Well, my first weekend of racing is about what I expected. Had our little glitches right off the bat. My crew chief unloaded the car and when he went to shut the car off, the ignition switch broke off. Not a very good start but we scrambled and got it fixed.

In the heat race, I started 6th of 9 and finished 5th even though we burned a spark plug wire with a lap and a half to go- literally - it was on fire when I came in the pits. Time to scramble and find a new wire. Got one!

Only the top 4 transferred to the a main, so its off to the B feature. I start 2nd next to last year's track champion and finish 2nd. On to the A main. I start dead last, 20th I think. Didn't have time to find out because the turn around time was too quick. Ended up finishing 13th on the night.

Can't complain because with no testing and tuning, we had no idea how this car was gonna work, since we changed quite a few things over the winter. In the first heat race, the car was pushing badly. We adjusted tire pressures for the B feature. Much better, but still a bit too tight. I just stayed behind the reigning track champion and learned his line around the track. He didn't pull away from me at all, which was a good sign. Learned a lot right there. Didn't try to beat him, although I nearly did out of the final turn on the last lap as he got slowed by lapped traffic.

In the A feature, starting last was tough, especially on the restarts. We have a restart kind of like the World of Outlaws where there is a traffic cone at the exit of turn 4 that everyone has to stay in line with no passing until you get past the cone. I ended up passing a few cars and some of them passed me.

Anyway, I learned a bunch on what I need to do the next time out. Being more aggressive -- not afraid to bump someone and drive a little different line through the corners. I have a bad habit of wanting to run low through the corners and that is not the fast way around this track. I am getting better though. A couple more nights in the car to get comfortable and run a better line along with a little more adjusting and we should have no trouble getting into the top ten, then hopefully in the top 5, etc.

All in all, not a bad first night. Didn't wreck or break anything major...only $9 for the starter switch and the plug wire we got was free. Still lost money for the night, but as the saying goes... "The quickest way to make a million dollars in racing is to start out with $5 million!"

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