We're Back

We're back home anyway.  Our weekend in Santa Maria went ok.  We didn't get the big W, but we were competitive and had fun with a great class of drivers/crews.  We qualified second fastest in our class (18.01), and finished second in our heat.  We had to start at the back of the qualifying dash and never really advanced much, due to an assisted spin.

 For Sunday's main, we started in the ninth position.  There was some really aggressive racing and we got caught up in an incident and had to restart at the back.  It was a battle (and there are a lot of torn-up racecars out there today), but we finally brought it home in fifth place.

It was great having some of the Tucson guys come over

She was looking so pretty too...

And one quick video.  Multi-view of the "big" wreck during the Sunday night main.  We had three GoPros on the car and filmed from the grandstands.   As they say, "Overkill is underrated."

Check the links to the left for more photos and video.

Almost Back

As we get ready to head back to Santa Maria next weekend, we decided to double up this weekend and get all the track time we could.  Saturday night at Cocopay Speedway, Brent Ashurst was in the #21 pro stock as usual, but also gave the street stock class a try in Sean Callen's #11 (fondly known as Darla).  Compared to how our season has been going it was a success.  We finished first in our street stock heat and third in the pro stock heat. 

Brent was moving through the field in the #11 street stock when the car broke (a bolt fell out is what was explained to me).  Oh well.  It was good experience and a lot of fun.

In the pro stock, we finally had a good night. We ran good the whole race and even lead a lap, but were out-motored at the end by Frank Rascon.  We took home second, and some good information for next time.

Up next, we return to Santa Maria Speedway.

Not sure that pass was completely clean

Poor Darla has seen better days

Bad to Worse?

Our race weekend got off to a bad start when we discovered a stuck valve on the 21 before loading the car Saturday morning.  So, no pro stock racing for us this weekend.  Because of this, everyone decided to throw everything we had in with street stock Team 11, Sean Callens.  The night got off to a great start with Sean winning his heat with a car that looked great.  There were over twenty cars and for the main, they inverted the start (starting to notice a theme here?).  With the fast guys at the back, and the, how should we put this, not so fast guys at the front, it wasn't long before disaster struck.  A rollover at the front took out a number of good cars and got a piece of ours.  We managed to come back out a few laps down and we were running cars down.  Another car spun in front of us and drifted up the track and we got a big piece of that.  To summarize, the night ended like this:

 As always, check the links for photo and videos.  The street stock GoPro footage will be particularly entertaining.  We tried a helmet cam this time.

Soon, Team 21 is headed back to Santa Maria Speedway.  I think we need the change of scenery.

Breaking the curse

Well, we didn't get a win, but for the first time in a while, we finished on the lead lap which is better than we've done in a while.  It wasn't smooth sailing by any means, but our guys struggled through to respectable finishes.  Brent Ashurst in the 21 pro stock finished 4th with no power steering, and Sean Callens in the 11 street stock finished 5th with no rear brakes.


In other news, it's been a hard week for my equipment as well.  Early last week, my computer crashed taking all of our videos with it (thank goodness for youtube).  I just bought a replacement for one of the GoPro camera which broke a couple of months ago, so I was anxious to get both GoPros (we try to run two--either front and rear mount or one on each car) to start building my video collection again.

 Instead, this happened:

Luckily, it's just the lens cover that was shattered.  A few replacement parts, and we're back in business.

We'll be back in a few weeks.  In the meantime, we've put the hard work in, now we're still searching for that last little bit of good luck.

We need a lucky charm

Well, both cars (the #11 street stock and the #21 pro stock) were about the best they've ever been last night.  They ran great, the drivers were happy, the track was nice, but there was a whole lot of aggression being taken out last night.  Dirt track drivers don't handle a two month break in the action well.  No major incidents, but both cars went home a little worse for wear.

The 21 of Brent Ashurst was looking good with more of the graphics done. Unfortunately, some over driving (by others) knocked the nose off.  It's mostly cosmetic though .  A new bumper and reattached nose and we're good. 

Sean Callens' 11 is a little more banged up after his wall ride. 

Screen capture of the fun part

We're looking into some lucky charms.  A few four leaf clovers and rabbit's feet can't hurt at this point. 

As always, check out the videos if you'd like to see the demolition derby disguised as a stock car race from this weekend.

Man, we had this one!

Yeah, that's what everyone says at the track.  We returned to Cocopah Speedway with a brand new body and a newly tuned engine (thanks to Kracker Diesel Service/Kracker Racing Engines).  The car looked great, ran great, and felt great.  Unfortunately, during the main, contact with another car resulted in a flat.  With a short main of only 15 laps, there wasn't enough time to get back out there.  However, we left feeling pretty good about the car's performance. 

The graphics aren't quite done yet, but the car still looked pretty clean.

Good things to come...

Just Like New

We didn't quite manage to get everything back in place for the first race of 2012 at Cocopah Speedway, but we plan on being there for the next one. 

We're hoping for good things in 2012!

Preview of work in progress