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| 2004 Race Results |
| March 12-13, 2004 - USMTS Junction Motors Speedway - McCool Junction, NE McCool Junction Brings Mixed Results The O.K. One Stop Racing team kicked off the 2004 season at Junction Motor Speedway in McCool Junction, NE on March 12-13. The two day show was the first visit to the new facility for the USMTS and the team. On Friday, John would have a decent night finishing 4th in his heat race, and 6th in his B feature. 65 modifieds were on hand for the Friday night show, and John ran well in both races, but missed making the A feature by just 3 spots in the B. John would start towards the front of his Friday night heat, and lead early on, but ran into some bad luck as the visor of his helmet fogged up and caused him to badly miss his line into turn 3 and catch the rim of the infield giving up the lead. John would lose 3 spots and follow the front 4 across the line after getting his visor opened up and cleaned off. The experiene gained from the Friday night show would pay off on Saturday. John would start 10th of 10 cars in his heat, and only be able to get up to 8th with a very tight racecar. The low finish in the heat would give John a 12th place starting spot in his B feature, with just 5 cars transferring to the A main John had his work cut out for him. A first lap incident brought out the first yellow flag of the race and John would restart in 15th of 18 cars. From that point on it was all forward in the 15 lap B feature! John was very fast driving the high line around the track, he made the majority of his passes in turns 1 & 2. Several cautions played into John's favor as the field would be bunched on the restarts, John would pass several cars right away. John moved into the top-5 with about 6 laps remaining, and would drift high in turn 1 giving that spot back to Brian Foote who he had passed for the 5th spot. On the last lap Foote had trouble in turn 1, and John would move past for the final transfer spot to the A main! John would start 22nd in the feature, and would be moving steadily up in the field in the early going, but got into trouble early. While making a pass down low in turn 3 John got squeezed down and ran out of room making hard contact with the car he was passing. That contact would cause terminal damage to the rear suspension of the O.K. One Stop Harris modified, and John would retire from the race a few laps later and be credited with a 22nd place finish. We were thrilled to have raced so well in the B to make the show, but of course were disappointed to have our night cut short in the A main. The car seemed good enought ot have put John in the top-5 in a race that had very high attrition. But of course we weren't there at the end to find out. It was a good weekend, with the team making their first feature in just our 2nd attempt of the season. The team will be anxious to pick the tour back up in early April for another go round! |