Arlington Season Wrap Up
Well the 2004 season is a wrap. We ended the season with alot of closure on our Hobby Stock Racing Program. We started the year with a win, getting another win mid-season, and ending the season with our third win in the final race of the year at the Extravaganza.
This win, and race as a whole will have the most memories of the season. Scott Apitz and myself ran nose to tail the complete race breaking away from the rest of the field by 1/2 a lap at times with myself lucky enough to take the win and with Scott seizing the championship. Its kind of ironic, Scott and I were talking on that first night of racing way back in May. He made the comment "I think I should take the season championship, and you can have 2nd." We both laughed, and I don't think either of us would have really though that's exactly how the season would have really played out.
This season gave us our share of problems with our engine program, but we stuck with it and I learned more than I really was ready for. I have to say I am really glad things turned out the way they did with our motor mishaps. I believe it was the forced learning that most likely would not have happened if it weren't for that bad luck. Like I said we struggled through reworking the same motor 3 times, until we finally got it done right. We were trying things a little to eratic and were paying the price.
We also had a mid-season slump with our share of carnage, but the late season run we had more than made up for it by bringing us from 4th in points up to 2nd in the final 3 weeks. I truly feel that it is the best time in my racing career to make that step up to the Stock Car. No we didn't get a championship in the Hobby Class, but that could be a goal that we would possibly have chased for a long time. Week in week out we were a top 5 contender with the exception of when we would get caught up in bad luck.
Jumping from a 6th in points from last season to 2nd in points this season, and nabbing 3 wins. The icing on the cake was to get the feature win at the Extravaganza on the last race of the season after the Hobby Car was already sold. That easily puts the closure to the Hobby Program with no regrets from me.
Its time to look forward and start the climb once again and take on the new challenges of the IMCA Stock Car Class. Overall this by far was one of the most enjoyable and satisfying season of racing yet. |
