Saturday, May 31, 2003 - Park Jefferson Speedway
Heat - Hoping to have our mechanical gremlins behind us we returned Park Jefferson hoping for a solid top-5 run. The heat race would start out good as John moved from a 5th place start quickly into 3rd place. On about the 4th lap John clearly was slowing his charge and eventually gave up the 3rd spot and received pressure from the 5th place car of Ken Fridrichs. The engine had again had oil pressure going away during the race. We checked out several things before the feature and sent him back out there hoping things would be better for the feature.
A Feature - John would still start near the back of the inversion in the 9th spot. The car was great on a very dry and smooth race track. But we didn't have much opportunity to show it's strength as the race was halted several times in the first 10 laps for cautions. John would be in about the 7th spot through 4 restarts and would each time need to pass the cars of Paul Hemmingson and John Heins. Finally the race got into a green flag run and John would work his way into the 4th spot behind Charlie Clark, Jeff Berens, and Denny Johnson. By the time John got into the 4th spot the three leaders were about 10 car lengths ahead of John. With just 5 laps remaining John would set out in the tracks of the three. He quickly made up the distance on those 3 in a single lap and as he caught the trio the engine again developed problems. Smoke would be trailing from the car over the closing laps as the engine again developed serious problems John was unable to challenge over the closing circuits as his engine went away, but was able to bring home a 4th place finish, shutting the engine down as he came across the line. Denny Johnson muscled his way by Clark in the closing laps to take the win.
Standings - Although we lost an engine tonight it was a great point night for us as Rich Hesse & Jimmy Cole would tangle on the final lap and finish 15th & 16th. John would move by each of them in the standings into 2nd place, just 2 points behind leader Jason Edwardson. Edwardson became the 3rd point leader of the young season as he replaces John & Hesse at the top. Although the duo are still close behind holding the 2nd & 3rd spots. The ground lost last week was made up with a solid top-5 this week. Hopefully our motor gremlins will be behind as we move into the summer stretch of the season still looking for our first feature win. |
