July 23, 2003
Mid-season

We have covered some ground in the past few weeks. Red River Valley (3 times), Princeton, Deer Creek (3 times), Mandan, Jamestown, Glyndon, Superior, Kasson and Jackson (twice) were all "graced" by our presence. We continue to be the poster team for the adage "you are never too old to learn".

It has become an annual EVENT for many people to take in the three days of pure sprint car action hosted at the Red River Valley speedway. Fans are treated to non-stop action as the show is a combined effort by the World of Outlaws and WISSOTA. People travel many miles, shunning the lakes, rivers and other summer pastimes for a total immersion into Sprint Cars. In this year's fan crop, we met folks from Canada, Wyoming, Montana, Wisconsin, as well as every corner of the Dakotas imaginable. For this reason alone (and not my performance) this trip is usually pretty fun.

Our Fargo summary: I stunk up the joint. We had a good run Thursday (great for us). The car was dialed in and running strong. We finished a solid and speedy 3rd in the heat and took a respectable 4th in the feature. That was the high point, as on Friday we missed the set-up for the feature and slid to a 12th place finish. Saturday was worse. The car, motor and driver were all off. After backing up to the back of the pack, I finally pulled it in. While the car felt OK, we had no speed. We later found out that the motor was off-tune, nothing wrong mechanically, just a combination of minor, out-of adjustment factors.

With a very short week, we went through the car head to toe to prep for the 11th Annual Earl Kouba Memorial at Princeton Speedway. We left early Thursday morning (another mid-week trek) in order to display the car for the Princeton Auto Center, a sponsor of this year's event. Also wedged into the trailer was Dad's 1947 Kurtis Offy midget. We spent a little quality time with her in the parking lot making sure she was ready for her annual track outing and exhibition laps. For those of you who have never had the treat, nothing sounds and smells as sweet as a well-tuned Offy engine. Even at 60+ years old, this motor is still a beauty.

We had a great field of some heavy hitters for the ECK race. Jake Peters nearly swept the event, posting a 2nd in his heat; he then won both the dash and the main. His total earnings for the evening: $2,600! Wow, nice payday; I wish I had earned it!!! (Maybe next year…) We had a good run taking a podium 3rd place finish. This felt good, as I had been stuck in 6th most of the event. On a restart with 2 laps to go, we passed 2 cars down the short front chute and closed on 2nd. It was too late to make the pass, but at least we finished strong.

Our road weary family finally caught a break the following Saturday. We raced a mere 20 minutes from home at Deer Creek Speedway. After a relaxing day, we ambled out to the track. After posing a win in Deer Creek's first ever sprint race last year, we were charged up for a repeat. Again we were strong, but not enough for the top spots. Dustin Linquist continued his impressive season with the win. We ran a strong 3rd behind John Nelson most of the event, only to succumb to cagy veteran Roger Rager late in the race. We finished 4th with brother Joe hot on our heels in 5th.

So much for rest and relaxation… next up was WISSOTA's 4-day swing across the northern reaches of the Midwest. Although this swing is a lot of road time, it is one of our favorite parts of the season. The fans treat us like mini-Outlaws and the tracks are fun, so it can be a great time despite the driving. Mandan, North Dakota is 550 miles from Byron, so we left home Thursday evening to miss the Twin Cities and I-94 traffic. We pulled in to Dacotah Speedway in Mandan around 4pm on Friday feeling reasonably rested and focused on the task at hand. We had a great heat run taking the win by a very comfortable margin. A little luck landed us on the front row for the feature next to Roger "the Racer" Rager. The car was good, but Roger's was perfect. He stretched out a comfortable lead as we fell into an equally comfortable 2nd. After getting balled up behind lapped traffic, my lead on 3rd place Jake Peters disappeared. Jake and I split the back marker going into turn 1 with Jake high and me low. I thought I had cleared the lapped car, but the sudden impact into my right rear told me otherwise. I am not sure what happened (even after watching the tape), I think the lapped car either spooked with Jake on the high side or just suddenly got a hold of something. Either way, it drove down into me taking out the right rear suspension. As my disabled mount limped out of turn 2 and eventually bumped to a stop, I knew we were done for the evening.

Wrecking while on the road, means parking lot repairs. Although Saturday's run in Jamestown was only 90 miles away, we didn't have a lot of extra time. After assessing the damage, we had to swap out the rear-end assembly for our ancient spare in the trailer. (Our good spare was still at the shop under going repairs from last-year.) Having not done our prep work at home to fit up the spare (hey, we'll carry it just-in-case, we won't need it…right?), we had to rework a lot of minor stuff to get the thing to align and work. With a little help from a friendly (and bored) Canadian visitor, we were back in business, but running a bit late.

The mad dash eastbound on I-94 was worth it. We had a fantastic run in the heat, winning by over a half a lap (I was coming up to lap Jake Peters of all people…). Another round of good-fortune placed us on the pole. Again we were good, but not quite good enough. Dustin Linquist shot to the lead and kept it for another win. We were able to challenge him a few times and did close up very close on the last lap. After the night before and the work of the day, we were very pleased with 2nd (Well, OK, "pleased" may not be exactly right, "content" might be a better word.)

On to Buffalo River Speedway near Glyndon, MN, the track that just seems to have my number these past few years. Last year, we finally found a set-up that felt OK here. With it I managed to work up from 10th to 5th. This year was almost a carbon copy. A poor showing in the heat (4th) placed me 12th in the feature. We had a good run and finished 5th once again. Better than the finish, we moved forward AND we know what we should have done to be even better!

Monday! We trekked across north Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin for the last of the 4 days. We had a great run going at Superior last year until a flip ended our evening early. Coming from the third row of the heat, we took 2nd behind Loren Langerud. I had a poor start in the feature and dropped back to mid-pack. After a few laps either the car came in or the driver woke up, but we started moving. Mid way in the event we moved into 3rd past John Nelson and closed in on 2nd running Roger Rager. With leader Brad Pake only a few car lengths further, I had hopes of a win. This time WE had the strongest car in the field and it paid $2500 to win. Oh boy! Alas, it was not to be, as I was setting Roger up for a pass going into turn 1, the car cut out. The motor stopped cold. I tried to restart the car during the yellow I caused, but without oil pressure it just wasn't going to happen. I thought the worst: blown motor! Turned out that it was nothing major. The oil pump drive pulley slipped out of alignment and dropped off the drive belt. With no oil pumping, our safety kill switch kicked in and saved the motor by shutting down the engine. DISAPPOINTMENT reigned in the 2K pit. A "no-expense" problem had just cost us over $2000. But, that, as they say, is racin'.

Next, after a huge break in the action of 6 days, Kasson, MN hosted sprints for the first time since 1999. If Kasson was any closer to home, I could walk to the track and have Jamie and the kids push the car there. 8 miles… wow, I don't know how to behave on race day when I'm not looking at a minimum of a 2 hour trip… The night started off great with a win in our heat. (At least we seem to have the heat race thing going our way…). I left the feature redraw with a big smile after pulling out #1 to grant me the pole. So much for the easy stuff, now we really had to work. The car was in fine form and we took advantage to grab the lead. An early yellow bunched up the field behind us which proved to make life hard for the rest of the race. On the next restart (and the next couple after as well) Roger Rager gave it everything he had to move us out of the lead. What he had wasn't good enough as we battled back hard each time and held on. BUT, to keep Roger back where he belonged (behind me), I had to take a very defensive line around the track. On each yellow, I would hunt around the track to see what was there. Although the top side seemed to be coming in to make a two groove surface, I couldn't risk trying it and give Roger a free shot underneath. So I stayed low. Loren Langerud didn't have that disadvantage. Starting deep in the pack, he had to move anywhere and everywhere to find passing room. He eventually found a fast groove up on top. With 5 laps to go in the 25 lap feature, I had just cleared 2 lapped cars racing each other hard. Langerud had caught Rager, but both were stuck behind the 2 lapped vehicles. Loren had the edge with his high groove track. Driving in high and hard in turn 3, he overtook Rager, the 2 lapped cars and with the momentum off the top blew by me on the outside down the front chute. Deciding Loren had found something better, I abandoned the bottom groove to give chase. This was good in that the two of us quickly distanced Rager. But good wasn't enough. Loren still had me by 2 car lengths at the flag. We settled for 2nd.

OK, deep breath, the next weekend we spent like your average Minnesotan family. We went to the lake, lazed around on the water and relaxed. The occasion was to celebrate Jamie's parent's 40th anniversary. We had a great time and I found out that tubing behind a boat is great fun. Now then, back to racing.

After much debate, Jamie and I decided to give the Jackson Nationals a try. You know about our struggles at Jackson the track, but the Nationals have always been a thorn in my side. Between bad luck and driver error, my string of nationals finishes represent my worst collection of finishes short of Knoxville's Nationals (but for different reasons). Anyway, we decided that we are either in this to race whenever and wherever available, or we should just take up gardening. So we went to Jackson. The short story, we went faster at Jackson then we have in years, BUT I would only do it 80% of the laps (while brain farting on the other 20%). On qualifying night, our heat run was ended after being punted by eventual Nationals champion Travis Whitney. The punt took out my front end on the first lap and earned us the back of the pack start in the B main. Here we did our best work of the weekend, by charging around the top to finish 2nd and earning a transfer to the back of the A. Starting in the back was a bad enough hole, but both Jamie and I misread the track. It took heavy rubber very early on, leaving our car way too tight. We managed 16th. The next night? Well, "yuck" is about all I can say. We backed up in the heat, had to run the B and backed up there too. The only consolation I have for missing the A, was that WISSOTA big-track champ, Loren Langerud also missed the A finishing just ahead of me in the B. It's pretty bad when you feel better just because you have good company in your misery.

Between all this, we also managed to find time for go-karting with Jake and horse-camp for Kaitie. Oh yeah, we also went out for two practice sessions at Deer Creek. Its no wonder winter just gets a bit dull… what is a family to do with all that time on your hands?

Next up: back north to Ashland, WI on Saturday, July 26th and then on to Huron, SD on the 28th. I think we're going karting back home the day between (don't want to sit idle too long you know). Later dates…

Jimmy