Double Decker Racing
October 2nd
Back to back days of racing this past weekend - Saturday at Antioch Speedway and Sunday at Merced Speedway; both races were paying $3,000 to win. Jeff had worked on the car for days and we were as ready as we’d ever be!
Antioch – Saturday, October 1st
20 late models checked in for this big Western All Stars show. We were actually quite surprised at the lower car count. $3000 to win and $400 to start is great money. I guess some drivers would rather race for a lot less money at a track closer to their home. Oh well. Each to their own.
As usual with the Western All Stars, you qualify in “group qualifying” format, meaning that you really only need to worry about timing in fastest in “your” group. Well I guess Jeff wanted to do better than that, as he not only timed in fastest in his group, but his time came in 2nd quick overall, second only to Richard Papenhausen.
Jeff said the car was really good and the track seemed to be holding moisture, so not many changes were made on the car prior to the heat race. He had some heavy hitters in his heat, including Clay Daly and Bobby Hogge, but when the green flag dropped, Jeff had a clear lead on the pack and dominantly won the heat.
Heading back out to track for the dash, we crossed our fingers and hoped that the pill draw would go our way, but nope. Not this time. Starting in the back of the trophy dash would be difficult, but we really had no idea HOW difficult as an out of control driver had plans to keep us in the back of the dash, slamming into our car extremely hard coming out of turn 2. This had us limping to the checkers with a 5th place finish. We would start 5th in the main event and we had some repairs to do on the car.
After replacing what was broken on the right front suspension, and making some adjustments to the car for the main event, Jeff headed out to the track. We had high hopes that we would have a good finish as the car had been amazing all night long until the dash incident. However, another altercation with the SAME out of control driver on lap five, in the SAME turn, put us out for the night. Needless to say, Jeff was NOT happy and expressed his displeasure to this driver. We headed home to fix what was broken. Jeff and John ended up having to work until 3:30 in the morning to get the car right and running again.
Merced – Sunday, October 2nd
Tired but determined, we headed out to Merced Speedway on Sunday afternoon. Never having run on this track in its new configuration, we had no idea what to expect, no idea what gear to run, and Jeff had no idea how to drive or pass on this track either! We had also heard that the track was quite small (smaller than any other track we had ever raced on), and it was extremely hard to pass and also to avoid accidents.
Once again, in group qualifying, Jeff timed in fastest out of his group and that time would have held up as quick time overall, but Bobby Hogge edged him out slightly and took that prize. This sounds pretty familiar to the Antioch deal doesn’t it?
Even though Jeff had never ran at Merced in its current configuration, he found that he really liked the track and in his heat race, it was clear that he had the car set up appropriately for it as he won the heat race in relatively easy fashion over Clay Daly.
Once again pulling a number that placed him starting in the back of the trophy dash was a little disheartening, but Jeff used the track time to figure out the line he liked on the track and what changes the car needed. Finishing fourth in the trophy dash which would have us starting fourth in the main event. The guys made the changes Jeff felt the car needed as he thought the car was a little tight.
At the drop of the green flag for the main event, we could tell immediately that we had gone the wrong way with the changes for the car. Jeff was way too loose. He was fast, but clearly had his hands full with a loose race car. As the laps shook down, Jeff was running in fourth, right behind Clay Daly, while Hogge and Papenhausen were battling for the lead. The four cars in the front (Jeff, Daly, Hogge and Papenhausen), were clearly the class of the field, and quickly came into lap traffic which was hairy in itself to watch on that small of a track! I think everyone watching was holding their collective breath to see the leaders come through lapped traffic! With about 15 laps to go, the yellow came out for Clay Daly as something on his car had broke.
This moved us into 3rd position, and when racing resumed, Jeff’s car, while still loose, seemed better. He continued tracking Hogge and Papenhausen who were currently running 1 and 2, but again, did not have the ability to pass them with such a loose race car. As the laps ticked down, Jeff had definitely caught Papenhausen, but we had all kind of resigned ourselves to Jeff finishing 3rd in this race as the positions had not changed in quite a while, when all of a sudden we saw Hogge slow on the track! Papenhausen was right on Hogge’s tail and Jeff was right on Papenhausen's, and it became clear that Hogge had a flat! With three laps to go, Hogge was of course trying to hold Papenhausen off and win, but Jeff saw the opportunity and grabbed it! He dived down to the bottom of the track in turn 4 and passed both Papenhausen AND Hogge. WHAT??? HE WAS IN THE LEAD??! The scoreboard was showing 3 laps to go and Jeff was leading!! We were completely stunned for about an entire minute and then we started screaming! This was unbelievable! It wasn’t until the checkered flag flew and Jeff was the first one underneath it that it actually sunk in. We had WON! Just goes to show, you never give up and if you put yourself in the position to take advantage of anything and everything, you can come out on top. Another win for Decker Racing!
Here’s the link to the official story on Late Model Racer: http://www.latemodelracer.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1317607772/0#0
Next Week’s Plans
We will be taking this coming weekend off to get the car ready and then we will be running the Chowchilla Speedway two-day Chowtown Nationals – Saturday, October 15th, and Sunday October 16th. This again will be a high paying, high-intensity late model show. Come out and see some high horsepower excitement!
P.S. By popular demand, we will have plenty of the new BLACK Decker Racing t-shirts on hand. Hope to see and talk to you this weekend! |
2011 Merced Speedway - Merced, Ca.
