July 1 – What a great way to start a new month!  We travel to Hutchinson and once again, the car count is extremely low.  The track is extremely rough.  But, both boys take it to victory lane, so somehow it still seems alright!  After a hard week of repairing both cars, it would great to see the boys run so well.  Matthew put in an older transmission in order to run again.  Jacob had to go through his entire car after the roll over.  Turns out when you go upside down, there are a lot of things to fix like ball joints and changing the plugs. 

At Hutchinson, Jacob was mixed in with the bombers and it was all about survival missing several spin outs in front of him in both the heat race and the feature.  We wanted him to practice hitting his mark and driving consistent laps, but between dodging the ruts and the bombers, I’m not sure there was much he could learn.  As he drove to the grid for the feature, I heard Matthew, Rich and Steve all turn to each other at the exact same time and say “did you see that.”  I was texting Kim so I had no idea what they saw but they all took off running.  They brought him back to the pit and the Wilson crew dove in to help as well.  Turned out his upper a-arm was not tight.  This was just one of the parts Jacob had changed in the last week.  They barely got him out in time.  Perfect example of a win being a win because you still have to be able to get on the track.  After the race, Jacob is losing water and overheating.

Matthew felt his car missing out, but they haven’t quite diagnosed the problem.  Did something just rattle loose?  Just not sure and of course, he is mechanically paranoid now about a part or transmission breaking!  He runs a solid feature.  Took him a couple of laps to take the lead, but once he did, he held on strong.  He was as smooth as anyone I saw that night and did a great job hitting his marks and pulling away.

After the races, the boys went to victory lane for pictures and the fans were allowed to go down.  I heard one couple comment, “look how young those boys are” and another family with young children stopped by to get autographs.  Then, they go car by car with the trophy and take the feature winner picture.  Afterwards, each of the boys handed their trophy to one of the kids and it was great fun to see those kids’ faces light up.  We’ve seen B do that at other tracks, and I think Matthew and Jacob really got some extra satisfaction in getting a chance to make a kid smile.  It added some extra fun to the win quite honestly.

Saturday, we head to Mayetta.  The first time we have been there and not scraping mud all night.  It was a dry, slick track and Jacob showed them he knew how to drive it.  That is definitely one advantage of running so many different tracks is learning how to adjust to a lot of conditions.  The boys really paid attention to the track that night and made the right changes all night long.  Jacob started 6^th in the feature, but didn’t have a good start and was shuffled and blocked in the middle of the pack of fifteen cars.  Then, he started picking them off one-by-one driving his way to the front.  He dodged a couple of wrecks along the way.

He was smooth and consistent driving a perfect race.  It felt like the longest feature ever as he made his way to 2^nd place!  And, the checkered flag was flying as Jacob came around the last lap and was coming out of turn 4 when the 3^rd place car drove in too hard, lost control, and the guy’s rear end spun around hitting the back quarter panel of Jacob’s car and spinning him out in the process!  I was so incredibly disappointed.  Jacob handled it extremely well.  Once he knew it wasn’t intentional and just one of those “racing deals” he handled it better than I did.  I guess you can say racing is a metaphor for life off the track because it doesn’t matter if you deserve it or have done the right thing, it just doesn’t always work out like that.

When we got in the track, Jacob said “That air conditioning feels good.”  Made me laugh the way he said it.  Like he just realized it had been darn hot out there.  Too cute. 

Since we had a holiday weekend, I finally had the chance to upload some pictures.  You can view some of my favorite pics from April and May at:  http://crowellracing.com/photos/2011_Season/2011Q1Pics/index.html.  See if you can spot “Sweet Cheeks.”

And more of my favorites continuing from May and all of June are at:

http://crowellracing.com/photos/2011_Season/2011Q2Pics/index.html

Next weekend, we are on to Goodland for a two-night show on Friday and Saturday and then Colby on Sunday.  Chasing those Rookie points and gaining some great experience.

~CBR Mom