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BRYDEN MOTORS AREA SPORTSMEN POINTS AS OF Aug 22, 2008

WASTED DAYS AND WASTED NIGHTS

 

August 22,2008 After a weekend thrash I thought we were ready.  Attending a conference in Milwaukee  until later Friday meant the car and everything was loaded  before I left Tuesday.  Tim was bringing the car to the track and DW took the night off.   As I left Milwaukee I called Tim to confirm he was on the way. I got his voicemail.   I arrived at the track just in time for practice. The car however had not arrived yet!

 

I would have been better off staying in Milwaukee because the car was junk, we were junk and the night was a waste of tires, gas and money.  It started with an engine miss and ended with a last place finish and a giant headache.

 

Starting on the front row of the heat we were able to hold on to a third place finish behind Mike Heelein and Scott Lawver.   We found a burned plug wire and the miss disappeared.

 

Our front row spot in the feature only meant it was a long way to the back of the pack as the car faded very quickly.  The track was slick again.  At one point I was in a position to challenge fellow rookie TJ Goldade when Darrell Garman spun in front of him and I got into his bumper.  He was giving me some kind of hand signal that wasn’t obvious but I figured he wasn’t happy about the contact. At that point I realized that passing him was more about my pride than points or pay so I decided to stay put and not risk further incidents.

 

After a few more laps I noticed my eyes were stinging and burning, then they started to water. It reminded me of tear-gas training.  I shut off the helmet blower and opened my visor.  It was better but still there.  At the end of the race I had a massive headache which I know from experience means I was getting a large dose of carbon monoxide.  

 

Our poor performance dropped us to third in the point standings, 12 behind Lawver.

 

We loaded up and went home. I was ill most of Saturday and later decided to look at the car.   The engine had the same miss but on a different cylinder!    We will be looking at that to try and get through the final week of the season this Friday.

 

Congratulations to Jay “Rockstar” Kalbus on winning the season championship. He has this place figured out and had a phenomenal year.