flag stand, another yellow had come out. He must have cut down a tire, because he pulled in during that caution. The final green flag flew and my carb problems continued. I just kind of resigned myself to trying to hold on to second. Once we got going, at this point in the race, I had nothing for Randy. As a matter of fact, he was pulling away from me. As I saw in video of the race later, last years runner up in points, Don Brady (#73) was behind me and losing ground. The last 5 laps were all green and I finished second! That tied my best A feature finish.

All in all, considering the way the night started, it ended up being a pretty good night. During the following week, I took the carb apart and cleaned it all up and put it back together. I did find that the base plate had come loose from the middle section of the carb and was just wobbling around. That can't be a good thing.

What did I learn tonight? I learned that the changes that I made to my engine have made a very noticeable difference in the power, even though it still wasn't running right. This is a good thing! Let's see what it will do next week…if I get the gremlins under control.

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