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ASA Speedtruck Firebird Road Race
The Parker Farms/Mondello Tech/LaHorgue Race Cars entry had another solid race
finish at the very technical Firebird road course. We had a disappointing qualifying
session with an 11th place effort, but Victor redeemed the weekend for all of us finishing
4th in the main event. In addition to another top five finish, I believe that we might
receive the Hard Charger Award.
About halfway through the race the 35 truck was just a little faster than us. He
overdrove the number one corner in an attempt to pass us and ended up spinning Victor.
With good reflexes and cool thinking Victor was able to keep his truck running and grab
another gear and get back on track without giving up any positions. We were however some
distance behind the 35 truck. Victor did his best and did reel him in but there just
wasn’t enough time and equipment to get to catch him and make the pass. The 35 had
been penalized with a stop and go for spinning the 15 truck a few laps earlier.
Friday's practice was an unusual affair with morning rain and cooler temps. We were within
a tenth of the fastest trucks all day. Race day, however, was significantly warmer and our
truck picked up an unexpected push. With his many laps on road courses Victor was able to
make the best of it and use the runoff curbs to try to help get the truck to turn. This
race, as with the recent St.Johns race, found the top running teams willing to spend money
for new tires most every session. Limited by budget we could only get Victor one set for
practice and one for race day. While many of the other trucks experienced
transmission problems, we are still running the same transmission that we started the year
with. The effort Chuck and Bud put into changes this season to help transmissions life has
paid off.
We believe that we should have picked up fourth place in the points if you do the math to
figure out the throwaway race. We hope all will watch the upcoming Television coverage of
the past races. We of course haven’t seen them and it will be interesting to see how
they compare to last season.
We continue to be grateful to everyone that has helped in anyway this season to help. We
have 2 races left.
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