Waller Racing update from Devils Bowl 5/19/07

[rebelracewriter]

Hello Race Fan,

 

Finally we got to race again. It was great. I was a little rusty from being off 3 weeks, but we had a great night. It was just good to be back.

 

The Sprint Car class at Devil's Bowl seems to be growing. We had 23 cars there last night with 3 or 4 travelling from Oklahoma to race. That count may not be sustainable as 2 cars lost a motor and 2 cars flipped and destroyed their cars, but we will wait and see.

 

We started on the 2nd row outside for the first heat and unfortunately, I was stuck behind a slow car. I tried to go 3 wide on the start, but backed off because I felt that was a recipe for trouble. Until I could get around the slower car, I lost a couple of positions, but then had to battle back to fourth place.

 

During intermission, we determined that the track was drying out. I have so many visions in my head of about 5 laps into my feature race, the track dries out and you just start slowly making your way to the back. It is frustrating at best. So this time, we said what the heck, we are going to gamble on it drying and go for it.

 

We tightened up the car, put different tires on it, added extra fuel and waited. All the while the other races were running, we were praying for cautions because that gives the track more time to dry out.

 

We started the feature on the 3rd row outside. It was a good start but someone squeezed in there or something and here comes a white car right at me. Yikes.. I went high. The car jumped over in the loose stuff and the tires grabbed and I saw the starry night as it lifted the frontend up. I lost several positions. Well with all that anticipation out of the way, it was time to get to work.

 

There was a small strip of tacky dirt along the bottom of the turn. I ran this line and never tried the top around the outside. I was wearing them out. Slowly passing cars every lap. I even passed two cars in one turn. It was working! I had two more cars that I was working on when..

 

Coming down the front straight, the cars ahead of me started twitching and next thing you know one car cuts around goes up in the air and then both start flipping. Yikes.. I keep looking at the wreck because that is my old friend Fast Ed Keaton. They are flipping and I am on the outside of them praying that they are going to stop, because we are on a convergence of paths. Finally they stopped and I drove around them. Good thing is because I didn't drive under them, I didn't run through any debris.

 

This caused an open red flag situation where people could work on their cars. Everyone dived in the pits to make adjustments. Basically, that took away my advantage. So on the restart with 3 laps to go, the cars in front of me were very much in better shape. I worked on one, but about the last 2 laps, he took my line after he saw it was much better. We finished 7th. We were down to probably about 13th or 14th at one time, so I think it was a good run. I really wanted a top 5 and I think we would have had it if not for that last red flag condition. Oh well, we will get them next week.

 

So until next time.. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for supporting Dirt Track Racing!

 

Bill Waller