View From The Track
Read Ginny's bimonthly recaps of her experiences at the track below!
11/23/06 [THU]: Irwindale, CA.
On Wednesday, we grenaded our only motor in the first round of the paid practice day. Thankfully, Rick Wean lent us his back-up and my dad & the guys got it switched before the next round. During practice we were timing in the top ten bracket. For qualifying we timed 14th, which sent me to a spot in the A-main. I think we lost time in qualifying because we didn't have more gear to put in the car but we hung in there as the track was changing. Due to a time constraint there were no heats.
In the main event we started 14th on the outside and the car stuck. In the first few laps I passed a few cars up on the high side. It was fun; there was plenty of room and no walls to hit. You could keep the car up there as long as there was a little grip and some guts to go with it. Later in the race I was battling for 9th when on a restart the guy behind me decided to drive into my left rear going into turn 1. He pushed me all the way around, because I was the one who technically brought out the yellow, I had to restart at the rear of the field. I wasn't happy. There was no rough driving call, but I can take like a "woman" knowing he didn't have the "you know what" to pass me clean. I picked off as many spots as I could but the car was getting progressively loose as the race came to and end which posed a struggle. I pushed it as far as it would go. I finished 15th, but hey, that’s the name of the game. In over all points I finished 9th for my second consecutive year in the top 10 at nationals so they all know I was there. I was a little disappointed but I'll get'em next time.
11/18/06 [SAT]: Ventura Raceway, CA.
Ventura is a beautiful place but the day just felt like one of those that we call a "hurry up and wait". Wait for the gates to open, wait for pit passes, wait for sign-ins, and wait for the drivers meeting. Then all of the sudden we are being rushed so we can get the show in before the track's curfew. While we were on the grid for practice our APS Powder Coating, #00 had run into a problem with the clutch that kept me from making it out for practice.
We barely had enough time to sort out the problem so we could then go out for our 2 qualifying laps. Many other times barely had time to fuel their cars and check air pressures. I qualified 16th and considering it was the first time I had even seen the track the mid pack time didn't feel too shabby.
My second time on the track was the pressure filled heat race. I say "pressure filled" because only top 4 moved on to the A-main. I had to think of it as any other race, but I set it in stone in my mind that there was not going to be a B-main for me that night. I finished 3rd in the heat and took my spot in the main where I started 15th.
In the main event I climbed into the 11th spot when on a restart the officials made me restart in the 15th position with no explanation. They had put me back to where I started from because of an ignorant scoring mistake. This set me back pretty far, and had more people holding me up which gave the leader a chance to catch me by the time I picked off those spots. A late caution had me restarting in between the leaders which didn't give me an opportunity to pick up any further positions. At the end of the night I placed 11th but if felt like I passed about 6 cars for that for it. Well we packed it up in one piece.
7/28/06 [FRI]: Adirondack International Speedway, NY.
We got there on time, and didn't feel to bad coming into this race because we finished a close second in the dash for cash last year. Throughout practice we were changing things on the car to make it more stable to stop the left front tire from lifting off the ground. Turn 4 was the place they were getting me, so we did everything we knew how to make it better. I finished 3rd in the heat. In the feature I finished 11th, but the car ran as good as we could get it, and I tried to keep my nose clean and bring it home.
Late in the race Stephanie spun out in front of me in turn 4 and I just missed taking her front end off. But I locked up the brakes then hit the throttle hard to try and slide the car away from hers. Once again, I dodged a bullet. But over-all it was a solid finish.
7/26/06 [WED]: Open Wheel Wednesday at Seekonk Speedway, Massachusetts
The day didn't get off to a great start because we got there a little bit late and ended up missing the first two practices. Most of the reason was because we had to stand on line forever and wait to buy pit passes while our class was going out. We didn't sweat it to bad, just have to keep going and try and be good off the bat.
Our officials brought up a new way of qualifying the cars that night. They sent us out for group qualifying. About 5 cars at a time and your best lap of 6 or 7 laps was the one you kept. The top 6 cars were locked into the feature event and didn't have to run a heat race. But the pole sitter still had to pull a pill for invert. Well qualifying was my first time on the track for the day and the car didn't feel that bad, but I didn't really have a break pedal, so I couldn't drive the car as hard as I should have.
We timed 18th out of 21 and finished 3rd in the heat race. Started 11th in the main event that night and ran the car as hard as I could. In the first few laps we gained a few positions then fell back because the car was pretty loose and was spinning the tires way to much. I do like to drive a loose car but we had made some adjustments to try and stiffen up the rear suspension. We finished 11th.
4/30/06 [FRI]: Mountaintop Speedway, PA (Asphalt)
I was invited to race Blu Mett's TQ Midget in their fist race of the season because he was going to drive someone else's car that day. So he said "just show up and drive." I knew that the car didn't have the best engine in it because I had driven it this winter at the annual Gamblers Classic in Atlantic City, NJ. But I also knew that compared to the other cars there that I could pull off a top ten. So we finished 6th in the heat and came in to make some adjustments. We started 12th in the feature, I believe, and finished 9th. The whole field was pretty spread out, a few cars were getting lapped, but I did my best to keep my nose clean and bring the car home in one piece. We accomplished that to bring and end to the first race weekend of the season and raced 3 nights in a row in 3 different cars.
4/29/06 [FRI]: Waterford Speedbowl, Connecticut
We had our first points race for the USAC Ford Focus Midget and once again, I had never been to this track before. But after looking at the track it seemed pretty cool. We finished 8th in the heat race, and made some adjustments to the APS Powder Coating 00 car and pulled off a solid top ten in the feature. It was an o.k. finish and a fun race, just wished we could have pulled off a few more positions.
4/28/06 [FRI]: Linda's Speedway (Dirt)
Trying to get back on the race track for our first race of the season. I went to Linda's to race my dad's APS Powder Coating 600cc MIcro Sprint. It was my first time at this track and I really didn't know what to expect, but word around the track was that it isn't easy to win there. So we started on the pole in the heat race due to a lucky pill draw. And I lead the first 7 out of 10 laps. Then I got passed and fell back to 3 where I finished because the back end of the car kept kicking out a little bit.
We went out in the feature and the track got pretty tight, so I wasn't a contender for the lead, and on the last lap someone lost a wheel a few cars in front of me and the outside lane was blocked by another car so I ended up piling in and made contact with the stopped car which sent me for a ride. I flipped once, end over end. It wasn't that fast, but it was pretty hard. So we didn't finish.