Grant County Speedway 6/27/09

Yesterday looked to be a good day for the Stagman Racing team, but a little bit of bad luck took a good finish away from us. In the heat race I lead the first few laps until a new driver got inside of me in turn 1 and took the lead, but I held on to 2nd place and got two valuable points towards the point race. In the feature I started outside of the front row, and jumped to the lead in the first turn, but some cars got tangled up behind me so a caution took away the lead that I would have had. On the next restart I bobbled in turn 4 and the same guy that passed me in the heat race got under me on the frontstretch and took the lead again. I was chasing him down for a few laps until going into turn 1 the spark plug wire fell off of cylinder number 4 which cut my power down considerably, and then of course we had a caution which bunched the field back up. On the restart I got punted in turn 2 by another driver, and I got a bad call by the officials which sent me to the back rather than the guy who caused the caution. I managed to get back to 4th running on 7 cylinders which kept me close to the points leader with there only being 4 points in between us. After I got home that night I also put in my order for a Go Pro Hero camera, so hopefully next week I will have a video of the feature race so everyone can get a little bit better idea of what it is I do.

Lafayette County Speedway 6/26/09

We got the frost plug issue sorted out from last week and also found and fixed some other problems that could have arisen last night. When we took the transmission and clutch off to get to the frost plug we found out that two of the clutch discs were cracked and one had broken, which could have let go in the next race. In the heat race a couple of cars got into each other in front of me, and one ended up looping it in front of me, and i ended up running into him and making a mess out of the front end, but the car was good enough to keep out on the track, and I made my way to the front to win my heat race. In the feature I started in second and stayed there until after the last restart when in turn 1 I tried to make a move on the leader and got on the gas a little early which sent me spinning around, brought out the caution, and sent me to the back of the pack. Luckily a lot of the cars had already dropped out of the race, so I was in 8th with two laps to go. On the 2nd to last lap I made a move coming out of turn 4 that I managed to pass 3 cars in one turn, and I'm still not sure how I did it. I ended up finishing in 4th, and kept myself in the points race and hopefully moved into the lead.

Grant County Speedway 6/21/09

I had been looking forward to last nights race once we knew that we had the good motor in the car. When we got to the track the engine builder came over and checked the timing on the motor to make sure it was spot on before we went out. He gave me some advice for what to look for with this new motor before pushing it. In hot laps I went out and the oil pressure was staying pretty steady, so I started to slowly get on the gas more and more, and on the last lap of the hot laps I could see my dad giving me the slow down signal. When I stopped the car in the pits I could see a bit of steam coming off the car, and another racer told me he saw a bunch of water shoot out on the frontstretch. The engine builders came over and figured out that it was a frost plug had shot out on the back of the motor by the clutch. It was a total freak happening, but luckily another driver in a different class let me borrow his car. The car I raced came from a slower open wheel class, so I had a fun time just trying to wheel that car around the track. The best part is that I pulled off a 4th place finish, which will keep me in the points until next week when I will get my good motor back again. I'll be purchasing a Go Pro Hero camera here soon, so hopefully I will soon have some video of me racing for you guys to watch. Thanks for reading.

Grant County Speedway 6/14/09

Last night was night number two on the borrowed IMCA motor, and the plans were just to keep the car in one piece and earn some points. The track took a long time to work in, but when we finally got it together it looked to be a heavy track, good for the big power motors, bad for me. In the heat I managed a third place finish which earned me a valuable point towards my total. In the feature I had to really change my driving style as I was used to the torquey 383 that we had in the car before, and now I had a torque-less 355, but a motor none the less. I managed to hang on for a third in the feature as well, so I should hopefully still be in the points race at both tracks for next week. The engine builder told us that the motor should be ready for next weeks races, which means the rest of the field better watch out.

Lafayette County Speedway 6/12/09

If you follow the blog at all, you'll know that last week we ran into some motor problems. We got the engine down to the builders shop and when they took the oilpan off it was pretty apparent that the crank had broke, as a piece of it was just hanging, still attached to the rod. So for this weekend we had hoped to get our backup motor built to put in, but the engine builder ran into some problems, so we instead borrowed an old IMCA motor from fellow racer Steve Merriam. For those that don't know IMCA is a sanctioning body that puts claim rules on the engines in an attempt to keep cost and power down. So we went into the race a little under powered, but we were just hoping to get some points. The race was a battle of attrition with wrecks almost every lap that retired cars from the race. When all was said and done I had made my way to a very respectable 4th place with this motor. That finish should keep me in the points race for the time being, and we should hopefully have our bigger motor back for next week.

Blown Motor Speedway 6/05/09

We started out the night in good fashion by picking up yet another heat race win, I started 5th and made my way up to 2nd, then the leaders air cleaner broke off which caused him to pull off and put me in the lead. In the feature I was starting 10th which meant i had a lot of work ahead of me to get to the front. As with almost every feature race we had had this year this one was filled with cautions, but I slowly made my way up to 3rd. We finally got a green flag stretch in and I got to stretch the cars legs a little bit. I came out of turn 2 and had a good run down the backstretch, then the motor let go coming in to the turn and that was the end of my night, and I ended up finishing 8th. We are tearing it down right now, but it looks like either a rod or the crank let go. There was no water in the radiator so the block is junk. My brother Zach was building us a motor identical to this one, but it isn't quite finished yet, so the pressure will be on to see if we can get this motor back in for next Friday. Luckily we have the week off at the Grant County Speedway, so hopefully we can get the motor in and I can hold on to my points lead there.