Saturday, September 14, 2002 - Park Jefferson Speedway
Heat - John started 5th in his heat race and pretty well coasted to a 3rd place finish. With heat races of only 5-6 cars the heats mean virtually nothing, and we raced appropriately.
A Feature - John started from the 11th position. In just 4 weeks John has climbed from the 16th highest point average to the top of the list. Guess that's a pretty good indication of who's hot and who's not. We've been on a big hot streak lately with our last several finishes being a 7th, 4th, 1st, and 2nd. Unfortunately, our climb in the point standings would come to a halt at the drop of the green flag in the feature. There were not enough cars for us to catch either Kyle Koster or Rich Hesse for first or second in the points. We would be racing Charlie Clark for the 3rd spot in the standings. On the first lap Koster and Clark would tangle in turn 3 and Chuck would not return to the track. We were then just racing for the win. John was very fast once again, and when the caution came out on lap 11 for contact between Jimmy Cole and Loren Reuter, John would move into 2nd as Cole went to the pits with a flat tire. John was trailing Denny Johnson's Z-98 on the start and would chase him over the closing laps. John made several attempts to pass Johnson, but was unable to clear him. When a caution came out with 3 to go John was still behind Denny, and on that restart the cone was positioned very high on the track in turn 4, and John nearly hit it as he was coming out of the corner. John's evasive action to avoid the cone took away any shot at getting by Johnson, as Denny had opened up about a 4 car lead on the start. John wouldn't challenge for the lead again and came home with our 4th straight top-5 finish and second consecutive runner-up..
Standings - Without enough cars in the field to make up the 34 and 38 points by which John trailed Koster and Hesse, we tied up our best career points finish of 3rd. We were very happy to finish that high in the standings but can't help but ask, "What if we could have had just one of the nights back that we struggled?" Oh well, not worth asking, guess everyone could ask that. We are thrilled to finish third, and it was indeed an awesome season! The season's top-5 finished as follows: Hesse, Koster, Klynsma, Clark, and Cole. |
