We had our first race this weekend, which was opening night at Antioch speedway. Antioch has a new winged sprint car class. It was just like the old days, it was cool. I had the pole in the 1^st heat of 3. Dwarf cars had 22 cars, again the biggest class.

I didn’t make it to any of the practices so I was feeling kind of rusty. I was wishing I could start back a couple of spots so I new how fast to go. But, I’ll take pole position. 

I lead the 1^st few laps then someone finally got by me because I was running tight. At the apex I just started pushing up to the wall. The next corner which was turn 3, the guy slowed up big time and I slammed the brakes. I apparently had the wheels turned to the right because when my front end came back down I turned sharply to the right basically head on with my right front tire in to the wall.

Then I must have spun around and hit with the divers side because I bent my left rear wheel and the left front is leaning a little too much. Great…. Opening night and I’m already busting my ass fixing my car.  

So Jaclynn and I replaced the rack and pinion and a couple of hiems and set the toe with about 10 minutes to spare before the main event. For the main I started 2^nd row from the end in 19^th.  

In my mind I’m going to take it easy (that’s what I always say) because I don’t know how the front end is going to react or even stay together. So after two laps we have our 1^st caution. While cruising around I counted cars and I’m in about 10^th. That was easy!  

We get lined up and go green. We go a couple laps and the pack slows up in turn 3 and I hit the brakes in a little bit of a panic and spin out. I look up and hear comes about 12 cars.  

Mind you I have a lot of practice spinning out so I can let off the gas or give more gas to loop around and help the other cars not hit me ( stop laughing, not funny).  

So, everyone miss’s me and I look at the official and he’s giving me the hurry up and go sign…they are not throwing the yellow. As I’m cranking it up, I look up and see the pack coming down the back straight away and I’m sitting in the middle of turn 3.  

I throw it in gear and go. After a couple laps they pass me. Now I’m a lap down back five spots. Over the next few cautions, the top 5 were pulling away from me. My car was pushing and I still feel rusty.  

With 5 laps left we do a restart. Now I’m keeping up with them. I’m getting a little more comfortable and getting on the gas sooner. At times I felt I could make a move on the car in front of me, which was in 5^th place.  

But I didn’t want to get in the middle of those guys running for position, so I just stayed in place and got mud throw in my face. Oh by the way, the way the night was going I also broke 2 visors on my helmet.  

I had to borrow a helmet for the main.  So I finished as the last car on the track. I think 14^th out of 22. Hopefully my luck will change for our next race in 2 weeks.

Jack.