Iceman solid in his return from the previous weeks crash
Tuesday, September 09 2008 @ 10:32 AM EDT
Contributed by: coleman
Views: 313
With our primary car and motor sidelined temporarily, Iceman makes the most of his return to racing in his back up car with our First Pole at Kokomo Speedway and charged from 11th to 5th in the B Main at Lawrenceburg.
Sometimes you take for granted that a return to the Track after a nasty crash, in this case our worst ever, automatically puts you back where you were. Coleman, still showing the effects from the previous Saturday's disaster at Lawrenceburg by sporting a bloodshot eye, climbed into his back up car for this weekends racing.
We were all kind of watching for some ill effects but the "kid" was on the gas as usual in his return to L.S. Our draw, as usual recently started us Last in our heat and Coleman was looking for room to pass early when the car in front of him nearly stopped on the front stretch on Lap 2. No where to go, Coleman bumped the right rear of the slowed car, bending his front axle and we were done in this heat.
We started 11th in the B Main and Coleman was on a mission. They were taking 4. He quickly started picking off cars and got to 5th with 1 lap to go. While on the outside of former Track Champ Mike Miller for the last transfer spot, a caution flew which stopped our momentum. On the restart Miller held the preferred line in 1 and 2 so Coleman went for broke in 3 and was unable to get the last spot. But, Iceman looked good in his bounce back effort. It was also clear that our back up car is not quite as good as our primary car was so that needs to be addressed in the near future.
Sunday we got a better draw, finally. The Number 58 is usually not good but since Kokomo qualifies on Lap Times, this would work in our favor since we would get a pretty good track for qualifying. Iceman made the most of it, qualifying 7th quick out of 35 cars. After running 4th in our Heat, we were solidly in the A Main, which lines up based on qualifying times. Even if you are the last transfer in the B Main, if you qualified fast, you will start in the front.
Kokomo inverts the top 6 for the A Main and since our friend Brett Burdette who qualified 6th quickest, missed the transfer in the B Main, we would sit on the Pole for the first time in our 410 racing effort.
Iceman did his best early to battle with eventual winner Chris Windom and legends Dave Darland and Tracy Hines. But Coleman got hungout to the top side early and we quickly dropped back to the mid pack. It was tough since our car was set up for the low side and the top was not worked in yet. Then with 9 to go, Coleman was moving from the top side to the low while battling with young guns Cole Whitt and Dunstan Morgan. A slight tap from Morgan put us around and flattened the left rear and we were done.
It was a disappointing finish since we had done so well during the evening. Crew Chief Scooter Ellis and Sammy Swindell's Crew Chief Brian, who spent the weekend with us, did a great job with our back up car both Saturday and Sunday. Scooter, who is a former Professional Baseball Player and Brian, who played Pro Football both Coached our young driver during the weekend and that will pay dividends in the near future.
Our momentum from Speedweek has slowed after the big crash at L.S. Coleman will pilot our back-up car for one more week before returning to our potent Garrett Powered, DRC. We hope to gain some momentum again before the end of the season. I reminded Coleman what our friend Brett Hearn told him years ago; "Don't get too high with the highs and don't get too low with the lows". So True. Jon Stanbrough told Coleman this week as well, "Seat time is seat time and you will learn things that will make you better even if you are struggling with car, motor and confidence". That too is very true.
We head to Bloomington Speedway on Friday and Putnamville Speedway on Saturday. Until then, CGR...
