Racing season winds down

Where has the summer gone? The last points race of the season at Beatrice Speedway has been run. The points race came down to the last night as bad luck fell on Jeff Watts, who led the points battle since opening night. After being 30 points out front, going into the last night of the season he was tied with newcomer Jed Williams of Deshler.

In our own bid for a top 10 finish, we were in 7th place by 2 points. Jeremy drove as it was my week to work. I tried to work on the car as I worked around all the stuff piled up in the garage. We didn’t need any mechanical failures on the last night. Jeremy had to be aggressive, but still take care of the car and finish the race. With 20 cars going in circles for 20 laps, it takes a combination of skill and more than a little luck for things to come together.

I was able to stop in and watch the heat races and later on, the A Feature. John Meyer was behind us by 2 points, and we hoped to be able to either finish ahead of him or no more than 2 spots behind him. However, he made the invert and Jeremy didn’t. John started on the front row and Jeremy started deep in the pack.

At the drop of the green, Jeremy started moving up. Driving a steady race, he was soon within sight of the back bumper of the 29 of John Meyer. John had a lot of company up front with 3 and 4-wide racing at times. John had started to drop back a bit and at one time Jeremy was just 2 spots back. Tony Spunagle was about to make a pass on John, which would have put us one point into 7th, when a yellow came out, bunching up the field. Once the track was cleared and the field set, it was green flag again! This time, John pulled away from Tony, and it looked like the handle went away on our car as Jeremy struggled to make it turn the corner. At the end, John finished 8th and Jeremy finished 12th, giving us a final finish in season points at Beatrice Speedway of 8th place.

Nothing to be ashamed of considering we changed drivers every other week and Jeremy had two weeks in a row where he didn’t finish his heat race. His first week in the car, he had the clutch blow up and his second week in the car, he crashed out in the heat race.

I have two weeks left to race at McCool Junction hope to finish in the top 10 in points there. I’d planned to race on the 5th and attend a Blue Knights function on the weekend of the 12th. However, it’s Jan’s weekend to work, and she isn’t allowed to take time off on her weekend to work. Then, in looking at the points at McCool Junction, I found that if I don’t race the last two nights, I will be out of the top 10 in points. So, instead of riding the Gold Wing for the weekend, I will be racing on September 12th instead.