Just a Fun Week!
August 5 - Wednesday night race held at RPM Speedway in Hays because NASCAR veteran Kenny Schrader is racing his modified there. We park where we always park and it is beside Kenny's rig. Rig probably doesn't really describe it. When the back trailer door drops, the first thing we see is the built in gift shop display and then the 4-wheelers and tool boxes emerge. It was fun to watch the show around him - the VIP meet and greets and the fans wanting pictures and autographs. I would guess there was close to 4,000 people at the races that night.
Matthew won his heat race and it was fun to hear everyone cheering for him. Of course, on the redraw, the kid just has no luck and again starts mid-pack in the feature. He really had his work cut out for him as he worked his way to 4th place. There were plenty of wrecks along the way he had to avoid. Well, he couldn't avoid all of them. He did hit a guy that spun in front of him but he recovered and kept going. Later, we learned there was a lot more damage than we could see from the stands. But, our collision engineer had a good design. The bumper got shoved into the cage around the radiator. Another wreck would have pushed it through. After the race, Matthew had a discussion with his collision engineer about some redesign to make it stronger. The collision engineer pointed out he shouldn't be in another wreck in the same wreck. It was some fun pit banter between father and son. These are the nights I love.
Matthew drove hard and tried different lines, but ran out of laps before he could gain any more positions. I can still picture him driving three wide down the front stretch and the car in the middle was a sandwich as the two men and my son battle it out. The guy in the middle lost and spun as the two outside cars lurched forward into turn one. Words don't describe it. All I can say is it was exciting for all of us. Our goal was a top 5. It is good to be in post-tech and the 4th place finish was great.
August 6 - Matthew gets a text from a friend that he is on the cover of the newspaper. Walking in the grocery store it was fun to see on the front page of The Times Sentinel are Matthew's and Jacob's pictures in the newsstand . "Local brothers enjoy racing success" is the lead title for the Clearwater news section. It is a good article which starts off on how Jacob got an interesting hand-be down from his brother. The article and pictures take up over half a page. It is a good summary of the boys' racing so far.
Of course, the stats quoted are already out of date as Matthew has moved to tenth in the Nation in IMCA points. His goal is to try to finish in the top ten. In regional points, Matthew is currently 5th and in state points he is in 2nd place. We don't expect those positions to change in the remaining few weeks of the season. Or I should say we hope they don't change as at this level of competition, this would be an impressive finish for his second year in IMCA.
August 8 - Back to Minneapolis for the first time in a while. Having missed some races there in order to run at other tracks means Matthew will start in the back, so we all are prepared to probably have a really bad night. In the heat race, only the top 3 transfer to the A-Main and Matthew finishes 5th so we are going to the B-Feature where Matthew starts in the 8th position. Top 8 transfer so all we are hoping for is that he holds his position or advances a spot or two, avoids the wrecks and gets to the A-Main. Matthew does a bit more than that as he wins the B-Feature! It was an exciting race. This puts him about mid-pack as he is placed at the back of the transfer cars, but in front of the rest of the B-Feature field.
The A-Feature has a lot of wrecks early on in the race and somehow, Matthew manages to dodge them. Some of his dodging was definitely skill and some is just pure luck. An example of luck is when Matthew decided to move up a line and went high just seconds before the guy lost control and spun in the path that would have been right in front of Matthew. One of the wrecks takes out our state champion and the contender for being first in the nation, BJ. We all feel BJ deserves to win that title so we are rooting for our competition and don't like to see this happen to him.
Matthew works his way to third place and battles to retain third the rest of the race. He was not going to pass the top two cars unless they made a mistake, and they didn't. It was a one-groove race track and you had to stay high to not loose positions. If you went low to try to pass, you would be lucky to not loose positions and you definitely wouldn't pass anyone there. Ending up 3rd and back in post-tech was another fun night. We are all just smiles at the end of this week. Sure would be great if we could end the entire season this same way!
Next week we race at Stockton for a two-day fair show on Wednesday and Thursday. Then we are back to Minneapolis on Saturday for an all-day fan appreciation day. It will feature car shows, autograph sessions and a parade among other activities that day. We end the week on Sunday at the WaKeeney Speedway. Then the real challenge begins as schools starts the next morning. Hope the teachers are sympathetic to a couple of very tired racing boys! They have both got an education this summer. I hope they learn half as much in school this year!
~CBR Mom
Matthew won his heat race and it was fun to hear everyone cheering for him. Of course, on the redraw, the kid just has no luck and again starts mid-pack in the feature. He really had his work cut out for him as he worked his way to 4th place. There were plenty of wrecks along the way he had to avoid. Well, he couldn't avoid all of them. He did hit a guy that spun in front of him but he recovered and kept going. Later, we learned there was a lot more damage than we could see from the stands. But, our collision engineer had a good design. The bumper got shoved into the cage around the radiator. Another wreck would have pushed it through. After the race, Matthew had a discussion with his collision engineer about some redesign to make it stronger. The collision engineer pointed out he shouldn't be in another wreck in the same wreck. It was some fun pit banter between father and son. These are the nights I love.
Matthew drove hard and tried different lines, but ran out of laps before he could gain any more positions. I can still picture him driving three wide down the front stretch and the car in the middle was a sandwich as the two men and my son battle it out. The guy in the middle lost and spun as the two outside cars lurched forward into turn one. Words don't describe it. All I can say is it was exciting for all of us. Our goal was a top 5. It is good to be in post-tech and the 4th place finish was great.
August 6 - Matthew gets a text from a friend that he is on the cover of the newspaper. Walking in the grocery store it was fun to see on the front page of The Times Sentinel are Matthew's and Jacob's pictures in the newsstand . "Local brothers enjoy racing success" is the lead title for the Clearwater news section. It is a good article which starts off on how Jacob got an interesting hand-be down from his brother. The article and pictures take up over half a page. It is a good summary of the boys' racing so far.
Of course, the stats quoted are already out of date as Matthew has moved to tenth in the Nation in IMCA points. His goal is to try to finish in the top ten. In regional points, Matthew is currently 5th and in state points he is in 2nd place. We don't expect those positions to change in the remaining few weeks of the season. Or I should say we hope they don't change as at this level of competition, this would be an impressive finish for his second year in IMCA.
August 8 - Back to Minneapolis for the first time in a while. Having missed some races there in order to run at other tracks means Matthew will start in the back, so we all are prepared to probably have a really bad night. In the heat race, only the top 3 transfer to the A-Main and Matthew finishes 5th so we are going to the B-Feature where Matthew starts in the 8th position. Top 8 transfer so all we are hoping for is that he holds his position or advances a spot or two, avoids the wrecks and gets to the A-Main. Matthew does a bit more than that as he wins the B-Feature! It was an exciting race. This puts him about mid-pack as he is placed at the back of the transfer cars, but in front of the rest of the B-Feature field.
The A-Feature has a lot of wrecks early on in the race and somehow, Matthew manages to dodge them. Some of his dodging was definitely skill and some is just pure luck. An example of luck is when Matthew decided to move up a line and went high just seconds before the guy lost control and spun in the path that would have been right in front of Matthew. One of the wrecks takes out our state champion and the contender for being first in the nation, BJ. We all feel BJ deserves to win that title so we are rooting for our competition and don't like to see this happen to him.
Matthew works his way to third place and battles to retain third the rest of the race. He was not going to pass the top two cars unless they made a mistake, and they didn't. It was a one-groove race track and you had to stay high to not loose positions. If you went low to try to pass, you would be lucky to not loose positions and you definitely wouldn't pass anyone there. Ending up 3rd and back in post-tech was another fun night. We are all just smiles at the end of this week. Sure would be great if we could end the entire season this same way!
Next week we race at Stockton for a two-day fair show on Wednesday and Thursday. Then we are back to Minneapolis on Saturday for an all-day fan appreciation day. It will feature car shows, autograph sessions and a parade among other activities that day. We end the week on Sunday at the WaKeeney Speedway. Then the real challenge begins as schools starts the next morning. Hope the teachers are sympathetic to a couple of very tired racing boys! They have both got an education this summer. I hope they learn half as much in school this year!
~CBR Mom
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