May 25th, 2009
Opening
Day Blues at Spencer – 5/22/09
With a clear but cool
weather forecast the team unloaded our cars and
equipment in the Spencer infield so fans could keep a
close eye on their favorites and the competition. As
more teams than ever filled the infield area we all
wondered how everyone would handle a 100 lap opening
day event.
The practice sessions
showed us that we were easily a top 6 car out of the
29 present, but were clearly off the pace of the top
running cars of Tony Hanbury, Wilbur Hebing and Buck
Catalano. Besides making changes to the #5 we also
lent a hand to the #89 of Jody London as he shook the
bugs out of his racer's maiden voyage. All our efforts
were for the better as Terry finished a close second
to Buck in his heat race and Jody ran competitively
and missed a redraw position but just a few car
lengths.
Additional changes
were made to both cars in preparation for the long
main event. Terry started 12th and Jody started 15th.
On the first lap Phil Wehrheim misjudged the slow pace
of the main pack as they jumbled up and Phil spun
after hitting the back of Jody. Next would be a spin
by leader Chris Finocchario after incidental contact
with Tony Hanbury. The die was cast that completing
more than a lap without incident was going to be close
to a miracle. Jody would be the first car out as some
unusually high engine temperatures caused him to play
it safe and pull it in after nearly 30 total laps but
only 4 official laps. Next would be a hard first turn
crash between Ricky Kluth and Jeff Rudy who also
crashed hard in his heat. The next restart would be
our last.
Terry had worked his
way up to 4th place and on the next restart Zak
Truesdale, who was starting outside row one, found his
right front going down as the green flag flew.
Naturally Terry and those behind him anticipated the
start and all were on the gas hard. The resulting mess
would find Terry in to Zak and in to the turn 4 wall
and several other cars would crash to the inside as
everyone scrambled for open real estate. The #5 would
be done for the day with a broken steering rack and
other damage (25th place). Also collected in the wreck
would be Matt Lees and later in the event Daryl Lewis
Jr. would succumb to damage occurred during this
incident. Several more incidents would result in the
race being called at 75 laps due to curfew issues. See
a full write up of the night's event at www.spencerspeedway.org.
With our team pitted
in the infield we weren't able to lend a hand to our
teammate Kris Hillegeer's Street Stock effort. In a
later interview Kris would say "My car handled
better than last week's practice session but is still
off the mark. We are still learning how to make one of
these cars stick as it's not like a Super Six or a
Modified. We will keep experimenting and moving
forward each week." The Street Stock main event
will get made up next week so Spencer fans will get an
extra race for their money this coming Friday.
Ryan Hillegeer,
driving Kris' #18 Super Six, had a good 3rd place
finish after starting near the back of a very fast 11
car field. Fans would have also noticed another
gorgeous blue #18 is being carried by the Auto Value
Scorpion 4 Cylinder of Kris' 14 year old nephew Kevin
Bartolone. This was Kevin's first race in a full size
vehicle and he drove well finishing 4th out of 12
cars.
Here is our upcoming
SST schedule: Jody will be at Spencer this week
supporting his sponsor, MotoOption Clothing and their
sponsorship night.
The #5 and Terry will
make our first trip to Chemung Speedrome on Saturday
June 6th for their twin 20 event.
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