The Epic Ventures team visited Holland Speedway to participate in the 10th Annual George Decker Memorial. This was our first ever visit to the speedway and we could see the heritage and history in the layout of the pits and the huge seating capacity of the grandstand area. The entire team took a walk around the speedway surface to get our first real sense of what we were about to undertake.

For this 100 lap SST event we brought Tom's yellow #50 after a good shake down run the prior week at Spencer. Terry would be at the controls and with an educated guess for a starting set up we joined 35 other teams and headed out on to the track for practice. We quickly realized that we were not contender material and changes were quickly executed to improve the handling. Our heat race was a disappointment in that we did not qualify by one spot. The good news was that we would have a front row starting position for the last chance race. With some additional adjustments in place Terry was able to win the consolation event and secure the 25th starting position in the 30 car field (6 cars went home).

As Terry returned pitside from his victory photos, the team prepared for one more challenging adjustment, changing our rear gear ratio. This was risky as there was a chance we may not accomplish it in time for the main event. The #50 requires an almost complete disassembly of the rear drive train and suspension to create enough room to remove the rear gear cover. Well I have to say I wish I had a video of our efforts as we had 6 pairs of hands working in coordination and the car was race ready in about 20 minutes.

All the day's hard work paid off as after avoiding an early race skirmish that moved Terry further back, Terry began picking off cars, running as high as 15th. We were discussing the possibility of bringing the car in for further adjustments during a lap 59 caution when a light but steady rain fell. Mother Nature would win this time as the rains continued and the race was called complete and we left with a 16th place finish.

We retired to our camper to recap the day, take pride in our gains, grab a late night diner and even think about what to try next in future visits.

Our other teammates had a quiet weekend as Spencer was rained out and cars were being prepared for late season specials. The SST cars of Terry and Tom will sit quiet for the next two weeks as we take a break from a hectic travel schedule and we squeeze in some family time. We hope you've had a good summer in between the raindrops and ask you to watch our schedule for any changes as we look to add some additional races. Be well.