Friday, May 11, 2001 - Crawford County Speedway (Denison, Iowa)
Heat - After severely abusing the right rear tire in our previous outing at Denison, the team made some adjustments to the car before returning. John started 4th in the first modified heat race, behind the 1R of Craig Reetz & the 43x of Dan Muller, and alongside the 25 of Matt Edwardson. At the drop of the green flag, John, Reetz, and the 01 of Mike Johnson pulled away from the field. John was extremely fast and battled with Reetz for the lead for the first 3 laps. After that we again suffered handling problems, as the tires started to go away, by the 6th lap, John had worn off the right rear tire, and was forced to take the car to the pits when the air went out of his right rear. It was a frustrating heat race, to have a car clearly quick as our car was and not be able get the finish we hoped for.
A Feature - Between the heat and feature we made a number of changes to the car to correct our handling problems. We were a little hesitant going into the feature, not being quite sure how the car would react to the numerous changes we had made. John would start 14th in a 16 car field, he quickly moved up into 12th on the first lap and had climbed to 10th on the second lap, he slipped in turn 1 of the 3rd lap and fell back to 14th. The caution came out on the 3rd lap. A couple cars needed to come to the pits for repairs, and John was in 11th behind Charlie Clark when the green came back out. John was running in 11th when he again got tight in turn 1, and fell back to 15th. When another caution came out on lap 7 he was still in 15th - the last car running. By the time the green came back out with 13 laps remaining he had been moved into the 11th position in front of the 31h of Rich Hesse, behind the 25 of Edwardson and the 20 of Randy Archer. By lap 9 he had moved up into the 10th spot, and on lap 10 he moved past Edwardson into 9th. On the 11th lap, John got a great run in turn 1 and moved past the 5m of Gary March and the 01 of Mike Johnson into 7th. When the caution came out with 7 to go John had been really coming on as his tires got some heat in them. For the last few laps, John gave chase to Archer, and the field became pretty spread out. The car wasn't as quick over the final 7 laps and John was able to hold on for a 7th place finish. John was running pretty well by himself as he came to the checkers. He finished about a straightaway behind the winner Joe Kramer, who captured his 2nd straight feature at Denison. The leader had been clocked at 114 mph over the final laps. The right rear looked like new after the feature, we feel we've got a pretty good feel for Denison, and are anxious to return in July.
John's two finishes at Denison moved him into 8th place in the season points, but he'll fall from that perch as we don't intend to return to Denison until July 9. |
