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Rain was a factor all week in western Pa as Mercer Raceway Park was planning their Fall Brawl for Saturday, October 3rd. The track Saturday was a heavy, rough surface, due to the amount of rain they had received. The track crews constantly working and packing it to make it the best racing surface they could.
In our heat race we started outside of the front row, as I went into turn one on the outside I hit a bad rut and pushed up the track. I was trying lines all over the place but the car was a handful to hold on to. We settled for 2nd and headed pit side to make some major adjustments to handle the rough surface.
We went to work making some changes for the 25 lap feature event. We would roll out in the 5th place starting position. I moved into 4th place on the drop of the green, car was much better now with the changes we made. Had worked up to 3rd in the early stages, only to have contact made with several cars due to the track conditions and had fell back to 5th. I made an inside pass on a lap 9 restart and settled into 2nd place and now was working on catching the lead car. He was running the outside, I moved up the track to try his line, it was faster, but was much rougher than the line I had been using.
I moved back to the bottom where the groove was easier on the racecar, and had a plan of racing hard until 5 laps to go then we would have to throw caution to the curb and run the top groove. The decision paid off; on lap 17 the leader had peeled the left rear tire off the bead from running through the ruts. This handed us the lead, with 2 laps to go I was into lap traffic which was hard to cut through due to the track surface, I had followed a lap car in low, thinking I had just made a mistake the car pushed up the track and cleared the line I needed. I opened the throttle up on the Kriner big block and pushed it to our second win of the year at Mercer Raceway Park.
This race had just been added to their schedule and it was great to get out and wheel the car for another night before the season is done. The next race we have is at Lernerville Speedway on October 23rd & 24th, it’s the final point’s night for the BRP Modified Tour. We are setting 2nd in points, 10 points out of 1st place. If possible come out and support us on our final night of racing for 2009. Hope to see you at a track soon.
Later,
Del
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