Team Crown

Husets season championship night

Well the final night at Husets was a good one for us, but it had it's moments!  We had a bad draw, and had to start 6th in the heat, which we managed to finish 5th I believe on a really heavy rough track.  The redraw went to point average once again, so we knew we'd be starting 12th.

We talked about what we would do for the feature, and we basically decided we'd put alot of gear into the car because we knew we'd have to drag race people down the straightaways to pass them with the way the track was.  I figured we'd be lucky to crack the top 10 as heavy as it was, but Jody put on a pretty good show and almost took the lead with 3 to go and then the caution came out.  We were put back to 3rd, and on the restart the person in 2nd had his engine die and Jody ran into the back of him breaking the nose wing.  We were certainly fast enough to win, but with the nose wing broken the car was way too tight to be able to pull off the pass.  We settled for 2nd and took home the championship in good fashion.

Congrats to Trisha Underburg on her first career win!

We're not sure if we'll be racing down at Park Jefferson this Friday or not, we'll have to see.  Otherwise next up for certain is Jackson on Oct. 4th for us.  I'll post more in a few days....I'm just going to let the dust settle for now, and I have many thank you's to attend to!

9-7 Results

We were looking forward to moving on from last weekends events, and have a good two day showing over this weekend, but mother nature thought different on Saturday night, and we were rained out just before hot laps were supposed to start.

We were really excited to race on Sunday in front of our home town!  We drew poorly and had to start at the back of the heat, and we managed to run 3rd which gave us an inside 3rd row starting spot for the A feature.  The whole night we were wondering if they were going to grade the track or not, and they ended up not doing it which was a mistake by all counts I've heard.  The track was really slick on the bottom, and the cushion was really heavy and rough.  It's pretty hard to get your car set up for something like that, and we certainly didn't do very well in that department!  We were passed by a few cars and we passed a few cars to run 5th on this night.  All in all, it wasn't bad....and like I said a few times last night....we didn't spin out, and we didn't tip over, so it's really about all anyone could ask for that race track!  Congrats to Gregg Bakker on a last second pass to win, and to Jake Peters for an amazing run from 17th to 3rd!

Next on the books is Saturday at Husets for Championship night.  Hope to see everyone at the races!

Thank You

I just want to take the time to thank everyone for the positive comments we've received.  Our friends and fans are simply the best!  While it doesn't change what happened Monday night, it does make us feel better though.

I was able to talk to Loren Barstad again yesterday, and we're pretty square with him.  I still feel the worst for him, because he's in the same position I'm in....we pay the bills.  He is what makes racing fun....he's the most kind and gentle person you'll ever meet, and I respect him more every day that I know him.  I would loan him the shirt off my back, and I know he'd still do the same for me today.  That's what matters to me the most in this whole deal, is the fact that the two teams involved in this unfortunate situation that we caused are still friends.

Again, thank you to everyone for the continued support!

Labor Day Weekend

We decided on Saturday afternoon to go and race in Jackson, and we're fairly pleased with the way things turned out.  We started the heat in the 3rd row, and ran 4th....so we made the invert, which gave us an outside front row starting spot.  We ended up with the lead after about a lap, and were running ok, but Wade Nygaard blew by us, and he set sail for the win.  We held on for 2nd....and although we had nothing for Wade, we ran decent we feel.

Sunday night at Husets we won the heat, and started 12th in the feature.  We had a good car, and reeled in the leaders, but couldn't find any way around them the last few laps and settled for 3rd.

Monday at Husets was a disaster.  We ended up crashing Robbie Wolfgang on the last lap, and won the race as a result.  Now we're taking the blame....full responsibility.  It's unfortunate that things happen like this, but everyone will end up in something along the course of a year.  We felt pretty good about not getting into, nor causing wrecks over there this year, and this one really felt bad.  We've apologized to the people who deserve it, and we'll leave it at that.

I'll leave comments up for now....but if it gets like I think it will, they'll be down.

A few things that I need to add....in the confusion I forgot to say last night.  We want to thank the fine folks at 212 the Boiling Point for helping us with a room for the night after Sunday's races.  They're first class in every way when it comes to the racers!  We managed to make our way in there on Monday afternoon for lunch as well, and the food is excellent as was the service both Sunday night and Monday afternoon!  I would HIGHLY recommend paying a visit there if you've not yet been!

Husets Results 8-24

It wasn't really the night we looked for, but it's in the books none the less!  We started 4th in the heat race, and Jody accidentally hit the switch in the car going into the first turn and the car turned off!  That saw us playing catch up and Jody driving hard to make the transfer spot in the invert.  It's funny in hindsight, but it could have been pretty bad because the car just wants to drive straight to the wall when that happens, but he did a good job of getting it turned on quickly again!  We started 12th in the feature on yet another narrow, hard to pass race track.  It was pretty tough to get through some of the traffic, and we finally managed to work our way up to 4th place.  We may have done better if we'd gotten a caution, but everyone did a fine job keeping their cars straight, and no problems for anyone.  Jody did well given the track, so we're not disappointed with our performance by any means.  We are a little disappointed in the track lately though.  It's been pretty narrow and heavy for about a month now, and we wished they'd put a little less water on it.  But, it is what it is and everyone races on it!

Want to congratulate Eric McGillivary on a nice run last night.  He looked strong in the feature and did a nice job taking the win in a non stop feature!

We're not sure if we'll be in Jackson this weekend with one of our engines still down, but we'll see what happens between now and then.  Otherwise, it's a double header at Husets this weekend!

Weekend Results

I'll break this down to Jody and Travis in separate parts, and then on to Husets so I can keep all this straight!

Friday night Jody had no luck whatsoever.  We were chasing engine troubles and finally in the heat the thing just died.....which it turns out the mag box had been going bad, and finally just gave way.  He had to start last in the B, and ran up to 5th which was one spot from transferring.  Saturday he had the worst draw at the track, and had to start 9th in the last heat.  He did a great job running up to 4th, and that gave him a spot in the top 8 in points.  We ended up with the pole for the dash and we ran 2nd to Brian Brown so we were able to start on the front row for the feature.  Something must have galled up our torque tube during the dash (we find this Sunday afternoon), because immediately he knew the car wasn't right.  The whole rear end was bound up due to the torque tube problem, and the car just wouldn't drive off the corner like it should at all.  That left him pretty much a sitting duck and he held on for 7th in the finale.  All in all it wasn't bad, but a little disappointing knowing we could have been much better.

Travis on Friday said the engine was pretty flat right away and we fooled around with it quite a bit to get it as good as we could, and he ran pretty well......then he lost the brakes and couldn't really run up there any further than he did.  Starting 13th and running 5th for the night with no brakes isn't too bad.  Saturday he ran 2nd in the first heat and started 9th in the feature.  Immediately you could see he might have a car to contend with, but about 4 laps into the race he lost a cylinder and ran the rest of the race on 7 cylinders.  He felt we were good enough to contend with the top 3, but being way down on power it was all he could do to come home in an 8th place finish.

All in all, considering the issues we had at Jackson, we'll call it an alright weekend, but know it could have been better possibly.

Now on to Husets......we're going to get raked over the coals on this one I'm sure!  We won the first heat and drew a 1 for the invert meaning we'd start on the pole.  After some haggling with a few people who put up some bonus money for us to win from the back, we agreed to the challenge.  This is where it gets shaky for most people!  Apparently there was some miscommunication between the announcer and the pit steward, and we were told we couldn't do it.  I walked over and asked the pit steward what was going on.  I asked him if we were able to do this or not.  Needless to say he was not a happy person, and it seemed like a big problem for all of this to happen I guess.  I told him if it was that big a problem, then fine we'd start where we were supposed to.  If it wasn't a problem we'd like to take the challenge.  He still seemed a bit upset (a bit would be an understatement), so we said to heck with it, we'll follow what he wishes and start on the pole.  We DID NOT turn down the challenge.  I'm told that the announcer made an issue of it, and made it look like we turned it down and the crowd was never informed of the real situation.  It's unfortunate that we're the ones that look stupid in this situation, and nobody will fess up to the truth.  Speaking of the "challenge".....I want to thank Scott Bolte Sanitation and 212 the Boiling Point for the offer.  We'd love to have tried.  I'm also told later after the races that someone else had put up $1000 more for us to do it.  We certainly got alot of boos when Jody climbed from the car for what they thought was us turning it down.  Hopefully an opportunity like this will come again, and we'll be able to attempt to win it!

That's it for now.....hope everyone in the stands at Husets reads this and gets the real story!  See everyone next week at Husets!

An Update Finally

It's been a while since I've been able to get here to update you on Knoxville, but here goes.....

We ended up with the worst draw possible and had to go out second to last in qualifying due to another car showing up late, otherwise we were supposed to be the last car out.....Don obviously knowing the track well was able to time in at 21st out of 61 cars which is pretty good.  We felt the engine needed a little help for the heat race, so we tried to play a little with the fuel which ended up being a bad idea and we went backwards in our heat to 4th from the outside front row.  The feature we started somewhere in the 7th row and that about where we finished as well with a 13th place finish.  Not a great night for us, but not terrible either.

Saturday we started 12th in the B feature and had the best car overall we had all weekend.  We were running pretty well, and had picked off some cars quickly.  We were closing in on transfer positions and ended up with contact on the backstretch with another car which just about flipped our car.  That allowed 4 several cars to get by us and left us with a 10th place run in the B feature.  We were really good enough to transfer out of that B feature, and probably make some noise in the A feature, but it wasn't to be.  Overall I'd grade our performance as a B.  The engine we fought the sweet spot just a little, but got it better as we went.

Sunday in the Brodix Tournament of Champions we qualified towards the end of time trials again, and had a time that gave us the front row....which was good, because the track was very narrow during the heats.  We won the heat handily and started the feature 6th.  We were a good car, but not a stellar car for the feature and passed a few cars, but were passed by a few cars as well.  We ended up getting passed late when the engine started to get a little warm for 4th....but a 5th place finish was a decent night for us.

This Sunday Husets was a fast and narrow track.  It was very hard to pass on, and we started the feature from 8th place.  We made a few passes and had one car drop out in front of us to move us into 2nd place by the last 1/3 of the feature.  We were unable to pass for the lead, but showed our nose a few times.  On the 2nd to the last lap we blew a power steering line, and that really made the car a hand full for Jody, and we settled in for a 2nd place finish.

Up next.....the Jackson Nationals with Jody in a car and Travis Whitney in a car!

Weekend Results

It certainly wasn't the type of weekend we were hoping for, but it wasn't terrible none the less.

In Jackson we started on the front row of the heat, and the engine just wouldn't take off like it should.  We ended up running 2nd in the heat which we'll take due to the engine.  We started 3rd in the feature and once again the engine just wouldn't take off like it should.  Luckily we were able to maintain our position and wind up 3rd for the night.  Congrats to Wade Nygaard....he was bad fast and nobody had anything for him!

We went into Husets hoping to cure our engine taking off, and by the end of the night we were successful thankfully.  We won our heat race, and started 11th in the feature.  We knew the feature would be a tough road because the track was narrow and heavy at the start of the feature.  By the middle of the race though the track had worked itself into a nice racy track.  We managed to work our way up to 2nd, and the red came out....and we were put back to 3rd for some reason and couldn't get around them in the last 3 laps.  I just want to congratulate Robby Wolfgang on his first feature win.  The first of many I'm sure.  Overall for the fans it was a great night of racing, and we're proud to be a part of it!

Next up the 360 Nationals with Don Droud Jr.  Here's hoping for a decent showing!

Quick Note

We're seriously thinking of racing in Jackson this Saturday.  We really need to get this motor on a half mile again and see if we can get the thing to run like it really should before the 360 Nationals.  Not that it's running bad, but it's just not in that "sweet spot" yet.

So I guess it's more than likely Jackson this Saturday and then Husets on Sunday.  Then it's off to the 360 Nationals next week!  We qualify on Friday night, and all features are on Saturday.  Sunday night we're entered into the Brodix Tournament of Champions for another night of racing in Knoxville.  Let's hope for the best!  See everyone at the races!

News

Just wanted to let everyone know, surprising to me KSFY did a story on Jody and it aired tonight (Thursday) at 6:00.  Here's a link if you didn't catch it, and were interested in seeing the story.

http://www.ksfy.com/home/video/25597559.html?video=pop&t=a

See everyone at the races on Sunday at Husets!