Jimmy Kouba - Journal Archive

Something is still wrong with this race season. For the second time in a row, we returned home from the races in a snow storm. That was really only the second down side to our first trip of the season the Red River Valley Speedway in Fargo, ND. The first downer was that we rained out (maybe it was snowing) half way through the event.

Leaving beautiful Byron Friday around noon, the sun was shinning, despite a cool chill in the air. The sun had disappeared by the time we had reached St. Cloud. When we got to the track around 7pm, the sky was bleak and the temp hovered just below 40. It would be a brisk evening.

18 other sprint cars braved the elements to join our demented pursuit of fun. Luck of the draw put us in the first of two heats, with a 4th row inside start. The track was heavy, smooth (except the the usual bump-n-jump midway down the back stretch), and very fast. Matt Folsted jumped to the lead from his front row start. Wade Nygaard came by me from the fifth row like I was tied to a gate post. After a couple laps I was finally getting lined out. Just about the time I set her up on the cushion to come into turn 1, young Rob Caho and Wade Nygaard got way too close to each other. Both were tangled up with the fence at the apex of the turn. I peddled the car down and away, avoiding the wreck. On the restart, I picked up a spot or so and wound up 4th. Folsted rolled on to an easy win, followed by Greg Niketenko and Brad Pake.

Loren Langerud blasted from his deep starting spot in the second heat to take the win, being chase by Tony Norem.

But the weather won the battle. Rain forced a stop to the festivities after the Street Stock A main. Our feature event will be added to next week's complete show. Double feature night, here we come.

A sampling of lap times from the heats:
Loren Langerud: 16.8
Matt Folsted: 17.2
Tony Norem: 17.7
Jimmy Kouba: 17.7

As you can see, Loren and Matt were the class of the field. The rest of us have some homework to do...