21st
Blog for July 19th
Saturday night’s race at Lanier was an exciting one for sure. However we did have some trouble that stayed with us for most of the night. We unloaded the car with a new setup there and I was excited to see how it was going to react and hande. So we went out for practice and when the green flag flew my engine started sputtering. I did get in about 2 or 3 laps though to atleast see what my car was kind of doing. So I pulled off of the track early and came in to diagnose the problem. At first we thought it was the coils so we changed them. Then we decided that maybe one of the sparkplugs was acting up so we got four new ones and threw them in the car. By the time all of that was said and done it was about time for the heat race. I drew pretty bad and that had me starting fifth in the 2nd heat race. The race started and I was just hopeing that the engine would run, but it wasn’t running very well at all. During the first and only caution of our heat race I pulled in because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to tear up the engine. So when I got back to the pits I got the green light from Uncle Bill to go after it. I went back out on the track in 8th place and in four laps drove back up to fourth where I would end up finishing. Once back in the pits it was time to doctor the car some more and we decided to change the ignition box. Guess what… problem found. I made a little wedge adjustment to the car before the main race and fixed her right up. Finishing in fourth place in the second heat had me starting eighth in the main event. On the start of the race I quickly picked up a position and fell in line. After that it was a follow the leader line with a little slicing and dicing here and there. I knew I had a good car I just needed to get up front and show them I did. On about lap 8, two cars spun out and that brought out the caution. I noticed the track starting to get real slick just before the caution came out and low and behold one of the cars that spun out layed down three lines of oil around the track. Talk about being loose. Well when those two cars spun out that out me fifth. During the caution we got to choose which line we wanted to restart in and I chose the inside simply because of all the oil layed on the track. Making that choice ha me backed up to seventh for the restart. However, being on the inside I thought I could run the apron of the track and be just as fast as those who were running in the oil. On the restart, the guy in front of me and myself took off for the apron and I watched him drive from fifth to first in about 3 laps while I picked up one position and was all over the guys in front of me. I just had that guy feeling there was going to be a wreck while we were all scrambling to find some kind of grip. Well sure enough while I was running sixth on the white flag lap two guys got together and spun out which put me fourth place and gave me a VERY satisfying top five. The Aaron’s Dream Machine was awesome on Saturday night at Lanier. I really think we are starting to get back to where we were last year and I am really pumped up about going to Charlotte on Tuesday. You can bet we will keep finishing in the top five and hopefully click off a win here soon. I would also like tp thank my uncle and everybody else who helped out on the car at Lanier this weekend. It wouldn’t have been the same deal without all of the help that I had.
