Chris Davidson

[ron.brown11]

I see that Chris is on the entry list, for the Motor Mountain Masters race at Jennerstown Speedway tomorrow night. Right now there is better than a 50% chance of rain, so hopefully they get the race in. Last year's was cut short due to rain. Last year Chris finished 5th. If they get to race, I got a feeling that Chris will finish higher than that this year, as it looked like he found a line that worked for him about halfway through the race. Last year's winner Evan Shotko will be back to defend. Eddie MacDonald finished 2nd last year will also be there. There are a few others that will probably be strong there, but there is 1 name that makes everyone a little nervous, Barry Awtey.

He's the winningest driver in Jennerstown history, and all of his wins have come in late models only. He literally lives like 3 blocks from the track, and his dad raced there too. And he's not a 1 track wonder either. Jennerstown has had a couple seasons that it was closed over the last 10 years. He just moved to a couple of other tracks, and won championships there too. About 6 weeks ago, I was watching a race night from Jennerstown. Barry got crashed in the heat, not his fault. Before they even got the car back to the pits, his crew chief was seen running to a car and exiting the track. A half hour later a rollback wrecker showed up with another car. They unloaded it, and took it through tech. He started last in a 16 car field, and won that 30 lap main. They had to run 3 of the 4 tires from the wrecked car, and a used tire for the 4th that night. Then won the next 3 races in that old car, even though the new car was clipped and ready to go. In some ways, he's kind of like Dale Sr. He can put his car in places that shouldn't work, but he makes it. Rarely does he touch a competitor, and for as much as he wins, he seems to be pretty humble. Jennerstown is a nicely laid out 1/2 mile track, and it's pretty fast. The pre-entry list only shows 18 cars entered, but I suspect that there will be more. I noticed that several of the local regulars weren't on the list, including a couple that have won there this season. No it won't look like the Battle of Berlin field, but it usually pulls a lot of the upper east coast racers. Hoping for a good show tomorrow. 

[ron.brown11]

Well, it rained at Jennerstown tonight. The race has been rescheduled for Sunday at 1pm. It's not supposed to rain either. I hope Chris has a great run!!

[ron.brown11]

Evan Shotko spanked them again, this time for all 150 laps. Eddie MaDonald led the first 25 or so laps, and from then on it was the Evan Shotko show. With 10 laps to go, a yellow came out for a stopped car. McDonald tried wearing out the right side of Shotko's car on the restart. To no avail, as Evan put a full second on him in those 10 laps. 

Chris Davidson was fast qualifier for the race! The top 6 drivers had a pill draw to set the front 6. Chris drew a 2, and McDonald drew the 1 pill. Something was a bit off for Chris' car, as a yellow came out just 12 laps in. He came down pit road, swapped the left side tires, and made a chassis adjustment. That put him back to 17th. By the lap 40 stage break, he was back to 8th. By the second stage break at lap 90, he was up to 5th. With about 25 laps to go, Chris was up to 3rd, and that's where he finished. He really seems to like Jennerstown Speedway, as he looks very comfortable racing there. I know that there are a few different engine packages that can be run, from what the announcers said. So I'm not sure if that's why he doesn't seem to have as good of drive off the corners as some of the other cars. I know that all the local Jennerstown cars run a fairly low HP crate engine, and 6th was the highest finishing local car. 

Barry Awtey, was running a solid 5-6 place until a restart after the second stage break. The car in front of him missed a shift. That killed the nose/airbox on his Challenger. He parked it to save the motor, as it was kicking water out badly. He was the only local that looked to have anything for the traveling teams. 

Unfortunately there was 1 bad wreck in the third stage. Going into turn 3, a guy decided to take it 3 wide. He lost the nose, clipping the car in the middle. This shot the nose up into the left front of the car on the outside. His car got airborne, and went head on into the beginning of the front straight wall. Jennerstown is a fast 1/2 mile track, and it has wide sweeping turns. At the point where he was contacted, those cars are already at WOT, and he never saw the contact coming. I doubt that he ever touched the brakes before wall contact. Even if he could, I doubt that it would have helped. His car didn't touch the ground about 7 feet before impact. The impact sheared off all of the right front suspension, and the tire nearly contacted the leader Shotko. They don't have SAFER barriers there. He got out of the car after a couple of minutes, but he was hurt, as he could barely stand. Hopefully he just got the wind knocked out of him. There was no update on him at the close of the broadcast. The driver's last name is Marhefka, and he's a regular at Jennerstown. 

I was disappointed at the car turn out for the race, as only 17 were there. Not sure why it was so low. Last year there were about 25 cars, if I remember correctly. I don't know what the pay structure was beyond the fist 2 positions. First paid $10k, and second paid 3k.