I had to take this weekend off to go to a family reunion in Kalispell, MT. God I miss the mountains!!! All was not wasted though. I did get to see the races at Flathead Valley's Raceway Park. It is a nice facility. I was impressed! I haven't been to a pavement race, other than Winston Cup races, in about 20 years. I think that I have been converted, having been around dirt tracks for the last 14 years. I think that racing on dirt is far more exciting than on pavement. How does that saying go..."It's not racing unless there's dirt in you beer!". Oh, by the way, it was nice to see the family again.

RACE DIARY ENTRY: 8/31/02
By Marty "Crash" Grilley

Championship night. This is it. The last points race of the year. The track looks great other than a rollercoaster dip in the middle of 1 and 2. The car felt really good during hot laps.

Tonight I am starting in my usual spot for the heat races...inside row 2. The reason I keep getting stuck there is because the lineups for the heat races are based on your nightly point average for the year. The lineups for the features are also loosely based on that principle. Green flag!!! We all dove into turn one and somehow, I don't know how, I got hooked together with the points leader and were stuck together for about 3 or 4 seconds. Greg Keppen and I lost a lot of ground to the rest of the field by the time we got loose from one another. The rest of the pack was nearly a full straight away ahead of us. Time to see what this car will do. By now I am in 7th and need to be in the top 4 to transfer to the A. Wow!!! This is, by far, the best this car has handled all year. For the first time I am able to hold the peddle to the floor all the way around the track without lifting. The motor is strong and I am hooked up! Thank you Jerry! Within 3 laps I have nearly caught the rest of the field again! On lap 4, someone turned the #51 of Mark Sanow and he is sitting in the middle of the groove in turn 2. I wasn't looking far enough ahead around the track, so by the time I saw him, I was about in the middle of 1 and 2. Thank God my brakes work! I hit the brakes and cranked it to the right just in time to get by him! Ok, I don't think I need new underwear...I should be Ok after the heart slows down a bit. With the naughty driver that turned Mark around being sent to the back of the pack for the restart, that puts me restarting 6th. I have to get around 2 more to transfer. Only 2 laps to go. Green flag! I immediately dive under one car and move up to 5th by the time we hit turn 1. For the last two laps, the front 4 are side by side and 3 abreast to the end and I couldn't do anything with any of them, so I end up 5th. The car is perfect, much better than my finishing position shows. On to the B feature.

We aren't changing a thing. As I said earlier, this is the best car I have had all year and I am starting on the pole for the B. Top 4 transfer and I don't see a problem with making the A from here. Green flag! We take off and I am in the lead for the first two laps until the first yellow flies. If I remember, this will be the first time I have ever had the lead on a restart. New thought process. How to handle the restart. Jerry has told me to run a slow pace and try to catch everyone else off guard. I also have to make sure to hug the restart cone in 4 so that no one else can dive under me. Green flag! Great restart...I did myself proud. Another lap goes by and another yellow. I get to bring the field around to the green again. Practice makes perfect. Same as before, slow pace and hug the cone. Green flag! Going into 1, here comes the 2EZ of Terry Bender flying by me on the inside! How did he do that? Yellow is out again. Now I know how he got under me...he took out the restart cone/marker, which is a no no. To the back he goes for an illegal start. Let's try the restart for the 3rd time. 3 laps to go. Green again. Things are going great. 2 to go and for some reason the car seems to be slowing down a little. Denton Potter, 28 and Greg Keppen, 13k get by me. No problem, I can still make the feature. Just hold on for another lap and a half and then fix the problem. Coming out of turn 2 I noticed the oil pressure had dropped to about 12 pounds...come on...hang on for another lap and a quarter. I dive into 3 and the oil pressure dropped to 4 or 5 pounds and before I got to turn 4, the car dies and there is smoke everywhere. I've never seen anywhere near this much smoke come out of this car before. This can't be good. I am still able to coast around the final lap and finish 7th out of 12. After coasting around another half lap and back into the pits, I can hardly see through the smoke. Looking under the car we noticed water and oil leaking out of a hole in the side of the oil pan by the starter. It looks as if our year is done. Let's load it up, get it home and pull it apart to see what kind of mayhem I have caused inside that motor.

I am happy and kind of bummed at the same time. We had a car that was finally hooked up perfectly, but the motor didn't last the night. The damage report and a year in review will be coming shortly when we determine what the problem was.

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