On the way to the track, Brain and I had a fairly long discussion about what we need to do to the car to make it faster, other than finding about 30 more horsepower. I think the car is handling fine. Comfortable and fast. If anything we just need to loosen it up on corner entry a tiny bit and it should be good.

After we got to the track, during the driver's meeting, the teams were set up for next weeks' Stock Car Challenge. I am teamed up with Jim Baartman, #08. Jim and I talked for a few minutes trying to decide if we are going to practice at all during the week or just wing it. We're gonna just wing it, 'cause work schedules won't cooperate. I think I am going to have to come up with a couple more guys to help, because Jim only has one guy. I have a couple in mind.

After the hot laps, Brandon and I went out to the flag stand and did the candy toss. That is always fun. In addition to the candy, I tossed out some coupons for the Cookie Jar. Hopefully they will get used.

Alright, back to racing. After the candy toss, I had to just swing around, put my stuff on and get ready for heat #1. For some reason, I got to start on the inside of row 2 this week instead of the usual 3rd row! I have #18D, Chris Goetz in front of me and Dave Beman, Jr., #7 right next to me. At the drop of the green, I immediately dove to the inside of Chris and down into turn one. Coming off of turn two, I was in the lead. As we went into turn 3, my car pushed like a dump truck and I came together with #3, Dusty Seitz. Lucky for me, he backed off and didn't take us out. Sorry, Dusty. I didn't know you were there. After that, it was hammer down. The car was tight, so I had to throw the car into the corner pretty hard, but when I did, I could just leave the peddle on the floor and the car would lean over pretty hard, dig in and pull like a rocket out of the corners. Going into turn 3 every lap was a challenge because the sun was at the perfect place where, I had to pretty much guess where the corner was! A couple time, I just about missed! Anyway, at lap 3 Dusty spun and brought out the first caution of the night. At this point, I was told I had nearly a quarter lap lead. On the restart, I jumped on the gas as early as I could to try to catch everyone off guard. The last 3 laps were smooth and fast and I won by 1.513 seconds. Maybe I should do the candy toss more often!!!

Before the feature, Brian and I were trying to figure out what he was going to do to the car to set it up for the feature. We weren't exactly sure what the track was going to do during the night, so we watched the Street Stocks, Sprints and the Hobby B before he decided what he wanted to do. After the intermission, I thought there was a Sprint B feature but there wasn't, so when the call came out to have the Hobbies line up, it was a bit of a scramble. I am starting in my usual 12th position. I think I have had this spot for the last 3 weeks now. At least I don't have to start on the inside. Green, Green, Green!!! Brian told me to drive it into the corners as high as I could. Going into turn 1, I did just that and damn near drove it off the track while trying to go around Beman! While I gathered the car up and got going again, I think I lost about 4 spots. Luckily the caution came out right away and we got to try it again. This time on the start I tried to get under Beman going into turn one. It didn't work and I had to settle back in behind him and try it again. In the mean time, I watched both the P8R and the 1 cars go by me like I was standing still! Not what I wanted to see. Now I really have my work cut out for me. For the first three laps the car was pretty loose. I was just trying to get what I could, which at that point wasn't much. Then the car came around on lap 4 and was sticking pretty good...but I was still stuck behind Beman. He can be pretty tough to get around. There were a couple cautions in the first five or six laps. On the restarts I would try to get around Beman on the outside, because the inside wasn't my friend tonight. Finally after about 4 laps, I got a big run on him coming out of turn 2 and shot by him on the outside and took the position going into 3. By that time there were only 3 or 4 laps to go. Dusty Seitz was the next in line. He wasn't giving up the top groove either, so on the last lap, I dove down to the very bottom to see if I could get it done down there like I have the last couple weeks. I gained a little coming out of 2 and nearly got beside him going into 3. Running through 3 and 4 on the bottom wasn't a good idea because there was no grip down there. I took the checkers in 8th place. No where near what I expected tonight considering the way the night started, but another top 10. Points wise, it was good and bad. I lost another 17 points to Shreurs, another 26 to Pater, but padded my lead over Waltner by 23.

After the races, Brian was beating himself up pretty badly thinking he was to blame for the less than stellar performance tonight. I think the car was about perfect when I could run where I wanted, but traffic was mostly to blame tonight.

3 weeks to go! Talk to you next week