May 16 - 18

With our crew chief, Clyde, still laid up in the hospital, we were unprepared to do any testing. We took the Kendall Oil Dodge Stratus to Bristol armed only with our notes from a few weeks earlier when we tested there. We also had last year notes but, considering our less than stellar performance last year in Bristol, we opted to study the more recent test notes. Weather for the weekend was supposed to be with challenges from thunderstorms especially Friday and Sunday.

Friday morning, we prepared the Kendall Dodge for a tough 28 car field, more cars than we have seen so far this year. The first round is still the most important round of the weekend since it sets the tone for the direction we want to go and any head starts are very valuable. We ran fairly well carding the 6^th best run of the session, but a lot of top name cars were still out. Second run, we picked up the car a bit and moved up to the fourth spot with a pretty good run considering the fact that a number of the top points leaders were still struggling and the weather had turned very cold for this time of year.

Saturday morning we were promised a better, warmer weather forecast. It took most of the morning to burn off the thick fog cover, so by the time we ran it was still pretty cool. Most of the cars picked up in this session even though the adjusted weather was higher than Friday’s sessions. The reason they picked up is that the track improved so much with a couple of fuel sessions being run on it. We were knocked clear down to the 10^th spot by the time our turn came up and we ran second quick in that particular lane to re-up our spot to the 4^th spot again. Saturday afternoon got a lot warmer and not many cars picked up, but Allen Johnson had an excellent run to go from just behind us to just in front of us, putting us into the 5^th spot for the total qualifying efforts.

Sunday morning we woke to some sunshine and prepared our Kendall Oil Dodge for battle. Then the rains came and it spit rain on and off for almost 3 hours while we waited our turn on the track. We sat most of that time waiting in line at the head of the staging lanes getting hungry and bored. Finally we had a break and our first opponent Max Naylor took too long to stage his car and timed out. An easy win, but it didn’t leave us with much data for the second run. On the second run, we faced John Nobile who we faced second round now, for the second race in a row. John broke something but it didn’t matter as the Kendall Dodge streaked to a 6.74 run maintaining lane choice again. Then the rains came again and, at almost 9 pm, we got the chance to go another round when Greg Stanfield ended our day by cutting a .002 light. Our light was no slouch at .022 and we ran quicker but we were unable to make up the .020 starting line difference. Still, number 6 in points, we had a good weekend and look forward to a week off before heading to the 9^th race of the season in Topeka Kansas. Special thanks to Tom Martino who is on temporary loan from Larry Morgan and filling in for Clyde while Clyde is recuperating from his recent surgery. Enjoy Memorial Day and we will return to Topeka.