July 3 - In the heat race, Jacob slides up the track of turn 1 and 2 into the side of another car.  At that point, they were fine - just good, hard racing and as they came around, I knew they were doing ok and would exit turn 2 fine.  I was taking pictures and next thing I knew, there was a third car sliding hard into Jacob.  Jacob was the sandwich in the middle.  He was hit hard enough that the three cars got hooked up together and stopped.  Once they were unhooked, Jacob had lost his front clip, a tire almost cut down and later, we would learn, the tie rod was bent.  Going in to the feature, he was struggling with the car and finished 5th - his worst finish of the year.  Maybe that will help us out though.  They invert the field based on point average - not points standings.  Therefore, Jacob has to start every race in the back row.  On "80 - ONE lane - speedway," that can get to be frustrating!

July 4 - Matthew finished second in his heat race at Minneapolis so, yeah, it is straight to the A-Feature.  It was not a typical night really.  Minnie had gotten 3.5" rain, so the track had water coming up from the bottom chunking out the track.  By the end of the night, the turns looked like stair steps and you could see how rough it was as the cars hopped hitting the huge ruts.  Maybe this kept everyone held down a bit as there were less problems than we usually see.  Matthew finished 4th which was fantastic after starting in the back.  He missed a couple of races there so even though he finished 2nd in the heat, he was in the back.  More importantly, not any new damage to the car.  Oh - and the fireworks show lived up to its hype.  Grandma Effie, Grandpa Brandt, Rich, I and the boys were all ready to leave by the end as it was a very long show but very impressive.  I wish I had the money from the fireworks to put to the race car though!

July 5 - Colby looked more like Minnie with a lot of beating, banging, spinning out, and wrecks than usually.  Matthew somehow avoided three big ones in his feature.  Even though he finished 2nd in this heat race, he was again in the back for the feature.  One of the cars didn't even finish his heat race and was ahead of Matthew in the feature.  Several of the drivers were questionning the line-up.  Of course, three nights in a row seeing the boys start in the back of every race was a bit frustrating.  But, he moved all the way to a 4th place finish!  Couldn't gain any more ground as he was giving it all the car had.  We met some new friends in the stands and in the pits.  Matthew was invited for ice cream, but we had to drive on home.  Maybe next time. Yes, there is more to the story but I won't go there. 

Next week, 81 Speedway is back for Thursday night (at least two more as the latest schedule shows).  Friday at WaKeeney and Saturday at Hays!  Looking forward to a great weekend at our "home" tracks!