Welcome!  If you're new to our diary, please keep checking back.  This is where you'll find our "behind the scenes" story of what really goes on at the race shop and at the track.  Believe it or not...we don't make this stuff up!!!  Our 2002 and 2003 diaries have been moved to new pages. You can reach past seasons by clicking on the year above.

Diary written by:  Cindy Howe (unless otherwise specified)
check back often for updates!
Most current entry is at the bottom of the page. 

December 15, 2003
Monday

Welcome to our 2004 racing diary, where we share the details of our racing season no matter how good or bad they may be.  Check back often as we "try" to keep this diary updated regularly. 

We've got a lot of exciting news heading into the 2004 racing season.  First of all, we want to thank Wayne County Speedway owners for making the decision to run AMRA Modifieds regularly in 2004.  In addition to bringing us in full-time, they've also announced two Road Warrior dates.  Jay and I are extremely excited about this.  Wayne County is basically in our backyard compared to the 2 1/2+ travel time (one-way) that we've been used to over the past 4 years.  So, we're converting to a traveling from track to track every week team to focusing on one track, Wayne County Speedway. 

What else is going on???  Well, Wayne County Speedway owners John and Ilene Hess contacted us before deciding to run Modifieds in '04.  One of their primary concerns was car count.  We actually have 2 Modifieds.  A Hot Chassis, which we purchased last season and ran during '03, and a Huff, which we saved for a backup car.  We definitely want to see Modifieds having a long future at WCS, so we made the decision to become a full-time two car team. 

Besides, twice the headaches that we've previously had...Ha!...what does that mean for the Howe Extreme Racing Team?  We're in the process of hiring our friend Chris Mullinnex to race our second car.  Chris will be a rookie in the Modified division, stepping up from the mini-stock class.  Chris is a good friend, a good driver, and has helped us out quite a bit over the past year and a half.  I think we're all pretty excited over this deal. 

What else? If you've read any of our 2002 or 2003 diaries, then you know that we frequently experienced engine trouble.  Towards the middle of last summer, we dumped the engine builder, and figured some things out on our own.  Our problems definitely decreased, but we wanted to build another engine over the Winter in preparation for 2004.  We hired BadMan Racing Engines in Wakeman, Ohio, who I'm very familiar with because Mark builds the Sportsman engines for the NHRA Drag Racing Team I work for, Bullet Motorsports. 

Problem #1....Our Huff car did not have an engine or tranny. So now what?  BadMan is building the primary engine for Jay's car.  We'll be pulling the engine that we ran last year and use it as the official backup engine for both cars.  Now...we needed an engine for Chris in the Huff car.  We made several contacts with area drivers and even spoke with Mark at BadMan about building an inexpensive decent engine.  The result?  We purchased an engine from a local driver, that only had several races on it.  The price was right and the components are good, so we actually brought it home tonight.  Problem solved?  Ha...to early to tell.

In addition to our decision to run two cars in '04, we've also teamed up with our friend Roger Miller who runs an asphalt Modified.  This decision was mainly made for marketing purposes.  We take our responsibility to our sponsors very seriously.  We view sponsorship as a business transaction.  We don't ask our sponsors for money to go racing, we ask them to hire us to help sell their products and services, and market their company.  We decided we can reach more people and accomplish our goals and the goals of our sponsors by combining our efforts between the three cars and crews.  We are actively seeking sponsors for the 2004 season and beyond.  If you would like to receive one of our packets or know a company that may be interested, please email me:  extreme@howeextreme.com.

We've gained several new sponsors over the Winter, including one today, so we'd like to give a collective "Thank You" to all of our sponsors:  All State Fire Protection, All Star Designs, Ace Engineering, Autumn Computer Systems, BadMan Racing Engines, Pepsi-Cola, Performance Race Fuels, Fryman's Services, and Jan's Auto Repair. 

Jay has been working on building a tire cart for Heather and I.  Wayne County Speedway gives competitors two laps to change a flat tire in a designated area before resuming racing.  This option also exists during Road Warrior races.  With both Chris and Jay driving, that leaves tire changing to Heather and I.  Although design details came together as the cart was built, it turned out awesome!  We still need to add a handle and paint it, but other than that, it's basically finished.  Here's a couple pictures.

Over the Winter, Jay and I attended the PRI show out in Indianapolis.  We ran across a few cool things, but the most impressive was a 12v to 16v Volt Converter created by a racer / industrial physicist.  The company is called Auto-Physics.  They had a demonstration there and it really captured our attention.  We've worked out a deal with them to help them sell their products.  We ordered two units this week for our two Modifieds.  Chris and Jay installed them yesterday.  We're really excited about this product.  They retail at $395 (plus shipping).  You can order them through us for $380 (including shipping).  They weigh less than 3 pounds.  Email me if you want to order one or want us to mail you additional information.  Click here to view our flyer, or email us to request a flyer.

Today we head to Wooster for the Wayne County Speedway drivers/owners meeting.  We're pretty excited.  For the first time ever, WCS is going to use transponders on a full-time basis for Sprints, Late Models, and Modifieds.  It'll be a new experience for us, but they'll give us a lot of useful information that we can apply to our setup. 

The 2004 Wayne County Speedway schedule was released today.  Based on this schedule and the AMRA Road Warrior Tour schedule, we have released a tentative racing schedule for the Howe Extreme Racing Team. Stop by and say "hi" if we're ever at the same track.

March 7, 2004
Sunday 

Gary Dreiblebis, a local Late Model driver, has decided to sell off his operation.  We stopped over earlier in the week and picked out a few items for our team and a few items to resell.  We made plans to meet up with Gary over the weekend to complete the transaction.  Check out our “classified section” to see some of the items we have for sale. 

Saturday afternoon, we met Chris and Heather at the race shop.  The plan was to check toe-in/toe-out on the Hot car, connect the battery disconnect switch on the Huff car, and then cleanup the floor from previous oil spills.  We flew through our checklist without incident.   

Jay asked our friend Roger Miller to stop out sometime over the weekend and check out one of our carbs.  We were having problems with the needles sticking.  Roger didn’t make it over while we were there, but he did stop out Saturday evening.  Jay was greeted over the phone with “do you want the good news or do you want the bad news?”  Jay looked over at me and then said “the bad news first.”  Followed by “oh no.  Not again.”  Roger fired the engine to play with the carb.  We had a high dollar oil filter on the engine.  You guessed it….the filter blew.  The clean garage floor that we were so proud of, was no longer clean! 

I had Mark, our engine builder, on the phone as Jay hung up with Roger.  Mark said he could adjust the oil pump, but prefers to replace it.  We agreed and made plans for him to stop out sometime within the next 2 weeks to change it.  Hopefully, that’ll cure our oil filter issues.  If all goes well, we’re hoping to rent the track March 20^th. 

In other racing news…Bullet Motorsports, the NHRA Drag Racing Team I work for, qualified 6^th in the Pro Stock division this weekend.  Our twenty-one-year-old driver, Dave Connolly defeated Darrell Alderman in Round 1 of Eliminations.  Dave then defeated Jim Yates in Round 2 and Larry Morgan in the Semi-finals.  Connolly was first off the line in the finals against Kurt Johnson, first at half-track, but couldn’t quite beat KJ to the finish line.   NHRA has an online audio broadcast, so you can listen to the races over the Internet.  So, even though I couldn’t be there, it was cool listening to it live. 

March 13, 2004
Saturday

Today we worked on finishing up the tire cart. The cart is capable of holding 4 tires ( 2 beadlocks, 2 standard wheels and tires), the jack, and cordless impact. Actually it was done 2 weeks ago, but the tires hit the front casters causing the cart to track straight, instead of turning if need be.

Our engine builder this year is coming out Tuesday to replace the oil pump, since it is pushing too much oil pressure, and blowing filters. Hopefully this will solve the on going problem with the oil pressure. crossing fingers....

We are ready for the 2004 season to begin. Just need a few more items to have on hand, i.e.: tires, shocks, etc....Hopefully the weather will start to go in our favor, and we can get out onto the track. Our friend Rick Walker from Portsmouth is racing this weekend. Good luck Rick.

March 29, 2004
Monday

The engine builder stopped out a couple weeks ago and changed the oil pump.  Of course, Mark figured it would be an easy project.  We'd warned him that nothing with us came easily...this was no different.  A 30-minute project turned out to be about 3 hours.  Mission completed though and the car fired with ease. Mark made a few adjustments with the carb and it sounds awesome. 

A couple "bad news" items came up over the past 2 weeks since the last update.  First:  the weather has been wet and crappy, which hasn't allowed the Wayne County Speedway staff to prepare the track for practice.  The first practice was cancelled.  It's not looking too good for practicing this week either.  And for the second piece of bad news:  there was a rumor that Cannonball Motor Speedway was not going to open for 2004.  Knowing how rumors are, I decided to give them a call and get the official scoop.  I spoke with Tammy at Cannonball and she confirmed that they were only going to run special event shows this year, nothing weekly.

Well, with both race cars ready for action, the four of us have been working on side projects during our weekends.  The guys decided to build a 5ft sheet metal break.  At first we were a little skeptical, but the break came together quite well.  We completed it this weekend and tested it out.  Works quite well.  Cool thing was, a new one would've cost between $350-$400.  Ours came in just under $50. 

April 2, 2004
Friday

Bad News/Good News.  Bad?  It's been raining...snowing....and crappy for about 4 days straight.  We want to go racing!  Where to go???  Wayne County Speedway cancels practice.  KC Raceway cancels racing.  Tyler County Speedway cancels 2 days worth of practice.  Midway Speedway, cancelled.  Mudlick Valley Raceway in Kentucky cancelled a Sunday practice.  South Buxton Raceway (in Canada) doesn't open until May 1st.  Lawrenceburg Speedway (Indiana) not open yet.  Florence Speedway in Kentucky opens April 3rd.  Hmmm.....I make the phone call. 

The girl at Florence tells me they've had rain, but aren't expecting anymore and are counting on racing Saturday.  Sweet!  Yet, Florence runs under UMP rules.  In order to get UMP legal we need to drop the spoilers and add a strip of sheet metal across the back of the car.  Not a problem.  Both cars have the pieces already made, we just need to attach them. 

More potential bad news though.  The Hot car doesn't have the Vortex Coned Mufflers that are required by Florence Speedway.  Jay calls the Speedway to see if they'll let us slide.  No such luck.  He calls Summit Racing in Akron.  They have them in stock and are open late.  However, I remember that our friend Roger Miller works South of Columbus and comes back to Ashland on Friday nights.  I figure if Summit has them then Jegs probably does too.  Jegs is located in Columbus.  Jay has also thought along the same lines...(scary).  We talk Roger into stopping at Jegs. 

Jay and I ordered the kids a pizza and headed out to the race shop to convert the cars to UMP rules.  I drop the spoilers off both cars while Jay measures tires and gets them setup.  We just finish mounting both back pieces when Chris and Heather arrive. 

Jay and Chris get the mufflers bolted in after breaking half a dozen drill bits!  Good to go.  We're home by 9:15pm. 

Now, as long as the weather holds, we're racing tomorrow!

Oh yea...I almost forgot.  More good news.  In previous diary entries we announced that we applied to a "Gear heads" reality TV show about racing.  I received an email from them today.  They want to meet us and tell us more about the show.  If we're still interested in participating, they're interested in us!  How cool is that!?!

April 4, 2004
Sunday

It took us about 3 1/2 hours to get down to Florence, Kentucky.  That even included a couple fuel stops, so we made pretty good time. 

April 10, 2004
Saturday

Thursday we met with the Producer and Assistant Producer of the Gearheads show from Beachwood Studios.  Really nice people.  The original concept was to follow a few teams around for a season.  The new idea is more compact.  Instead of a series type show that follows teams for a season, it'll be a 2-hour type show, which would follow a team for a couple weeks.  We really liked everything we heard and are pretty excited about the show. The studio plans on starting with us next weekend at Wayne County Speedway's opener.  Hopefully we'll have good weather...and good luck...although bad luck would probably make for better TV.  Hmmm...you think maybe they want to follow us because of our bad luck?

Okay, today's plans were to head to Wayne County Speedway to take part in their noon-6pm practice session.  We were the first team to arrive.  The pit gate was locked and they couldn't find the keys.  So, they did what we'd do, got out the bolt cutters and clipped the lock.  Slowly but surely, cars started rolling in.  I think we ended up with 13 Modifieds.  I thought that was pretty good for a practice session when other tracks are open and racing today.

Session 1 of Modified practice.  Jay and Chris and 2 or 3 other Mod's hit the track.  Jay's hooked and doing really well.  Chris has a push in the car, but we're not sure if it's a bad push or just because he's learning the car or a combination. 

Session 2 of Modified practice.  Jay's still hooked.  Corner entries and exits are awesome.  Chris still has a push and plays around in different areas of the track looking for a comfortable groove.  Towards the end of the session Jay catches up with Chris and decides to go for a pass.  I'm not entirely sure what happened at this point.  "I think" Jay went for the outside pass and surprised Chris.  Chris was drifting up the track towards the outside lane to setup his entry into the turn.  Well...Jay was there.  Jay thinks they touched, Chris didn't feel them touch.  Either way...Jay took a ride into the front stretch wall just before turn 1.  Jay continued around the turns and exited the track.  The rest of the cars came off too because they ended the session after the wreck.

I'm thinking it can't be too bad because he's still driving on it right?  Heather and I round the car to see a mess.  The rim is bent beyond repair.  The upper control arm is destroyed, shearing off both rods and breaking the pieces off the little center section that fits on the ball joint.  The ball joint is toast, totally bent.  The shock, destroyed.  The tie-rod bar...what tie-rod bar?  The circular part of the heim was all that remained of the tie-rod bar.  The rest must be on the track somewhere.  Fluid all over the tire indicating a brake line problem.  The brake line actually broke off at the brake. Like I said, a mess.  Okay, now my theory on packing the trailer is:  "If you pack it, you won't need it.  If you leave it at home in the shop, you'll need it."  We had.....a shock.  Everything else?  Yep, at the shop.  Well, we had spare tires and rims too.

This is the first year for Modifieds at Wayne County.  Of course, the parts trailers don't carry suspension parts for a Modified because they don't know what we might need.  Let me tell ya, that guy was taking notes.  He had a lengthy "things to get list" after we left the trailer. 

Lucky for us, Scott Stiffler and his crew from Wizard Chassis were there and had everything we needed.  Somewhere in the ballpark of $50 later, we have enough parts to rebuild the right front of the car.  We missed one session of practice laps, then the track took a break to water the track.  I don't think we missed any more practice laps before we got everything ready to rock. 

We'd like to thank the Stiffler's, Danny Dean, Rocky Kugel, and all the other racers at WCS that let us borrow tools or parts or whatever to help get us back together.  I don't know about the Late Model teams or other classes, but Modified teams really seem to go out of there way to help out when someone has a problem. 

Back on track...the track really dried out and blacked over as the day progressed.  Our car seemed to handle pretty well through both the early mud and the later-in-the-day dry slick.  Chris still struggled with turning. 

Our friend Roger Miller wandered in around 3:30-4pm.  He practiced over at Mansfield Motorsports Speedway in his Modified earlier, and stopped through to see how things were going.  Roger made a small wedge adjustment in our car and we made a last minute panhard bar adjustment on Chris'.  Chris went out for a final session to see if the panhard change helped, but he ended up having a right front tire issue that cut his laps to 3 or 4 instead of a full session.  The right front somehow got cut and was basically rolling itself over the rim when he hit the turns.  (He probably ran over our missing tie rod bar!)

We don't have a whole lot to do on the cars this week.  Wash them down, general maintenance, scale them both, and check our caster/camber on the right front.  Hopefully that'll do it and we'll be ready for next weekend!

Here's a few pictures from our Wayne County Practice. 

April 11, 2004
Sunday

Happy Easter!  We took it easy today, for the most part.  Headed to Mansfield to catch The Rock's & Johnny Knoxville's new movie "Walking Tall".  Jay and I liked it, kids thought "it was okay". 

I uploaded new track profiles and pictures for Florence Speedway and West Virginia Motor Speedway today. 

Jay and I did wander out to the race shop for a couple hours today.  We unloaded and washed the car, made our "to do" lists for the week, tightened the wheel studs, fixed the left rear jack bolt, and drained the oil.  We were excited to see the oil is "oil colored" instead of our milky colored oil that we often experienced last season. 

While washing down the car, Jay noticed our pull-bar is rubbing against the frame.  Of course, the pull-bar isn't even suppose to be on the Hot car, so I asked Jay why he switched them.  He had an explanation, but I'm thinking he was really just bored one day and switched them.  So, this week, we're putting the pull-bar back on the Huff and bringing the biscuit rod back over to the Hot. 

April 13, 2004
Tuesday

We met Chris and Heather at the race shop last night.  The biscuit rod and pull-bar are back on the correct cars.  We replaced the battery switch on the Hot car, checked and adjusted valves on both engines, fixed the Hot car's oil pan leak (we think), tightened bolts, and made a few other minor adjustments.

We scaled the Huff car. I wish we would've scaled it after our practice...before we made a spring change, a panhard bar adjustment, and put the pull bar back on.  And then scale it again after the changes.  We have the paperwork when we scaled it before Florence, but it would've been cool to see what the results were from the conclusion of Wayne County practice.  Oh well, maybe we'll think about it next time. 

When we did scale it last night, we had to make some serious adjustments to loosen up the car and get the percentages to work out. 

We'll finish up the cars tomorrow or Thursday and should be ready for the weekend. 

April 17, 2004
Saturday

Opening day at Wayne County Speedway has finally arrived.  The weather is beautiful even though they are calling for a chance of showers later in the evening.  We're all psyched up and ready to go.  It's also our first official day with Beachwood Studios.  We planned on meeting at the shop with Beachwood around noon, but we're so pumped that we're at the shop around 9:45.

Chris and Heather arrive around 11 and the Beachwood Studios crew arrive just before noon.  Krista from Beachwood filmed us loading the cars and trailers.  We were a little nervous about it while we loaded and didn't say a whole lot.  It got a lot easier as the day progressed though.

It was a little windy at the track so we figured it was going to dry out and go slick.  There wasn't a whole lot to video since the cars were basically setup.  The crew mounted two on-board cameras to our car.  One faced Jay and the other was behind Jay and faced forward.  We can't wait to see the footage off these cameras!

There's a Road Warrior Race at KC Raceway tonight and double features down at Midway Speedway, so we're expecting a low car count tonight.  It turned out we were correct.  Only 13 Modifieds signed in.  We went out in the same set of hotlaps as Chris.  Jay managed to turn it sideways coming out of turn 3 and luckily the two cars following him (one being Chris) checked up and avoided the collision.  We were all thinking "oh no, not again".

Jay drew a low number, putting him first out on the qualifying run.  Jay loves to qualify, but has never had much success with it.  His first lap was awesome, 20.044.  The second lap was a little slower, but was still a smooth run.  The track started developing a bad hole down low coming off of turn 4.  Several Modifieds spun out during their qualifying runs.  Chris came out and made two nice runs.  However, his transponder was malfunctioning and it didn't record his times.  Chris volunteered to take the tail of the heat and feature since he's still learning, so the track didn't have to try and time him with an alternate method.  Larry Kugel time trialed after Chris.  He was flying'.  We were pretty sure he took over the top spot, but ended up being about .004 slower, leaving Jay as top qualifier!  Maybe...just maybe...our luck is beginning to change for the better.

Krista, Brandon, and Warren split up while the guys were on the track.  Krista followed Heather and I for our reactions while Jay and Chris were on the track.  Brandon and Warren filmed the crowd and the racing action.  Jay now has a nickname. Fellow Modified driver, Scott Stiffler, has nicknamed Jay, "Hollywood Howe". 

We were shocked to learn they inverted our heat lineup.  We've never seen that done before.  After Jay's heat lined up in the pit, the track reversed their inversion decision and reorganized the heats.  That moved Jay back onto the pole of his heat instead of 6th.  They flipped Chris to the tail of the second heat instead of the tail of the first heat.

Jay pulled away from the pack at the drop of the green.  He lead a few laps before hitting a few craters, throwing his car out of whack, someone got around.  He stayed strong and was having a great race, but he went into turn 3 too hard and looped it with about four laps to go.  When the light went green again, Jay got around two of the cars in front of him and tried to track down the other 3.  There wasn't enough laps left though and he took 4th in the heat.

Chris is still getting the hang of the Modified, and is doing quite well.  His entries and exits are definitely improving.  You can tell by his driving that he's getting more confident.  I'm not sure if Chris went into turn 1 too hard or too low, but he got turned around and went into the infield backwards.  Luckily he avoided the big tire and hit the dirt mound!  He made it out of the infield without damage...just a little dirtier.  One Modified ended up coming off the track and another lost a drive shaft forcing his track exit.  Chris had a 4th place finish.  Ut Oh....that would put him beside Jay in the Feature!

We made no changes to either car.  The clouds started getting darker and I hooked up the laptop for a weather report.  Potentially bad news.  A storm cell stretched from west of Mansfield to Canton. It could hit us...it could miss us.  After we shut the computer off, we felt a few drops of rain.

The rain drops steadily increased speed and it wasn't long before a wickedly cool lightning storm was in full force.  We were on a holding pattern while the storm continued to develop. We loaded the Hot Modified into the trailer and tarped the Huff.  The lightning flashed across the entire sky while we stood around the pit talking to other drivers and the Beachwood crew. 

The rain finally stopped, but the lightning continued to flash across the sky near the track.  The Pure Stocks and Mini Stocks completed their Features and the Modifieds were released for their Feature.  Jay wasn't part of the inversion and began in the 7th spot.  Chris was suppose to start 8th, but opted for the tail.  The green flag dropped and so did Jay's oil pressure.  He dropped down low when he saw bingo oil pressure and the red light.  But then as he entered turn one the oil pressure kicked back up.  Who knows what happened, but Jay re-engaged in the fight.  

The car and engine seemed hooked and strong.  Jay was flying and Chris was hanging quite well when the rain started falling again.  The race stayed green until Danny Dean exited down the entrance ramp off of turn 4, which brought out the yellow.  I'm not sure if it was the rain or car problems that turned Danny off the track, but he continued on down to his pit.  The cars lined back up and went green.  A lap or two later the officials sent the Modifieds off the track and back to the pit while the rain increased in intensity.  We loaded both cars in a total downpour. 

After we were loaded we helped the Beachwood crew remove the on-board cameras.  When Jay and Chris walked up to get paid, they learned the race had only recorded 5 laps and was not over.  So, I guess we're into double features next week.  That'll be cool though.

April 18, 2004
Sunday

We got home shortly after midnight last night.  We're thankful for the short drive from Wayne County Speedway.  We agreed to meet Chris and Heather Sunday to begin going over the cars and getting them cleaned up.  Even though we were both wiped out from Saturday's events, we were up and on the way to the race shop an hour and a half earlier than anticipated.  We pressure washed the Bullet Motorsports Dually, Racecar Trailer, floor of the race shop, and had nearly finished the Hot Modified when Chris and Heather rolled in.  I love our pressure washer.  The hot water really gets rid of the grease and junk that accumulates along the frame and body. 

We got everything unloaded, washed both cars and made the weekly "to do" checklist for the cars.  Jay and Chris fought with Jay's rear bumper.  Let me tell ya, the bumper was beating Jay for quite awhile, but he finally won.  Chris got a new transponder last night.  So, we replaced that and his tach.  We thought we had an 8000 or 9000 rev limiter chip in Chris' MSD box...well, we learned there wasn't a chip in it after all!  We dropped one in though.  I think, we basically have to scale the cars and double check the wheel bases to complete this week's list.  Not bad.  Somewhere around 3:30, we called it a day.

April 24, 2004
Saturday

After a week full of cool days and rain, we were pleasantly surprised by sunny clear skies on Saturday.  Jay had to work until 12:30pm, but we headed out to the shop to load up right after that.  Chris and Heather were already at the shop when we arrived.  They had the tires aired up, fuel loaded, and pretty much everything ready to go to the point of loading the cars.

We pulled into the Wayne County Speedway at 1:45pm and heard the announcement that Modified tech would begin at 2pm.  We were happy to hear that though.  The fact that there was no inspection the previous week caused quite a bit of controversy.  We unloaded the cars rather quickly and Chris and I climbed in the cars and headed up for tech.  The president of AMRA, Bill Hayes, was the tech inspector for the day.  He was checking the cars over really well.  I noticed several Modifieds had to return for inspection over minor infractions. 

After Chris and I passed our inspections, we all cruised around the pit to see who was there.  Some of the guys that run the Road Warrior Tour (Ken Riddle & Larry Holbrook) came up to do some testing for the upcoming RWT races. 

Jay was first out for Qualifying.  The track had already blacked over and developed holes down low.  Most likely due to the mini stocks and pure stocks running earlier in the day, plus the Late Model qualifying.  I told Jay to pick 2 different lines in his qualifying laps...one low and one high.  Did he listen?  Of course not.  He recorded two laps in the 21's, which could mean track conditions didn't allow us to run the times we ran last week or our setup was off.  After hearing the times of the other cars, we decided it was track conditions.  I never saw the actual qualifying order posted, but it looked like we were in the middle of the pack somewhere. 

Chris still struggled with his transponder.  During the hotlaps session I asked the track officials to check Chris to see if it was picking up a signal.  Nothing.  So, before Chris went out for his qualifying laps, we moved the transponder from the engine plate to the frame just off the engine plate.  The track owner and one of the officials oversaw the transponder operation and approved of the location.  There was absolutely nothing over there to get in the way unless the fuel line dropped down and went under the thing.

Chris hit the track for his qualifying run.  It wouldn't record.  They think the fuel line got in the way!  Jay and Chris strapped the fuel line down with more wire tires to insure it wasn't going anywhere.  The track strapped on a battery operated temporary transponder beside the mounted one.  Maybe between the two...one will work.  Bad thing is, they couldn't get a green light on the temporary one!  Unbelievable.  Chris got back in line and finally recorded two laps.  The original transponder kicked in and started working!  The announcer never broadcast the lap times, but at least it was working.

We started 8th in our makeup Feature from last week.  We had 13 cars last week, but only 11 returned for the makeup.  Chris started 10th.  The track was still really dry even though they continued to water it throughout the night.  It was incredibly dusty.  Jay made it up to fifth and was doing quite well, but hit a rut between 1&2 and turned it sideways.  There were several cars immediately behind Jay and they had a 4 or 5 car pileup.  Jay came out of it in good shape.  He fired up the car and continued on.  Danny Dean was one of the cars that hit Jay and then Danny got hit by another car.  Danny's car was pretty bad off.  He got back into the pit and was finished for the night.  Chris was lucky enough to miss the whole thing.  Jay went to the tail and made it back up to 8th when the checkered flag dropped.  Not how we had hoped things would go, but we made out pretty good considering.  Chris finished 10th.

I don't understand why Wayne County inverts the top 4 in each heat, but they do.  This put Jay on the pole of the first heat race.  They watered the track before the Modifieds hit the track.  Jay's heat took two laps to help run in the track.  They threw the yellow out, which we figured was to lineup the cars.  Guess what?  Jay's brand new left rear tire is flat!  Un-freakin-belivable.  You have 2 courtesy laps to change a flat on a Feature event, but you're outta luck if it's not the Feature.  Jay parks the car and we measure and change tires.  We bought 10 Hoosiers a couple months ago.  Three of the new tires have pinholes in the sidewalls.  Apparently this one did too.  The Hoosier rep told me we had to circle the holes and give the tires back to the place we bought them for an exchange.  Great.  Another trip to West Virginia.

Chris is really getting the hang of the car.  He stayed tight with the cars in his heat.  He was stuck in the middle of a three-wide pack.  The outside car squeezed down too low and ran over Chris' right front causing the outside car to spin.  He ended up with quite  a bit of damage and was pulled off the track.  I noticed that Chris' right front tire didn't look right.  Apparently the track officials noticed too because they stopped Chris on the front stretch and checked it out.  They let him continue.  The 185 Miller car lost a drive shaft and came back to the pit as well.  This left 4 cars in the Heat when the checker came out.  Chris finished 4th.  We had to replace the tie rod when Chris returned to the pit.  It was bashed up pretty good.  Realigned, made some tire changes and was ready to go for the Feature.

Well, since Jay never took the green in the heat due to the flat tire, we ended up on the tail of the Feature.  Chris started 12th.  He decided to go ahead and take his starting position instead of opting for the tail.  The race went green and Chris was hooked up.  The car looked great and he was holding his own.  Jay's car was hooked as well and he began advancing through the cars.  Chris took a hit off of turn 1 and spun.  Car didn't look too bad.  Left rear quarter panel was folded under the car a bit, but didn't appear to be in the tire.  The wind was blowing towards us and the grandstands.  The dirt was blowing so bad it was to the point of being dangerous.  As a spectator it was bad, but we weren't the only ones that couldn't see...neither could the drivers.  Somehow Jay was still moving up through the pack.  He made some terrific passes and stayed strong.  The handling in Chris' car seemed to be going away though.  He turned it off of turn 4 and backed it into one of the large tires in the infield.  It was a pretty heavy impact.  The car fired up though and he continued.  The right rear quarter panel was ALL messed up. 

A couple laps later a caution came out.  We weren't involved by Chris exited the track and pulled up to where we're permitted to change flat tires.  I ran around one side of the car and didn't see anything.  The tires on the right side was fine too.  The sheet metal was into the right rear though and one of our friends kicked in the quarter panel enough to get past the tire.  Chris took off and rejoined the lineup on the tail.  Several laps later, Jay ended with a 7th place finish and Chris finished 15th. 

When the guys returned to the pit we looked over the cars.  Jay's looked pretty good.  Chris...well....we've got some sheet metal work on our hands.  Chris said he thought he had a right front flat when he came off the track.  Upon further inspection, he found one of the upper A-arm bolts had either sheered off or came apart.  Either way...it was gone.  That's what caused his steering to go away.  We figure it must've happened in the first hit in the last Feature.  That's when he noticed the steering going away.

We had one on-board camera on Jay's car tonight and the Beachwood Studio's crew filmed the heats and Features.  We had a little more "working on the car" action for them this week...but not as much as we have in previous years.

Also, congratulations to our friend Roger Miller who won his asphalt Modified Feature at Mansfield Motorsports Speedway!

April 25, 2004
Sunday

We met at the race shop around noon today and worked until 5pm before calling it a day.  We got everything washed and unloaded and started our weekly checklist/to do list.  Chris' car was damaged a lot more than we originally thought.  I was concerned that something had shifted when I noticed rubber from the tire on the right rear shock.  That's not a good sign.  It turned out that one of the frame bars collapsed when Chris hit the infield tire.  He also bent one of the rear suspension bars and heim. 

We already knew the right rear quarter panel was going to get replaced, so we pulled it off.  Jay and Chris made pieces to replace the frame bars and welded them back into place. The rear bumper piece that curves around behind the rear quarter panel was crushed.  We got it pulled out, but it still needs to be replaced.  Chris replaced the bent suspension bar.  We still have a few bars in the trailer, but I called Roger and placed an order for extra suspension bars and tie-rod bars to cover both cars. 

Chris noticed that the right front is bottoming out and is hitting the tie-rod bar.  I found a taller front spring in the trailer and switched it out hoping to eliminate that issue.  I fixed the upper A-arm while I had it apart.  Last night we put a small bodied shock on Chris' right front.  I've wanted to put small bodied shocks on the cars for the past 2 years.  The larger bodied shocks just get too damaged on a modified.  There isn't much clearance with our cars, so they just get slammed, dented and destroyed.  I finally won the battle.  We had two small body Bilstein shocks and mounted them both on Chris' car.  I'm ordering more tomorrow for the Hot car and extra for backups. 

We got a lot done today, but still have quite a bit to go before we're ready for next weekend.

April 30, 2004
Friday

We worked on the cars Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and finished up Friday night.  We worked at an easy pace though and didn't have to slam to get them ready.  So, that was a cool thing.  Jay even had time to start making a little shock rack for the trailer.  We had one several years ago when we had the open-trailer, but we sold it with the trailer and never got another one.  They're really handy for storing shocks.  We're always up for something like that.  And, of course, Jay's been on a roll with "side projects"....the pit cart, the 5ft sheet metal break, the stand for the 3ft break...etc.  Anyway, the cars are basically ready.  We didn't take time to scale the Hot, but the weather is looking pretty crappy for Saturday, so we're doubtful of getting the race in.  In fact, I didn't even bring the Bullet Motorsports dually home this weekend based on the weather forecast. 

Even though we really didn't work on the car Thursday, we were still at the race shop.  Warren from Beachwood Studios came down Thursday to do some one-on-one interviews with Jay and I.  That process took about 4 hours or so.  It was fun though.  Jay and I compared notes from our interviews after we got home.  Sometimes you don't remember some of the stuff we've been through until you're asked and sit back and think about it.  Warren told us before the interview that it was mainly for background and filler information.  Most of it wouldn't make the show, but it gave them stuff to work with.  I kind of hope they use the story about Jay and I arguing one morning and catching the car on fire in the shop!  I finally won the argument after that incident though!

Minor problem...we must've blown a fuse in the Tahoe because the lights aren't working right.  Chris and Heather have to follow us home. 

May 1, 2004
Saturday

As we suspected, Wayne County Speedway has cancelled racing for tonight.  I was on my way to Mansfield to exchange the Tahoe for the Dually when Jay called the track.  Even though it's still bright and sunny, there's still quite a few clouds and they're still calling for rain.  I turned around and headed back to Ashland as we made alternate plans. 

Racing is pretty much out for this weekend.  We're not even considering going to Muskingum and anything else is just too far away at this point. 

I guess we'll head to dinner with Chris and Heather and see what kind of "side projects" we can get into this week.  At least we'll have time to scale the Hot before we race again.  Maybe we'll get the sheet metal out this week and make some spare body parts for the cars...just in case we need them this summer!

May 3, 2004
Monday

We met Chris and Heather at the shop tonight to scale the Hot.  A few minor adjustments were required, but it was pretty close to where it should be. 

Since our checklist was basically complete, we mounted our homemade shock frame and installed new brackets (that Jay made) to hang our toe in/toe out gauge and our stagger gauge.  click for pictures.

Jay and I kicked around the idea of racing at Jackson County Speedway on May 14th instead of heading down to Midway Speedway.  Of course, there's pluses and minuses to each.  If we go to Midway, we'll get AMRA points.  However, we're more likely to get torn up at Midway, and we're more likely to have a very high car count.  Even though Jackson isn't an AMRA track, the rules are comparable and we wouldn't have to make any changes to the car.  We tossed the idea at Chris and Heather tonight.  They were open to either track, so we made the call to go to Jackson.  We haven't been to Jackson since 2002, so we're pretty excited.  Chris has never been there, but we've had some good races there....too bad we won't get points for it though.

Our friend, and sponsor, Rick Maffett, Jr. (aka Ricky Ticky) of Ace Engineering called while we were at the race shop.  He asked us to swing by his house on the way home to check out his new Harley.  Cool!  We stopped...and...well...it's not "exactly" a Harley, but still way cool....check it out.

May 9, 2004
Sunday

First of all, we want to thank all the drivers, crews, fans, and Wayne County personnel that helped us out after Saturday's events.  All of your help and support is and was greatly appreciated.

Now...for the story...we had a nice 16 field of Modifieds yesterday afternoon at Wayne County Speedway.  The weather was beautiful and our car was hooked up.  Jay qualified 3rd and took 2nd in his heat.  Chris' car was completely out to lunch.  He was real tight and couldn't turn.  We made several major adjustments and sent him out for the Feature not having any idea of how the car was going to act. 

Chris started 11th, Jay started on the outside pole after the #94 Modified scratched for the Feature.  Chris went from WAY tight to pretty loose.  Jay fell back a little but held a solid 3rd place through most of the race.  Chris brushed the front stretch guard rail after he and another driver made contact.  The car slid into the guardrail rather strange and somehow managed to rip the entire spoiler off the car and wedge itself into the guardrail.  It was quite comical because the support wings remained intact on the car itself.  That...and the officials couldn't seem to get the spoiler to release from the wedged position. 

Lap 17 is where the REAL trouble happened though.  Danny Dean, Larry Kugel, and Jay were all passing lapped traffic.  Jay was coming up on Chris going into turn 3.  Next thing we see is Jay's car screaming full blast into the guard rail, flying up in the air, and slamming down on the roof.  The race immediately went red.  I couldn't believe what I had just seen.  The official wouldn't let me on the track, but I watched Jay crawl out of the wreckage and walk to the wall.  He was being tended to by the medical staff and I made a break for it when the WCS official looked the other way.  When I got there, Jay was shaken up, but was telling me he was okay.  The car?  Forget about it.  It's done. 

Against Jay's wishes, I drove us home.  It was the first time I've pulled the trailer.  Jay's confidence in me?  Well, I quote "No Honey, I don't want to be in another wreck tonight."  But, we made it to the shop without incident.  With the help of my boss, Mike, and Chris and Heather, we convinced Jay to go to the hospital. 

Somewhere around 4:15am, we left the hospital.  Jay's right foot is broken in 3 places, his ribs are bruised, and his left knee tendon or ligament is either severely stretched or torn.  They want to do an MRI on him later this week.  He's got a wooden flip/flop type shoe for his foot and a brace for his left knee.  We're truly lucky it wasn't worse though.  Hey, racecars, they can be replaced.

It's WAY past my bedtime, but I promised some friends I'd get these pictures up.  Check back in a day or two for more updates, and larger pictures.

Oh yea...and don't count us out.  We'll be making a return quicker than you may think!  More on that later also! 

Thanks again everyone!

May 14, 2004
Friday

Here's the latest and greatest in the Howe Extreme Racing complex.  Chris, Heather, Roger Miller, and I spent Sunday tearing apart the wrecked car.  We made Jay relax and "supervise" our progress.  It was sad to think that it took us 6 months to put the car together from scratch and only took 6 hours to cut the entire thing apart into pieces small enough to hall away in a small pickup truck.

We hired fellow Modified driver Larry Kugel and his wife Cheryl to pick up a Rolling Hot Modified from our friend Jim Long in North Carolina.  We're fortunate enough to have good friends to help us out when things get rough.  Larry and his wife left Tuesday morning and rolled back into Ashland Wednesday before lunch.  They made awesome time.  Larry & Cheryl:  thank you again for all your help!

Our Beachwood Studio's crew stopped by the shop Wednesday to get some footage of the new car and to film some of our work progress.  The new chassis is "Carolina Blue" and arrived with an orange interior body.  We had already made plans to pull off the orange and design a black body.  Now Jay will be black and blue...in more ways than one.

Wednesday, Jay and Heather started working on redesigning the body while Chris and I mounted the fuel cell and made some rear end suspension adjustments.  Thursday, we switched gears.  I worked on the front suspension while Chris mounted the electrical components and gauges. There were several bolts that were sheared off in the block during the crash.  Jay extracted the bolts and looked over the engine for problems. 

I shipped the carb back to Rupert's Performance Products to be checked out.  He freshened it and shipped it back a day or two later.  Hopefully we've ordered all the parts that we'll need to complete the new car. 

Jay seems to think he'll physically be ready to climb back in the car next Saturday.  We've got a ways to go on the car.  We've got some late nights ahead of us, but we'll be ready if he's ready!

Written by Jay:

What a ride I took! It appears as though the throttle pedal had a bind in it, and over time, it managed to become slightly askew, causing it to stick (this is our theory).

I personally would like to say thanks to the following people for their help and concerns: my wife who is my best friend, Chris and Heather, The Kugel Family (Larry, Rocky, Ziggy, Cheryl), Tom King, Matt Blanchard, Wayne County speedway safety personnel, Ernie Coffman (WCS owner), and so many more people that stopped and helped out. I really appreciate your help. I know I forgot some people, and I am sorry, I didn't mean to.

Currently here's our progress, body panels on the new car are off. Our old rearend is in the new car, our old front end pieces my wife is putting on the new car, Chris is working on wiring ( I don't do electrical), I am working on engine, mounting the battery box, and making body pieces as we go. Hope to mount seat tomorrow, maybe the seat belts, brake pedals, other misc. stuff.

Physically speaking.........I am 100% ready in my mind to get back into that cockpit. I am already counting the days. I have the need for speed, my body on the other hand, might have something to say about that.

May 15, 2004
Saturday

We met Chris and Heather at the shop earlier today to work on the new car.  Tom King and Matt Blanchard dropped by so we could help them scale Tom's car and get it setup for next weekend. It didn't take long to scale the car, but Matt and Tom were nice enough to stick around and help the rest of the afternoon.  Roger Miller stopped out to check things out and give us a hand too. 

Our goal is to be back on track...literally...next weekend.  We've definitely got a ways to go though.  Check out our latest pictures.  

May 19, 2004
Wednesday

After a solid week of working on the car, we're making pretty good progress.  Our goal is still to hit the track this Saturday...three days away.  We dropped the engine, transmission, and radiator back in tonight.  Several of the body panels are attached, several more are made, but awaiting the arrival of the new decals.  We can't fire the engine until we get the headers back.  I'm a bit concerned about the engine, but I seem to be the only one.   

Jay is doing better.  He's still pretty sore, but I left him unattended Sunday and he snuck out to the shop in the Explorer.  The wooden flip flop shoe was getting to him too.  He upgraded to his normal shoe today.  His foot is back to normal size and color (for the most part).  His ribs are still a bit sore and so is his knee.  He's still convinced he'll be ready Saturday...so we'll see how the next 3 days go.

Here's a few more pictures that we took tonight.

May 20, 2004
Thursday

What a day.  Jay and I met the TV crew at the race shop around 6:30pm.  Things instantly started off bad.  We hoped to have the headers back today so we could attach them and fire the engine.  No such luck, they're not ready.  I'm nervous about the engine and the sooner we get it running, the better I'll feel (I hope). 

We couldn't find the right length and grade of bolts for the motor mounts last night, so Jay picked up 2 new ones today.  They didn't fit.  In fact, they're the same size as the ones we tried last night. 

Next, I decide to attach the throttle rod while Jay measures and cuts the new Carb stud.  The throttle rod is WAY short.  I have to take everything apart and extend the heims.  I reattached it, but the pedal rides pretty high.  I'm not happy with it.  We'll probably have to reposition the pedal tomorrow.  Jay has success with the carb stud.

Jay moves along to the shifter rods.  More trouble.  They're both long.  Even though the chassis is built the same as the other one was, we have apparently dropped in the pedal and shifter rods into different areas.  Jay decides to measure and cut the rods (and his finger).  He's finally satisfied with the rods and re-taps them.  Now he realizes he's lost the little spacer that goes in the heim.  Great.  He has to make new ones.  After getting everything lined up and going on several "hide and seek" missions (he laid parts down somewhere and couldn't find them again) he secured the shifter rods to the transmission. 

Meanwhile, I attached several body panels and the spoiler.  Things actually went pretty smoothly on that project. 

Jay decides we'll attach the drive shaft and call it a night.  I had to search for nuts for the one u-joint since they were no longer with the others.  It doesn't take long for us to realize the transmission is either stuck in gear or is broken.  I try to slam the shifter into a different position, but it won't budge.  Jay crawls out from under the car and gets it to move.  That's good though because the shaft rotates now, so the transmission appears okay.  However, the shifter rods are going to need to be readjusted because what we thought was "neutral" wasn't.

Our friend Larry Kugel called tonight too.  He crashed his car pretty bad last weekend.  He's okay, but he has to replace his rearend, fuel cell, and quite a bit more.  Larry is confident he'll be ready to race this weekend too, but he's still slamming to get ready.  Even if we do hit our goal of racing, Jay's planning on laying back and getting some shakedown laps and staying out of trouble.  His body still isn't 100% and the car probably won't be that far either.  We'll see how things go...

May 22, 2004
Saturday

Friday was rather depressing.  We started off by holding the new headers up to the engine and quickly learning....they're the wrong ones.  Apparently Hot Chassis has made some adjustments in how they're building their newer cars.  The headers they told Jay to order are never going to fit in this car!  So, I called Summit Racing because I knew they would be open until 9pm.  I figured Heather and I could fly up there and get new headers if they had them or maybe Warren from Beachwood Studios could pick them up since he lives up there.  Well, Simon from Summit kept me on hold for 20 minutes and never came back to the phone, so I hung up.  Obviously, I should've called Jeg's.  I've never had a problem with Jeg's.

I did get a call from my ex-engine builder who had a set of used headers for sale.  He described them to me over the phone and they sounded like they might work, so Heather and I ran over there to pick them up.  They're very close, but need some slight modification to work.  I contacted my friend Don Stuart who does custom work on this line. He agreed to do the work.  When we originally talked to Don, we thought it would have to be done from scratch.  Now we're thinking it'll be a somewhat easy job if he can modify these headers.  So that's cool at least. 

Even though we were all bummed out, we worked on the car until 11pm or so before heading home.  We weren't in much of a hurry Saturday morning either knowing that we weren't going to be able to race.  Jay and I got to the race shop around 10:30am and began working on the car.  We had severe storms Friday that blew through the area and had tried calling Wayne County Speedway to make sure they were still racing.  The line was busy for hours.  Other racers were calling us trying to find out what was going on.  The website didn't indicate a cancellation, so we were prepared to load Chris up and go.

THEN....a call came in from Cheryl Kugel.  She had found someone that had headers that should fit our car!  We instantly went into thrash mode.  Jay and I were putting body panels on the car and hurrying to get ready.  We were going to load Chris up and send him to the track and continue to work until we could leave.  We still had the door panels from the green car that I was just going to rivet on to get us through the evening.  Meanwhile our phones constantly rang from other racers and Wayne County phones were still busy. 

Chris and Heather arrived and we loaded the Huff car.  Chris and Heather helped us work on the new Hot as it neared time for them to head out.  Tom King called and said he heard from a driver that said Wayne County doesn't have power and has cancelled.  Tom called fellow Modified driver Danny Dean to confirm.  Danny hadn't heard anything, but called the track owner's son and got the confirmation.  Racing was cancelled.

Chris was depressed because he was ready to race.  Jay and I breathed easier though because we wouldn't have to push so hard and weren't going to lose out on points or anything.  We continued working and a normal pace until 10:30pm, only taking a time out for dinner at bw3's. 

We'll finish up the body panels tonight and then take the car to Don for header work Monday evening.  There's a "dash for cash" invitation only race at Wayne County on Wednesday.  With any luck, we'll be able to be there.  It'll be a good chance to shake down the car before Saturday's race.  Weather isn't looking good though.

Here's the latest pictures.

May 31, 2004
Monday

Sorry for the lack of diary updates last week.  Something happened to our phone lines with all the storms last week.  Bad phone lines combined with a full week of long nights working on the race car prohibited any updates.  Here's the latest though...

Thank you Don Stuart for doing an incredible job (as usual) on making our custom headers.  We should've gone to Don to begin with! He had the headers completed and back to us Thursday.  We painted the headers Thursday night and waited until Friday to bolt them on and fire the engine.  As you may recall, that was the part I was most concerned about...the engine.

Our camera crew was hoping to be there Friday for the engine test, but couldn't make it.  So, I filmed 125 Megs worth of footage through the digital camera.  Unbelievably it fired up without much incident.  Chris predicted we'd have a lot of smoke at first, but there wasn't any.  Much to my relief, it roared!  We all breathed a little easier after that and our mood brightened.  Finally!

Jay gets better as each day passes.  This extra week was really good for him.  He's still not 100%, but he can at least climb in and out of the car and get around pretty good.

We still had a dozen things we needed to complete before hitting the racetrack Saturday.  We hate to be rushed because that's when mistakes happen.  So, we tried to be thorough, yet still push hard to get ready.  The camera crew got to the shop around 12:30 and filmed a little bit.  Chris and Heather rolled in around 12:45-1pm and helped us wrap things up.  We loaded and headed to the track. 

There were still two small things to do to the car once we reached the track.  Chris and I knocked those two things out pretty quickly though.  I knew that there were 3 Road Warrior Races scheduled for this weekend.  Friday at Skyline, Saturday at Midway, and Sunday at Tyler County Speedway.  I was doubting that we'd have many Modifieds.  So, I was quite surprised to see 19 of them roll in!  That's the largest car count this year.  Several cars that showed up mentioned they were there to prepare for next weekend's Road Warrior Race at Wayne County. 

Jay was a bit nervous.  He's still "gun shy" as he puts it.  His plan was to take a few laps and shake the car down.  He planned on taking a couple laps in the Feature so he'd stay up in points. Well...as usual, nothing goes the way we plan.

Hot laps were fine.  Car seemed to handle pretty good.  Jay didn't give it all he could for time trials.  The engine sounded great, but the car seemed a bit loose going into turn one unless Jay was just shaking it out.  I couldn't hear the times for qualifying and they weren't posted, but I think Jay was middle of the pack for qualifying. 

Chris was first out for qualifying.  I missed his laps because I was getting Jay ready to get lined up.  Heather came back shaking her head though.  Chris looped it somewhere off of turn 2 and couldn't get re-fired.  He said his second lap was like 2 minutes!

Our friend Larry Kugel went for a wild ride on time trials too.  He went into the wall and had A LOT of damage.  He's got a good crew though and they slammed on things and got it back together for the heat.  The rear of the chassis is very bent though. 

Jay was suppose to start 5th in his heat, but opted for the tail (as planned).  Chris was also starting on the tail.  Ut Oh.  Chris had joked all morning that he would get to put the first mark on Jay's new car since he helped put it together.  I told him, he might get his wish!

The heat goes green.  Jay seems to be doing fine.  He's just getting some laps...as planned.  THEN...cars scatter all over the track on both ends of the track.  All but 3 cars (one being Jay) were involved in some sort of cluster.   Wayne County has a "no stop" rule.  That means if you stop, you go to the tail.  All the cars start lining back up.  Jay wants the tail, so he waves everyone by.  The flagman stops the cars on the front stretch and bring Jay back up to third and line everyone else up behind him.  GREAT!  There goes "the plan".

Now that Jay's up here, he has two choices.  He holds back and drifts to the back and hopes no body slams him...or he goes for it.  Now, it's not likely he'll get out of this clean if he eases up and drifts back, so yea, he goes for it.  The green flag drops and off they went.  The top 3 cars just pull away from the pack.  Jay and #86 Dave Liles have a great battle for second.  Jay has it for awhile then Dave takes it back.  Chris detours through the infield and through a mud puddle to bring out a caution.  In 5 years of racing, I've never seen one of our racecars "that" muddy!  The battle for 2nd was intense the whole time.  Dave finally secured the spot in the end though.

Jay was pumped.  He's got steering problems though.  It's binding and when he goes into the turn, it doesn't want to come back.  We've had this problem in the past.  I think we went through 5 power steering boxes trying to get one to work.  This box came with the car.  Maybe it's bad, maybe the quick steer was bent from the wreck, who knows.  The steering shaft is new, so that shouldn't be the problem.  Chris loosens the heim and messes with it, but we're not sure if it's fixed. 

Chris' car is ready.  He's excited, it's handling very well. 

Larry Kugel has more problems.  He was in another bad wreck in his heat.  They're tearing off the nerf bar and cutting it to make a rear bumper.  They've replaced the right front spindle and half a dozen other things.  We help them push the car up to the pit shack for some welding repairs.  What a night.  He jokes and tells the track owner, "yea, I think I'll take 'er out in the Feature and finish it off".  I think there's only one panel left that isn't bent.

Jay's suppose to start 3rd in the Feature.  He thinks long and hard about it.  He opts for the tail.  Not because he's still "gun shy", but because he's concerned about the steering not being corrected.  That's all we need...go into a corner, loop it because the steering hangs and 15 cars plow into you.  Bad idea.  Right decision to take the tail because the steering wasn't right still.  Jay came up through traffic quite well.  At one point, he had a great race going with Larry Kugel.  They were going back and forth and then...well, we think Larry's MSD box went out.  Remember that panel on Larry's car that wasn't bent?  Well, it is now.  Larry was trying to get off the track and well.....Jay helped him.  There wasn't anything Jay could do, but he tagged him on the left rear.  Neither of them spun, Larry just continued off the track and Jay recovered and kept going.

Jay did spin twice due to steering issues.  He came back up through the pack each time and finished 9th. 

Chris had a really strong race.  His car was hooked up the entire time.  He's improving each race, but tonight was definitely his best race.  His corner entries and exits are better and he's trying to watch the cars ahead of him and follow their lines.  Once he does that, he'll learn what works for him and create his own lines.  As the checkered flag was waving, Chris had a good race going with the #23 Kyle Brown.  Chris came out of turn 4 a little too hard though and lost it.  He came to a sliding screeching halt down the front stretch toward the inside wall.  I wasn't sure if he'd crossed the finish line on his skid or not, but apparently he came up a bit short.  He did miss the guardrail though, and pulled out a 13th place finish.

Nice job Jay and Chris.  I'm really proud of everyone.  I guess all of our late night work paid off.  Things went really well and held together! 

June 5, 2004
Saturday

We finally had a rather easy week away from the race shop.  We did our usual Sunday cleaning and organizing routine. Then met at the shop again on Thursday to scale the cars and check everything out.  I was concerned about the power steering box still, so convinced Jay to change the box.  That way if we still had steering problems we could eliminate the box as the culprit.

The AMRA Road Warrior event date at Wayne County Speedway had arrived.  We were pretty excited.  The Road Warrior events typically bring out the best of the best.  AMRA officials were concerned that we wouldn't have the car count that they usually see because of Wayne County's transponder system.  Maybe some drivers did stay away, but we still had 35 Modifieds roll in for the event.

Jay went out for hot laps and had major right side rollover.  We had some issues earlier in the week with our ride heights.  We weren't sure if that was the problem or not.  He came off the track with a left rear flat and right side sheet metal damage from rolling over into the tire.  We changed the tire and snipped away at the sheet metal to raise it up off the tire. 

Chris didn't have any problems.  Car felt good and we made no changes. 

Jay was second out for qualifying, Chris was 5th.  We still had roll over problems.  Smoke was rolling off of Jay's tire when the sheet metal would drop down onto it.  Jay didn't qualify that well, he finished 21st.  Chris turned his best qualifying runs to date and qualified 15th.

We were still trying to figure out what was going on with the sudden sheet metal problems.  We decided to change both rear shocks.  We had a huge puddle of fluid at the rear of the car, which we decided was gear oil.  It was flowing through the breather though, so we must have put too much gear oil in.  We put the tires back on and the guys headed to the drivers meeting when Heather noticed the left rear was flat again.  This is a different left rear tire than we had on there earlier, but it was still flat!

Jay starts 10th in his heat.  Top 6 advanced to the feature...Jay still had rollover problems and finished 7th.  I'm not sure where Chris started in his heat.  Chris was in a good race for 6th when he had to go high to avoid a spun car on the checkered lap.  He finished 7th.

Jay and I went back and forth on what to change to try and fix the rollover issue.  We bent sheet metal up for the third time that day and decided to change both rear springs.  After we'd changed springs our friend Roger walked up and said, "ohhhh.  I wouldn't have done that".  Well yea, since when do we do what we "should" do?  We dropped the car back down and as Chris was putting the tire on, I noticed something wasn't right.  Off comes the tire, out comes the axles, and gear oil gushes out the end.  Great.  Now we have gear oil flowing out of two ends of the car.  Roger and Chris adjust the lock nut on the rear end and reassemble everything.  I guess it's fixed.  Our extra gear oil is in the race shop, so I bought some from the parts trailer.  Let's go racing'.

Jay started on the outside pole of the B-Main and Chris started 3rd for the B.  Jay's turning the best laps he's turned all day.  I don't see any smoke rolling off the tire...maybe the springs were the answer!  How about that.  We took a shot in the dark and it paid off for once.  Jay lead several laps of the B, and Chris wasn't far behind.  For awhile it looked like both would transfer.  Then things turned bad for Chris when another Modified pinned him against the front stretch wall.  Not good.  Same place he "donated" the spoiler a few weeks back.  Chris climbed out and walked back to the pit.  Both cars were pulled into the pit shortly afterward.

They went green again and Jay made a nice pass for second and then took the lead for a few laps.  Jay got high one too many times though and lost the lead.  He still came in with a second place finish.  Nice job Jay!

We had next to no time to get ready for the Feature.  They were moving the program along quickly.  We noticed oil on the right side of the frame near the engine.  Chris checked to see if the valve cover nuts were tight and it broke off in his hand.  Roger took over and checked the rest...one broke off for him too.  Great!  We lost a bolt on our right rear support piece too.  I replaced it, and we sent Jay off.

Chris appeared to have a lot of damage.  The right front spindle ear was sheared off.  The tie rod bar was bent and the brake line was broken.  Upon further inspection we found the rear end had problems too.  We had seen the track official pick up something on the track earlier...apparently it was Chris' spring and spring cup because they were missing!  The panhard bar bracket was tweaked too.  We dropped another spring under the car, but the whole thing was shifty.  Not good.  Worse part?  We found out Chris had a track provisional.  He was suppose to start 25th in the Feature! 

Jay starts 21st in the Feature.  It was plagued with cautions.  It was absolutely horrible.  Jay was throwing oil on the headers and smoking bad.  Of course, it wasn't overly noticeable because they couldn't get more than 2 laps in without a caution anyway.  Chris kept growing concerned with the oil loss as the event progressed.  We've got too much invested in everything to blow an engine like that.  So, at lap 20, we asked one of the Wayne County officials to pull Jay.  Another caution came out and he sent Jay to the pit.  On the way home Jay admitted his knee was bothering him due to all the cautions.  So, we did the right thing. Jay finished 19th overall. 

June 6, 2004
Sunday

As usual, we spent the morning washing and unloading everything.  We went over both cars really well and made our weekly "to do" list and "things to order" list.  We thought it was going to be a rough week with Chris' car.  However, after further inspection and a decent start today, it may not be as bad as we first thought. 

Jay drained his oil. It's suppose to have 8 quarts, well, he blew 4 of them last night.  So, I'm even more confident that we made the right call last night.

June 18, 2004
Friday

Well, there hasn't been a whole lot to report over the past couple weeks...hence the lack of updates.  We've had quite a few storms throughout our region lately, which caused racing to be cancelled last weekend.  We only met at the shop once, which was mainly to check things over and work on some side projects. 

Saturday is double points night at Wayne County Speedway, so we're pretty pumped up.  My friend and co-worker, Lori Cates and her husband are coming out to WCS Saturday too.  It'll be their first time out with us.  So, we're looking forward to that too.  Beachwood Studios will also be with us. 

June 19, 2004
Saturday

Today's weather forecast sounds pretty awesome for racing.  It's suppose to be a little on the cool side at night which is perfect for our cars.  We're happy to see 20 Modifieds roll in tonight.  There are several that we've never seen before. 

Hotlaps are basically uneventful.  Jay's still rolling over on the right rear tire causing white smoke to roll off the tire when the sheet metal hits it coming out of the turns.  Chris looks good.  He's psyched.  We fix Jay's sheet metal issues.

Qualifying:  The track is ROUGH.  I can hardly believe how bad it's chunking up. Cars are getting tossed all over the place.  Danny Dean takes one lap and then pulls off.  He's broken an axle.  Tom King breaks a drive shaft and tears up his whole rear end suspension.  The guy parked beside us also breaks a drive shaft.  It was his first time in a Modified.  Not a good start for him.  Jay takes his warm-up lap and gets in the rough off of turn 4.  A chunk of mud pops up and kinda wedges between the right rear tire and the sheet metal causing the car to react harshly.  Jay thinks something let go and shuts down and pulls off the track.  Chris makes his two laps and is about a second off the top qualifier, but still records two good laps. 

Turns out Jay has a loose wheel bearing.  It doesn't take us long to tighten it.  We make a shock change and check out the rest of the rear end too.

Jay starts 7th in his heat, Chris starts 8th.  We still haven't figured out how Jay is starting ahead of Chris...but they're side by side for the Heat.  Our buddy, Rocky Kugel, is starting ahead of us.  WCS staff made positive changes to the track and smoothed it out.  Chris gets tangled up in someone's spinout and breaks a left front tie rod bar.  He comes off the track under his own power.  Jay tries to get around Rocky, but they keep picking the same lines and he can't get by. 

We make a left front shock change on Jay's car and a right front tire change.  Jay and Rocky were involved in a slight fender bender with a spun car, which messed up our right front rim a bit.  The tire is still holding air, but the rim is definitely damaged.  We put a new tie rod end and tie rod bar on Chris' car.  We have to readjust both cars toe in/toe out. 

Chris starts 17th in the Feature and Jay's in the 12th spot.  We're starting behind Rocky again!  Before Jay goes out he tells me to let Lori know he's going to create some excitement.  (hopefully good excitement!).  While the guys are staged awaiting the completion of the Late Model feature, Warren from Beachwood asks me if we've ever had to do a tire change while under caution.  I told him, "not yet". 

The race goes green and Jay gets around Rocky early.  Jay battles up through the pack and is doing awesome.  Chris is doing well too.  Jay has a great race going with the 94 car and after several laps of trying finally gets by.  However a caution comes out and we have to do it all over again.  Chris gets involved in a rubbing match on the front stretch with the 29 car.  Sparks were flying and we were all thinking "oh no, not the front stretch wall again".  But they got through it without crashing.  Jay got around the 94 again and then Chris gets tied up with another car and crashes.  Chris comes off the track with a flat.  Warren's excited because he gets to tape the "tire change".  We get two courtesy laps to get the tire changed and the car back on track.  Tom King, Rick Maffett, Sr., Matt Blanchard, and half a dozen other's helped us get the tire changed and get Chris back on track.  Thank you to everyone that helped out. 

Chris only took a lap and a half before pulling back to the pit.  He had a broken shock and no brakes.  Chris parks the car on the trailer and is walking back up to watch when Jay pulls into third place.  Larry Kugel and the 2nd place car has quite a lead on him.  He pulls a little closer, but can't catch them.  He hangs on for our best finish so far this year, 3rd.  Chris ended up finishing 16th. 

WCS points aren't posted yet, but Larry Kugel would've pulled another 16 points away from us after winning the race.  Congratulations Larry!  We still have second place tied up for points, but we're not sure how everyone else finished and will shake out. 

June 20, 2004
Sunday

Happy Father's Day!  Even though it's Father's Day, we still do our weekly Sunday routine of cleaning up, organizing, and making our "to do list".  We did a lot of work on Chris' front end and body panels too. 

We'll be racing at Wayne County this coming weekend, but then there's 3 weeks in July and early August that Wayne County won't be racing Modifieds.  During that time, we're planning on racing once down at Mudlick Valley Raceway in Tollsboro, KY and maybe once or twice down at Midway Speedway or Tyler County Speedway.  We're not 100% sure yet.  We might even head up North to South Buxton Raceway in Ontario, Canada.  We've raced there in the past and would love to return.  Ever since 9/11, we're a little concerned about crossing the border with our racing gear though. 

So, stay tuned to see what we do!

June 27^th, 2004
Written by Jay W. Howe 

Kids night

Track was very smooth last night, compared to last week. Also, I put out the word to some of the other drivers out there, that if they came to WCS and raced with us, I would arrange their transponders for them at no cost to them for that week.  Muskingum advertised $1000 to win; I-77 had $800 to win shows scheduled. I wasn’t sure we would get a lot of guys. I was happy I was seeing a lot of new cars rolling in, all told, 26 cars, 10 new ones.

Chris qualified 20^th, starting on the tail of the first heat. Chris struggled with a loose car, on a very slick track, still trying to learn how to drive a car that is loose. He’ll get the hang of it, when to lay off the throttle, and wait for the car rear to catch before applying throttle again. We have faith in him. He transferred to the “B” main without a lot of damage.

I qualified 8^th, starting on outside pole 2^nd heat. Finished 2^nd. Not bad considering I had a loose car. I was happy do make it out without any damage.

Chris during the “B” was doing well, almost to the transfer spot, before looping the car. He exited the track, car intact.

Last night was kids night at WCS. We had “hero” cards made for the kids during intermission. I was pretty excited about it, because my brother, Jerry, was just back from “Baghdad”, and had his daughter with him. He lives in Florida, and we only get to see him once every couple years. Great to have them at the races. My brother Mark was also there, taking pictures. My father was there, along with my kids. It was nice to have them there.

At intermission, the track asked the drivers to bring their cars out onto the track so the kids could see the cars, and talk to the drivers. We gave out all out hero cards, and took a lot of pictures with the kids, even letting a few of them to sit in our seat. I had a great time, and I hope that the kids had a good time.

Started outside pole in “A” main, led the first lap or two, knew we were out to lunch on setup after first lap when car wanted to come around on me on exit. Tried to keep it down on the bottom, (and believe me I tried) but car had other ideas, finished with a 7^th place finish. Danny Dean won.

July 4, 2004
Sunday 

Happy 4th of July!  We had an easy week at the race shop this week...for once.  Our major debate was "do we head south to Mudlick Valley Raceway in KY or north to South Buxton Raceway in Chatham, Ontario Canada.  We do our best to make it to Mudlick once a year.  We haven't raced at South Buxton in a few years, but always have a terrific time there.  We've got some racing buddies in Canada that we try to hook up with at least once a year if not at the races, at Casino Windsor, or for dinner, or at a racers swap meet.  Early week weather predictions had forecasted rain in KY and southern Ohio/WV.  Canada was still looking good as the week progressed.  We cancelled our Portsmouth hotel reservations Thursday and called our Canadian friends to let them know we were headed north.

South Buxton has come under new ownership since we were there last.  Jay called the new owner to see if they still offered incentives to American racers and to give him a heads up that we'd be bringing up two Modifieds.  He's a pretty cool guy.  Turns out he works with a Hooters Cup team and will be headed down here to Mansfield Motorsports Speedway (where I work) in October.  Small world.

Chris and Heather have heard tons of our South Buxton stories and were excited to make the trip.  I was a bit concerned with crossing the border with all of our racing gear in an enclosed trailer, but it was surprisingly smooth.  The line at the border was really long though, which we weren't expecting.  Luckily we left early allowing us plenty of time..."just in case". 

We arrived at the track around 5pm.  Our friend Dan Smolders had sold his Modified, but still helps out a couple teams.  He had them save us two parking spots so we could all be together.  The track has undergone some changes.  They decreased banking and it was a lot smoother.  Since we don't regularly race at South Buxton, they put Jay and Chris on the tail of the second heat.  That was fine with both of them.  Jay had made a couple changes to the car and South Buxton doesn't have a hot laps session.  We were also running under UMP rules, which meant no spoilers.  We had made a couple changes to Chris' car this week too plus he'd never raced here, so he was happy on the tail. 

There were 12 Modfieds signed in.  Jay and Chris both hooked up great in the heat.  Jay pushed up through pretty quickly and got into the second place spot.  He's used to dropping the front tires over the bottom edge of the turns at Wayne County.  Unfortunately for him, South Buxton has tires laying down around the bottom edge of their track.  Jay pretty much bounced off of or ran over every single one of them.  He even bounced one out onto the track, which officials had to fetch under green.  I'm not sure how he hung on after hitting all of those tires, but Jay kept his second place position to the end.  If he wouldn't have hit all the tires, he might've been able to lead the pack. 

Chris had planned on taking some laps and making a smooth run.  One by one, the cars he was running with would slip up or give him a clear opening and Chris would take it.  Before the end of the race, Chris had pulled in behind Jay for a third place finish.  Both Jay and Chris were pumped!

Once again, the track tossed Jay and Chris on the tail.  We were cool with that though.  Jimmy Dale and our friend Dan had always been the guys to beat at South Buxton when we used to race there.  Jimmy Dale was in the pack tonight and was still the dominating Modified at South Buxton.  We were determined to give him a run for his money tonight though! 

Jimmy had won last weeks feature and had to start in the back, but still in front of us.  He started right in front of Jay.  Again, Jay decides to play with the tires in the infield.  Amazingly, and luckily, they never really threw him off too badly.  Jay moved up the pack fairly quickly, but it seemed he kept getting shuffled back through after a caution would come out.  It didn't take long for Jay to battle back through to 4th and into a great race with the other 3.  Jimmy Dale was leading when Jay made a beautiful move to get into 2nd.  The car was running awesome.  There were quite a few cautions, which was good for us when Jay got into 2nd because Jimmy had been pulling away while the other 3 were fighting behind him.  With the distance closed on the restart, Jay and Jimmy had a great race going.  After several laps, and several cautions, Jay finally got around Jimmy coming off of turn 4.  Unfortunately another caution came out giving Jimmy his spot back.  The officials decided they'd had enough.  They threw yellow/checker for the end of the Feature.  That kinda sucked that we didn't get to finish under green, but we had a blast. 

Chris did a terrific job too.  He was the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time on several occasions.  He had moved up from the tail into 5th or 6th before getting tagged and spun out in turn 4.  The track was smooth and slick, a lot like Wayne County Speedway.  Chris had another close call in turn 2 when a 4 or 5 car fiasco roadblocked the whole turn.  Chris locked up the brakes in time to skid to a stop inches away from the mess.  The car stalled, but fired back up before the push truck got there.  The car started to get a little loose as fuel burned off, but the loose part wasn't the problem this time.  As he moved up through the pack again, another car got loose and tagged Chris off of turn 4 spinning Chris into the infield (between Jay's infield tires).  Chris went back to the tail and advanced a few more places finishing 8th overall. 

We all had a terrific time.  We were amazed at how many teams and fans came up to us before and after the race.  The track owner, promoter, and officials stopped over all throughout the night to visit.  Jimmy Dale even came up to Jay after the race and congratulated him on such a tight race.  Jimmy told Jay that he was surprised that he couldn't pull away from him and that every time he looked over, Jay was right there.  It was pretty cool.  Everyone up there really made us feel welcomed.  It was nice meeting everyone and seeing our friends Dan & Brenda again.  The whole trip was awesome. 

We promised them all we'd be back up in early August when Wayne County Speedway isn't running Modifieds.  BUT...you never know...we might just be back sooner than expected! 

Click here to view some pictures from South Buxton Raceway.

July 8, 2004
Thursday 

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions....Wayne County Speedway isn't running Modifieds this week.  So that leaves (a) The Road Warrior race at West Virginia Motor Speedway this weekend. (b) Return to South Buxton Raceway in Canada (c)  Skyline or Midway Speedway on Friday (d) take some practice laps with the Limited Late Models at Lakeville Speedway (e) back to the drawing board.

Well, choice (a) was our original plan.  However, Jay's running second in Wayne County points and Chris is doing well too.  We know from experience that if you crash at WVMS, you're season is basically finished.  WVMS is also known as a motor killer.  Even though it's Jay's favorite track, the risks are far more than the benefits at this point.  We'll still get to race at WVMS for the Nationals in October, so he's pretty content with the decision.

Option (b) return to South Buxton.  We've made plans to return to SBR once or twice in August and probably once in September.  Chris and Heather have to drop off their kids at camp on Sunday.  So time and cost is prohibiting us to make that trip this weekend.

Option (c) Friday racing at Skyline or Midway.  Jay didn't think he could get off work Friday and we're not sure if Chris could've either. We came up with that option to late in the game to plan for.

Option (d)  We called Lakeville about running some laps on their Friday night show.  They're expecting a lot of cars because Attica isn't racing Friday.  They'd prefer we not bring the cars out.  BUT....they've given us option (e).

Judy & Bob Schippers offered to rent the track to us on Saturday.  We jumped on that one!  We're pretty excited because we can get a lot of practice laps in...plus...I get to go out and play too.  I drive around the pits and tech the car, but haven't kicked it up to the higher gear and take off.  So, I'm excited.  We've also invited a couple of our sponsors over to the track to take a few laps in the car.  We're looking forward to Saturday.  Now, if the rain will hold off, we'll be good to go!   

July 13, 2004
Tuesday

The weather held out for our practice session Saturday.  It was hot and humid, so Lakeville Speedway was solid as a rock.  We hit the track around 10:30am.  Our friends Rick Maffet, Sr., Rick Maffett, Jr. and one of Jr.'s sons stopped over to hang out with us.  Rick Jr., who is also one of our sponsors (Ace Engineering) climbed in the car for some practice laps.  It was Rick's first time in a Modified.  Rick has raced in the Mini-Stock division off an on over the past few years. 

We also asked Lakeville owner, Bob Schippers if he'd be interested in taking some laps.  Bob jumped at the chance and had a blast!  He was impressed with our chassis and our horsepower. 

We couldn't get Chris' wife Heather to hop in his car, but I headed out for 3 sessions in Jay's Modified racking up 75 laps or so.  It was pretty cool.  I'm not sure if I'd like it as much with other cars out there with me, but I had a lot of fun.  Between the two cars we burned up 4 Hoosier tires.  It was worth it though.  We all had a really nice time. 

Thanks Judy & Bob for allowing us to rent the track and hang out for a few hours!

July 14, 2004
Wednesday

Hawk Performance in Medina, Ohio is having an employee appreciation day at their facility on July 22nd.  They were looking for some racecars to display at their event.  We gave them a call and offered to take the Hot Chassis up for the day.  Below is their post.  Give Jeff a call if you're a local driver and interested in taking part.  They don't want too many cars due to space, but they want a good variety, and it's a terrific opportunity to help promote your team and your sponsors.  PLUS, they're compensating participants....so check it out below.

"Hawk Performance (a division of The Wellman Products Group and manufacture of racing friction material) located in Medina Ohio is holding an employee appreciation day on July 22nd, 2004.
I am looking for several-interested racecar owners that would be willing to show their car during the day from 9:00am until late afternoon. The cars can be dropped off and space for the trailer can be arranged on site. It would not be necessary to stay with the car during the day. Would like to have one each of Modified, Late model and Sprint car. Also looking for dirt cars. Would be necessary to have Hawk Performance decals on the car and remove any competitor’s decals.
In payment for the above, Hawk Performance will provide at no charge two car sets (4 axle sets) of brake pads, 2 Hats, 2 Tee shirts, and decals.
If interested please contact Jeff Smallwood 812-549-7772.
Please do not contact the Medina office, as they will not be familiar with this information. Would appreciate confirmation as soon as possible.
Hawk Performance is located at 920 Lake Road. Exit off I-71 at Route 18. Calling the above phone number can attain further directions and information."

 

July 21, 2004
Wednesday

The weather was looking pretty gloomy Saturday when Mansfield Speedway called me to cancel their racing events.  We dialed up the Wayne County Speedway offices several times to make sure racing was still on.  It was raining as we pulled into the pit, but WCS was still hopeful.  It wasn't long before the showers stopped and the officials began working in the track.  It looked tacky and beautiful.  It's rare to find WCS tacky like it was Saturday.  Of course, we were setup for dry slick.

Hot laps were basically uneventful.  Jay and Chris both thought their cars felt good.  Qualifying was a different story.  The track was very fast.  The top 10 cars bettered the track record set by Jay earlier this season.  Jay qualified 13th, Chris had transponder issues, but qualified 21st. 

Jay made a bar adjustment to try and loosen the car.  He started in the middle of his heat, Chris started on the tail.  Jay was doing decent but another car got into his front tire messing up his toe in/toe out and steering ability. 

Jay ended up starting towards the middle back area for the Feature.  Our friend Larry Kugel started beside us.  Chris started right behind us.  The race went green and when Jay got to turn 3 Eric Eicholtz driving Bruce Miller's 185 Modified lost control and crashed us.  We saw Jay had a flat and was prepared to change it.  When he rolled up to the pit entrance I saw the tie-rod was broke and we were done.  We changed the tire with help from another crew that jumped in, and headed back to the trailer. 

As we were evaluating the damage, the push truck rolled up...pushing Chris!  A weld had let go before the green even dropped again.  The rearend let go and shifted and the drive shaft dropped out.    GREAT! 

The only good news was that our friend Larry Kugel made his way back up through the pack for a second place finish.  Way to go Larry.

July 22, 2004
Thursday

Well, the cars are ready for the weekend.  We had to have Chris' drive shaft rebuilt and checked.  We got Jay's front end repaired and parts replaced.  The Hawk Brake day has been changed from today to August 5th.  We're still signed up for the event and looking forward to it. 

We've got regular racing this weekend at Wayne County. Next weekend we're planning on hitting the Road Warrior race at Wayne County on Saturday and then heading to Canada Sunday for a special event they're running.  Jay, Chris, Heather, and I have taken Monday off for a travel day.  "Hopefully", all goes well Saturday so we can make the Sunday leg of the plan.

July 25, 2004
Sunday

We rolled into Wayne County Speedway a little early Saturday.  We were all pumped up and ready for a great night of racing.  Since the Sprints were racing at WCS instead of Late Models, we were asked to pit in a different area than usual.  We were pretty pleased to see 23 or 24 Modifieds roll into the pit.  Chris and Jay went out for the first session of hot laps.  They both looked good out there and came back ready to rock.  We knew the track was going to be dry slick and smooth with the weather and the Sprints.  We headed to the RPM Motorsports trailer to buy a harder compound of tire to prepare for the evening's race.

One of our friends, Rob Stambaugh came off the track on a wrecker.  Tough deal for Rob, especially off of a hot laps session.  Rob turned hard to get out of the way of a transmission that flew out of the car in front of him.  Unfortunately for Rob, he turned into the tires and tore him up pretty bad. 

We headed out for qualifying.  Rocky Kugel, had his rear suspension break loose and put him out of commission for the evening.  Jay turned some nice laps and ended up 5th.  Chris turned some nice laps too and ended up 13th.

WCS setup three heats for the Modifieds.  We often pit with our friends the Kugels.  They had brought all three of their cars.  We also try to help out another local driver Tom King.  How ironic was it that 6 of the seven people in our heat were:  Jay, Chris, Tom King, both Rocky & Larry Kugel, and Ted who races Kugel's old car.

Like I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago, Rocky was out for the day, so didn't make the heat race.  His brother Ziggy thought that was probably a good thing since Rocky was suppose to start in front of his dad!  Larry moved up to outside pole with Rock out of the picture.  Larry jumped out front and Jay, who started 3rd moved up into second.  Tommy brought out a caution when his harmonic balancer broke off and it or something whacked the oil pan.  Chris made a nice move towards the end and finished in third when the checker dropped.

Only 4 cars were inverted for the Feature, which didn't help us any.  Jay was slated to start 5th, right behind Larry Kugel.  Chris was starting 8th.  Jay moved into 4th and was in a tight race with the 00 of Crawford.  Chris was having a good race too, until he found himself in the middle of a three-wide pack headed into turn 1.  No sooner did I tell Heather, "Chris is in trouble", did the lower car move up the track and the high car moved down.  The result?  The yellow came out as Chris exited the track with a cut right front tire.  Bryan Casey's crew chief jumped in and helped us change Chris' tire.  We got him back on the track with time to spare.

Chris started moving back up through when he came low into turn 3 and found the #23 of Kyle Brown spun out with his driver's door exposed to him.  Chris hit the brakes and slowed up as much as he could, but still tapped into Kyle.  Neither car appeared damaged from the incident, but it put Chris on the tail again. 

The 00 of Crawford finally got by Jay moving Jay back to fifth.  Ed Haudenschild, brother of World of Outlaw Sprint driver, Jac "Wild Child" Haudenschild was running with us tonight.  It was the first time we've ever raced with Ed.  He had moved from the back of the pack to 6th and was giving Jay a run for his money on the restarts.  Once the race stayed green Jay and the top 4 cars pulled away slightly.  The 66 of Rick Wolford lead most of the race, but towards the end our buddy Larry Kugel made a terrific pass for the lead.  Larry, who is also WCS points leader, held on for the win.  Jay took 5th and Chris finished 10th. 

We were pretty happy that both our cars finished the race and neither were tore up.  Even better, track owner, Ernie Coffman gave me the thumbs up to take our car out for some laps at the end of the night.  We invited Todd Swim, a Pure Stock driver, to climb into Chris' car for some test laps too.  We've been working on Todd to move up to the Modified division.  We were pretty convinced that if we got Todd in the car, we wouldn't have to convince him any further.  I think we were right!!!  Todd turned some terrific laps and had a blast.  As he was pulling out of the pit last night he was telling us he had a lead on a Modified Chassis that was for sale! 

July 31, 2004
Saturday

The AMRA Road Warrior Tour headed to Wayne County Speedway tonight.  The weather wasn't looking good.  Tracks all over Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia cancelled due to rain.  Wayne County had been hit with rain, but was going against the odds and try to get the show in.  We really hadn't gotten too much rain at home, but when we hit Wooster, we could tell they got hit pretty hard.  The pits were a muddy mess.  We followed Larry Kugel around the pit looking for 4 spots together that weren't under water.  We finally made our camp at the far end of the pit area near the road. 

It soon became obvious that every nearby dirt track had cancelled because the cars just kept rolling in.  We were happy we arrived early because crews were really stressing to find room to park. 

The track was pretty wet.  Track owner, Ernie Coffman, kept shaking his head and probably second guessing himself on if he made the right decision or not. Forty-two Modifieds made the trip to WCS. 

Hot laps were....rough.  We basically had a 1-groove track at that point, but some of our Mods tried to create an upper groove and widen the existing groove.  There were a lot of large clumps out there though, which is something uncommon for WCS.  We usually have a very dry slick track.  I think the "WCS Regulars" were hoping for our normal conditions.  It would be like a "home field advantage" for us.  Unfortunately, that wasn't going to be the case.

Jay had made a few changes to the car over the week.  We stiffened the left front spring, raised the ride heights, and lowered one of our rear suspension bars.  We couldn't really get any feedback from the hot laps session because of the track conditions. 

AMRA only runs one lap for qualifying instead of two like we normally do.  Jay turned a pretty decent lap.  We still couldn't tell what the changes were doing to the car though.  Chris turned a pretty good lap too, especially for conditions. 

They're running 4 heats of Modifieds.  Jay starts 5th with Chris starting right behind him.  Well...we finally figured out what the changes did to the car.  Straight to the point...we absolutely sucked in our heat race.  At least Jay did anyhow.  Jay looped it twice, all by himself.  Jay tried to stay in the throttle and keep going on one of the spins and was nearly tagged by Chris.  Chris did a good job of keeping high and made it through safely.  Chris went on to finish 6th in the heat and Jay finished 7th. 

We had a "C-Main", but luckily Jay and Chris had finished high enough to make it to the B-Main from the Heats.  Our friend Larry Kugel had finished 4th in his heat and advanced to the A-Main.  That's cool for Jay because he automatically gets a track provisional into the A.  Chris is going to have to fight his way though though. 

We were hit with scattered raindrops or small bursts of rain throughout the night, which kept the track wet.  We changed the left front spring back to what we were running before tonight.  We also readjusted our ride heights so that they were back to where we previously had them.  Even though Jay had the provisional he still had to take some laps in the B.  That was okay though because we wanted to see if the changes worked. 

The C-Main finished and the Late Model B-Main hit the track.  The B-Main of Modifieds were due out next.  Jay opted for the tail since he wasn't under pressure to advance.  The Late Models were near the end of their consi when the rain rolled in and let loose again.  This time it was flatout pouring.  They pulled the Late Models off the track and quickly sent everyone to their pit spots.  We pulled our car in the trailer to get it out of the weather.  It didn't take long for the track to make the announcement.  Too much rain had fallen and they called it a night. 

Of course it stopped raining right after that.  WCS isn't running Modifieds next weekend.  All the other classes are running double features next weekend, but the AMRA Road Warrior race will resume in two weeks, August 14th.  We'll be running a regular show after the RWT race.  Wonder what our changes did this time!!!

We do want to say thanks to Ernie Coffman and the WCS staff for trying to get the race in.  You guys did a great job.  The track was a bit rough at first, but got better and better as the night progressed.  Thanks for giving it a shot!

August 1, 2004
Sunday

Back in July, we told our Canadian friends at South Buxton Raceway in Ontario, Canada that we'd return later this year.  We knew they had this Sunday event scheduled and planned on heading up if we survived the RWT race.  We met at the race shop Sunday morning and washed both cars.  We scaled ours to see how out to lunch we were after screwing around with the adjustments at the track.  Amazingly enough, it was right on.  We loaded up and hit the road around 10:30am. 

We hit Detroit and were quite surprised that there wasn't a line at the toll booth for the Ambassador Bridge.  In fact, it was so slow that the guy manning our booth had his head down and was fast asleep.  We couldn't believe it!  The dually we were driving is diesel power, so it's kinda loud.  The kid never budged.  The horn had been malfunctioning so one of the guys I work with had removed the relay.  We couldn't blow the horn, the kid wouldn't wake up, and somehow we thought banging on the window would be going a little too far.  So...we started to back up to go to another lane.  Just as Jay started backing up, the kid popped up and was a little surprised to see us staring back at him.  Apparently the kid wasn't completely awake because he couldn't remember how much money Jay gave him...either that or he tried to rip us off.  Jay got it straightened out though. 

Luckily, customs went smoother than the toll booth.  We breezed through and was on our way to the track.  Apparently Jay had drifted off into lala land because as we approach our exit he says, "is this our exit."  I respond, "yea.  See, there's the truck place".  We pass the exit and Jay says, "Hey.  You're right, that WAS our exit."  Nice.

A mile or so (or a few kilometers) down the road, we pull off the side to tell Chris and Heather we blew the exit.  They already knew that of course.  A little further down the road, we make an illegal U-turn and head back to the exit. 

We decide to go directly to the tack instead of going to the hotel first.  We made the right decision because there's already quite a few cars here.  South Buxton doesn't usually run sprints, but had booked a special show with them tonight.  Sprint teams were already pitted where we usually pit, so we continued on through the pit until we found an area that had enough room for us. 

They had a nice turnout of sprints and had drawn 6 or 7 new Late Models to their event.  I think we were the only two Modifieds that weren't regulars.  We love coming up to South Buxton.  The teams are very friendly. Chris Vandewiele  (aka cornstock), one of the Modified drivers, designs a really cool mud scraper.  It's light weight and really nice.  He stopped by our pit and gave Jay one and Chris one.  Click here to check out his website. 

Another Modified driver, Curtis Coulter invited us into their pit for dinner.  They come to the races prepared!  They grilled chicken, hot dogs, and cheeseburgers.  PLUS they had a cooker going for sweet corn.  They really made us feel welcomed.  We really enjoyed their company and dinner was awesome.

Okay, back to the reason we're here.  There were only 12 Modifieds tonight.  They had 2 heats setup.  Jay started outside pole of the second heat.  The pole sitter jumped ahead early. Going into turn 1, he pushed alittle. At that time, Jay was hoping that and had diamond the turn, taking the lead. He had a close race going with Justin Coulter, but Justin went into turn 3 too hard and nearly lost it coming around for the checkered flag.  The caution never came out and Jay took the checkered for his first heat race win in Canada.  Apparently, our changes (or unchanging) worked!

Chris started from the tail of Jay's heat and moved up to third fairly quickly.  He was able to take advantage of the fumble on turn 3 to capture a second place Heat finish.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.  The track had been dry slick.  We're used to that.  That's a good thing.  The sprints are here tonight, so we know it "should" stay smooth and dry slick.  But, will they water?  We decide to gamble on dry slick.  We put a Hoosier "H" tire on Jay's right rear.  We put a Hoosier "A" on Chris' right rear. 

Jay and Chris are slated to start 9th and 10th.  Jay moves into 4th, but is having a rough time keeping heat in the tire.  We failed to take into consideration that we may experience an abundance of cautions.  It would take about 3 laps to get the "H" to work.  We just couldn't stay green long enough to get it to hookup.  Jay tried to duck under the third place car and spun.  Chris and two other locked up behind Jay to avoid the crash.  Chris got bumped and pushed around a bit...including a detour through the infield on the last lap. 

Jay didn't have enough laps to get back up front. He finished 7th.  Chris finished 8th.

Thank you to all the teams and track personnel that welcomed us.  We had a blast.  We'll be back in September...if not before!

August 4, 2004
Wednesday

I snapped a few pictures this past weekend while we visited South Buxton Speedway in Ontario, Canada.  Click here to check them out.

August 5, 2004
Thursday

We've been looking forward to going up to Medina to the Hawk Performance employee appreciation day event.  We try to take every opportunity we can to promote our team, our division, and most of all...our sponsors. 

Jay took the day off so he could take the car up and spend the day there.  He had a terrific time.  Jay got to take a tour of the plant and met a lot of Hawk's employees and managers.  At one point Jay fired up the car for the crowd.  He gave away some Howe Extreme Racing hats and answered questions that the employees had for him.

Hawk Performance has designed a new brake pad for dirt racers.  They're pretty confident in this new compound and have asked us to test the prototype brake pad.  We're honored that they asked us to help them with the research and development.  Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted on our testing! 

August 15, 2004
Sunday

Wayne County wasn't racing Modifieds last weekend, so we took the weekend off too.  We had the rained out Road Warrior race this weekend and a whole show for this week.  Jay had an automatic track provisional into the Feature of the Road Warrior race, so we didn't have much pressure.  We also planned on taking it easy for the Feature because WCS doesn't issue points for the Road Warrior races.  Chris was going to have to work his way through the B-main to get into the A.  But once again, we had decided not to get tore up in the RWT race because Chris is running 4th in points at WCS.  We didn't want to blow the points race.

There were originally 42 Modifieds entered for the WCS Road Warrior race, but 37 arrived for Saturday's action.  Several of those drivers were not here for the Road Warrior race, so would not be eligible to make that event.  Amazingly, and sadly, both of the Hubbard's blew engines before the night even began.  One blew in line for hotlaps, the other blew in hotlaps.  Man, sounds like one of our stories!  AMRA officials adjusted the lineups and announced they would be taking 8 from the B-Main instead of 5. 

WCS ran our qualifying session before finishing the RWT show.  Chris ran an awesome time.  He probably ran his quickest time of the year, somewhere around 20.89, putting him as 9th fastest qualifier.  The time earned him an outside pole start on the heat.  Jay stopped for a burger and fries while he was out for his session....recording his worst times of the year.  I think Jay qualified 31st overall, putting him 9th in the second heat.

Back to the Road Warrior race.  Jay opted for the tail of the B-Main since he had a free ride to the Feature.  We wanted him to take a couple laps though to see if the car got any better.  Jay did his job, made a few laps, stayed out of trouble and brought it back in one piece.  Problem.  Jay notices the distributor cap is broken.  He takes it off and finds the rotor is broke too.  I head to the parts trailer only to find they don't have an MSD one in stock that'll work.  We checked with a couple other teams and found one at Jr. Nolan's trailer.  Cool, back in business. 

Chris tried to pick up one of the transfer spots, but came up short. 

Jay started on the tail of the Feature for the RWT race.  As planned, he only took a few laps and came back to the pit.  New problem.  He lost fuel pressure.  Hmmm...we haven't had that problem this year.  Great.  Now what!  Chris and Jay mess around and decide to change the fuel pump.  We don't have a spare, so I buy one at the parts trailer.  Of course...the fittings aren't a match either, so I buy new fittings too.  We get it back together in time to climb in and head off to our heat race.

Even though Jay started 9th in his heat, he found some power and some good lines and got around our friend Rocky Kugel to take the 5th and final transfer spot of our heat.  Fuel pressure still wasn't that great though.  I've already picked up a spare regulator at the parts truck...just in case.  While he was on the track, we noticed alot of sparks coming off the left side of the car.  We're not sure if it's from our new brake pads or if it was fuel dropping onto headers.  Either way, it's probably not a good thing.

Chris takes the outside pole of his heat and starts off REALLY well.  He makes 3 or 4 awesome laps.  Very smooth and fast.  He got into turn one too hard though and moved up the track too high giving the rest of the pack an opening.  That cost Chris several spots and he couldn't recover to transfer.  He heads to the B-Main.

We unbox the regulator and realize it's not going to work.  We send it back to the parts truck where the parts guy tells us he looked up that fuel pump we had just bought and found out we don't need a regulator with it.  President of AMRA, Bill Hayes stops by and watches us work.  Jay asks "what did I do now?"  Bill tells him, "nothing" and pulls me aside.  He gives me a certificate for Jay for Aero Wheels.  It's the "Hard Luck Award" from the Road Warrior race.  I told Jay it's the "Sucks to Be You" award!

We disconnect our regulator and block off the hose and the fuel log so we don't catch the car on fire out there.  Yea, that's all we need!  We fire the car up and have fuel pressure.  We also check the timing on the car since we never had time after changing the distributor rotor and cap.

Then we head over to cheer Chris on for the B-Main.  We missed a few laps and get there in time to see an ambulance on the backstretch and the race under yellow.  Just as I say, "wow, I hope Chris isn't involved in that", we see Chris down by some tires on the backstretch.  That can't be good.  Heather tried to give us the explanation of what happened, but we still couldn't figure it out.  Something about "starting to spin off of turn 2 and then lost control (maybe overcorrected?) into the tire barrier on the backstretch.  Chris was okay though and jumped back in line.  The car looked quite "bruised", but operable.  Several laps later, the 17JE car spun in turn 2...the 33 car turned it sideways to soften the collision...and Chris hit the breaks hard and tried to swerve out of the way, but tagged the 33 car.  That was it, he'd had enough, Chris came off the track.

I think Jay starts 14th in the Feature.  Our fuel pressure is solid if you give the car some pedal, but is all over if you let off.  Forget about trying to idle.  It's not going to happen.  Jay gets off to a pretty good start and we're pleased to see the race staying green because we had made a tire change hoping that would be the case.  The tire came alive and Jay found he could run the high line or a low line.  I was surprised to see him try that high of a line, because he usually doesn't go up there.  It was working well though.  He moved into 7th.  The car pushed towards the end coming off of turn 3 and half a dozen cars paraded past us.  Jay  didn't give up though.  He fought back and got the car hooked back up to pull off a 12th place finish.  The car seemed to be hooked up quite well.  We ended up with some damage on the right side door though when Jay and the 150 car got together in battle.  Considering how the night had been going, I'm really pleased with that finish. 

Congratulations to Benny Hickel for pulling out the win.  Nice race to everyone.  I think there were only 2 cautions in the race and neither were anything major.

August 23, 2004
Monday

Saying things went from "bad to worse" might not cover this weekend's racing for us.  Considering we had an entire week of rain, we all expected to have a wet/tacky track.  I was a bit surprised to find the initial condition looking a little wet, but good.  The tractors continued to work in the track, but the big tires and heavy equipment were making some definite waves throughout the track. 

I drew a 20 for Jay's qualifying start and Chris drew a 26.  It was also our Modified Mechanics race night, so I drew a number for my starting spot.  My number sucked, but that was okay because I wanted to start in the back anyway.

Usually, about this time of the diary entry I say "hot laps were uneventful".  Well...not the case this week.  The track is roughing up, but dusty.  Chris went out a car or two ahead of Jay.  They were into the green for hot laps and on the first lap Chris turns it sideways in turn 3.  Guess who is behind Chris?????  Jay slams into Chris.  Something white launches off of Chris' car and onto the track. 

Jay pulls off the track under his own power.  He slows down to pick me up and we head to our pit.  His right front is messed up bad.  They bring Chris back on a wrecker.  Chris says, "the tranny let go or something".  We look under the car.  Un-freakin-believable.  What happened is still a mystery, but the driveshaft is broken in half.  The bellhousing is busted open and pieces of it are still missing.  The tranny came out of the engine and is resting on the lower frame bars.  And the biscuit bar bracket broke off and is dragging along.  The biscuit rod is bent and so is the right rear shock.  What a freakin' mess. 

We know Chris is done, so we all focus on Jay's right front.  The tie-rod bar is bent.  As is the spindle, ball joints, and lower control arm.  The wheel and tire are cut and the shock is broken in half.  We replace all of these items and are putting the tire back on as Jay's revving up the engine.  We don't have the bottom of the shock totally tight and haven't checked the toe-in/toe-out, but feel okay enough for two qualifying laps. 

Jay gets in line just in time and heads out for his laps.  He takes one and doesn't feel comfortable so pulls off.  After he got back I told him about the shock being loose at the bottom.  We knew it wasn't coming off because it was stripped and had a locknut, but Jay didn't know any of that.  Better safe than sorry. 

We replace the shock bolt and go over the rest of the car and adjust our toe-in/toe-out.  Jay recorded a good qualifying time and starts 5th in his heat.  I think there's 23 Modifieds signed in. 

They had watered the track again, but had run the Pure Stock and Mini-Stock features from last week after that.  The track was junking up bad.  I don't know if it was their small tires digging in or what, but it wasn't pretty.  The track staff tried to make it race ready for us, but everything they tried just didn't help. 

Jay jumped up to third in his heat and was doing really really well, especially for conditions.  They had several cautions with wrecks or broken cars.  Brian Casey and Rocky Kugel both lost drive shafts.  Jay had a solid third with one or two to go and got down in some mud.  He thought he cut a tire or something let go and pulled into the infield.  When we got back to the pit I pulled out about 10 pounds of mud that wedged itself past the mudplug and into our beadlock rim.  We figured the clumps threw him off balance enough to cause the vibration that forced him off the track.  We chilled out and prepared for the feature.  We were starting 17th.

While we were waiting out the B-mains of the other classes, we ran into the owners of Lakeville Speedway.  They had already staged Late Models at that point.  Bob asked Jay if he broke an axle.  Jay said "no, I don't think so".  Now Jay's worried because we never checked...just assumed it was the mud.  We ran back to our pit as they're calling Modified's for lineup.  We pulled out the right-side axle and find it's okay.  They make a second call for Modifieds.  We pull off the cap on the left side.  I can't get the axle out.  We get the flashlight on it and see shavings...that can't be good! 

Rocky Kugel ducks in to see what we're up to.  He and Chris think it's just the hub and he has extras!  We pulled the tire and pulled off the asembly.  They were right.  But the axle is still stuck in the hub.  Rocky takes his car up to stage while we get the sledge out and pound away at the axle.  We finally get it out.  The first flange we try doesn't match up.  We try the other set.  It matches.  We slam it together and once again get Jay up in line. 

It's the season ending points battle for the Pure Stock division and the Late Model division.  Late Models are running a 50-lap feature and Pure Stocks running 20, which is more than a normal night.  Modifieds and Mini's end their points next week.  The track, well, it got worse.  We're all glancing at our watches as we watch the late models and hope for the curfew to cancel us for the night.  The track makes the call to push Pure Stocks ahead of the Modifieds since it's their last night. Six cars finished the Late Model race.  They started with a full field.

The Pure Stocks didn't have as many cautions, but Ernie did make the call to send the Modifieds back to the pit to load. 

We were definitely relieved.  Now we have time to fix Chris' car this week and get him back on track.  Plus go over ours real well to make sure we got everything tight and in place after the rough track shaking us around.  The track staff did what they could to prepare the track for us, it just wasn't coming together Saturday.  Hopefully, we'll all be ready next week though!

August 29, 2004
Sunday

Weather forecasters had been predicting thunderstorms all weekend, so we were prepared to race, but doubtful it would happen.  Not only did we have double features scheduled for  the Modifieds, but it was our season championships and we also had the Mechanics race for Modifieds. 

Wayne County Speedway received a brief storm during the early morning, but then cleared off.  Racing was on.  We arrived early and picked out a good pit space on high ground.  The track looked tacky, but we figured it wouldn't last long since the Sprints were there Saturday too.  I drew a high number putting Jay towards the back of the qualifying order.  Chris had a mid-pack qualifying start.

As expected, the sprints dried out the track and we were under very dry slick conditions for qualifying.  All the times were WAY off normal pace.  Chris recorded a 21.6 beating Jay's 21.9 time. 

After the drivers meeting, the Modifieds were called up for the makeup Feature from last week.  We prepared for the dry slick track, but then made a last minute tire change when we saw the track staff had decided to water the track.  Jay got lined up but, had a flat tire.  One of the Sprint teams aired it up for us before we went out for the Feature.  Chris started on the inside tail and Jay started on the outside tail.  Twenty Modifieds started the first Feature. 

Jay got tied up with traffic for several laps, but finally found a passing line and got by several cars on an outside line.  We had a strong car and Jay kept trying different lines working his way towards the front.  He made me nervous on one extremely high sweep around turns 3 & 4.  He took the whole turn inches away from the guardrail scraping into it at one point.  Luckily, it didn't throw him off pace and thankfully, he didn't do it again! 

Several cautions came out, including one that ended our points leader and good friend, Larry Kugel.  Larry broke a cam shaft and came off at lap 9.  Chris was involved in one caution, but only because he stopped to avoid hitting a spun car.  Chris' main goal was to take some laps, stay out of trouble, and finish the race.  And, he did just that.  Chris had a really good race and came in with a 14th place finish keeping him in the 4th place points position.

Jay continued to move up to the front.  It seemed every time we'd make some passes and move up a caution would come out.  Sometimes it helped because it brought the leaders and the front pack back into striking distance.  Sometimes it hurt because the guys we'd just passed would get their spots back and we'd have to do it all over again. 

Jay eventually moved into 4th and had a good race going with Ron Miller #185.  It was back and forth for awhile, but Ron held Jay off when the checker flag dropped.  We were very happy with a 4th place finish though!  Way to go Jay and Chris!

We had been watching the sky during the Modified Feature because dark clouds were rapidly approaching.  We knew Mansfield Motorsports Speedway had already had a bad storm and cancelled their events.  As soon as the Modifieds came off the track we all rushed to our pit and quickly put the rest of our stuff away and loaded the car.  Several minutes later the rain poured down on us.  Jay and I sat in the trailer and waited for it to lift.  Racing was obviously cancelled for the evening, so we headed for home.

Even though we still have one race to go, our friend Larry Kugel has the points championship wrapped up.  Congratulations Larry!  We've had a terrific time getting to know the Kugel family this season.  Larry's been a dominant competitor each week and definitely deserves the title! 

Jay's still holding on to second in the point standings and has a sizeable lead on the third place of Kyle Brown.  I don't think Kyle can catch us with one race to go, so we're pretty confident that we've got 2nd wrapped up.  Congratulations Jay! 

Sept 5th, 2004
Sunday (written by Jay)

What a night, a night to forget! We got to the track at our usual time. I went out for hot laps. Everything is checking out ok, motor wise. Oil pressure good, fuel pressure ok, water temp coming up nicely. Slow lap (parade) to loosen up the car heims, waiting on the green light for our hot lap session. Green light, GO. Motor comes up nicely, then 200 ft under power, BANG!!!!!!, CLUNK....oh no......coasting on the track up high to not get run over...I had already shut the power down and put car in neutral. A track worker comes over to me as I am leaving the track, hands me the harmonic balancer. Great. Push truck pushes me back to our pit stall. While passing my wife, I just shook my head, like it's fatal. Upon further investigation, we see the crankshaft is broke in half, oil pan has a hole in it, harmonic balancer had tried to come into the drivers compartment, and tons of oil on the ground. I am walking up to the pit shack to tell the pit steward Donn that we were scratching when I see the TV crew coming into the gate. Bad news for ya guys.....blown motor. Now we concentrate on getting Chris qualified.

Chris qualifies decent and starts 7th in his heat. Chris finished 7th in his heat. We have 29 cars that have signed in for the "Freedom Fighters Fifty". Twin 25 laps features for the mods, and late models. For a high dollar late model race, they had 27 cars signed in. Their normal late model count is 35. Also on tap for both divisions is a Australian Pursuit. Our friend Larry Kugel starting from the 7th starting positon, won the 10lap race. Unfortunately, he blew his motor also as he was coming off the track. We tried to fix it, but seized it up when he refired the motor. Motor #2 of the night. Rob Stambaugh finishes 2nd behind Larry, but also blows his motor, 3rd of the night, but more to come.....

Chris has to run the "B" Main. He starts 5th. Car is working well, he's running decent times, then gets into a pile up. He makes it out ok with a little toe out. Continues to race. Two laps later, he's involved in another wreck, wrong place wrong time. This time, it caves the right side of the car in, he's done. Uggh.....but on the bright side of things, my favorite car (the green one) is slowly creeping it's way back into the racing world. After my wreck, we cut the chassis up, and the good pieces of tubing we saved. It (the green car) must be missing the racing action, because it now occupies both Chris's and my car, close to 20% now. Have I ever told you, I miss her (green car)??????

Since Larry blew his motor and Chris didn't transfer, we put Larry in the 26M car. We adjust the tires air pressures according to where Larry wanted them. We also had to put a "booster seat" in the seat, so he could see over the wheel!!!!LOL. Funny now, but Larry can drive. Left our setup on the car. Larry starts 20th for the first 25 laps. He slowly makes his way up to 13th, where he tags the 12th place car, causing the left front upper control arm ball joint to sheer off. He finishes the race in 12th, passing the 12th place car. He comes back into the pits, we thrashed to get the car ready for the 2nd "A" main, where he starts 12th.

Larry has us adjust the car some more. Now Chris and I don't agree with what he wants, but he's driving, and knows what he likes. He starts out, and we can see almost immediately, that the changes were wrong. We all were crossing our fingers. He starts moving up a few places, then almost looses it, causing a major slow down, but no yellow flag. A few laps later, he spins it. Starts tail again, finishes 8th. Not a bad run.

Larry is looking for a ride for the 2005 racing season. He is currently unemployed. If anyone knows of someone needing a good welder, or maintenance person, he's your man.

Up next, we are trying to put together a motor for the "Ohio Dirt Blowout" at Lakeville Speedway, Sept 24th, and 25th. If you have a "Race Motor" that you would like to donate, or allow us to use, please contact us. 

Sept 22, 2004
Wednesday (written by Jay)

Things are looking up for this weekend at Lakeville Speedway for the Ohio Dirt Blowout. Slight chance of rain (20%). Check out www.lakevillespeedway.com for more information on this weekends races (Friday / Saturday).

We have a motor in our car now. We dropped it in Sunday, did not fire it till last night. Changed oil this morning, debris in screen, although engine builder thinks we are ok, normal. I put the oil filter on this morning, and promptly blew it out tonight, after starting the motor. My fault, I neglected to check to see if there was the old filter seal still attached to motor....Uggh, what a mess on the floor....LOL!!!!

Chris thinks the motor sounds pretty stout, my wife thinks so also. Guess we will find out Friday. Motor has our old crank in it (from the engine we blew up in the garage over the winter), our old rods, new pistons though!!!!.....our old heads......new oil pan!!! our old water pump, new pickup tube!!!!.....LOL....I am sure it will last the weekend.

We are both looking forward to this weekend....Both of us have a good feeling about the races at Lakeville.....now when both of us have a good feeling about something, GREAT things happen. At least I hope this time they do...LOL....

Stay tuned.............

Sept 26, 2004
Sunday (written by Jay)

Wow. What a great time we had at the Ohio Dirt Blowout at Lakeville Speedway, in Lakeville, Ohio. Let me say this, if you are going to the dirt blowout, get your pit spot EARLY. We had 193 cars in the pits, in the infield, in the overflow parking......Cars everywhere...

Friday night, practice was sloppy on the straight-aways, but the corners were good (moisture wise). Car was neutral, good forward bite... Of course I draw the pill, and it's horrible. We start dead last in our heat. We had 15cars in attendance. Before our heat race, Mr. Coffman and his son, Clint, came up to our trailer to visit (Ernie owns Wayne County Speedway). We got to talking, and I suggested to Clint that he could drive in my heat race. Just keep the car out of trouble I said...LOL...after some coaxing, he said OK. 8 Started our heat, and Clint finished 4th. Not bad for his first time in a mod. Clint normally runs a late model. Our friend Larry Kugel finished second behind Took Wiles (remember that name in this post).....

Saturday was a busy day. We took some friends over to Mansfield Speedway, and gave them a tour of the facilities. They were in awe....

We redrew for the inversion, and we started 7th. Tom King was starting behind me, and I told Cindy to tell him while we were in line, to lay back on the start, because there would be a caution by the time we hit turn one.....and there was, and neither one of us were involved, but the pole sitter (Took Wiles) was. Took took (LOL) the tail for causing the caution. We restarted and I remained in 7th for the first few laps, waiting for the cars to spread out a little. I bet you are wondering why. Well, Lakeville is basically a small track, with one groove per say.....anyways, by lap 5 I knew Rob Stambaugh should be breathing down my back. I was making a  pass under Douglas, when he came down, I checked up, spun. Rob Stambaugh was right there, tapped me in the drivers door panel. 5 cars involved. I caused the spin, checked up too hard.....I admit when I am wrong most of the time....LOL.....Had to restart on the tail. Now I am not exactly happy, because of what happened. Lakeville does not have a high side, but I created one....LOL....10 laps I was up to 5th. Passed the 4th place car, caution comes out....dang dang dang.....took me 5 more laps to get around him. Now my sights were set on Took Wiles......I caught him around lap 20, and went for the pass under him between 3 and 4. Well, Took comes down on me, and we get together, I end up in the swamp, yes the swamp....I was buried up to my rear axles.....the tow truck got me out, and the flagman promptly black flags me (causing 2 cautions). I had a broken left front shock since lap 10 anyways.....Ended up with a 9th place finish. All in all, we had a great car (a little loose in the feature), and without a doubt in my mind, a top 3 car that night. Afterwards, Ryan Markham (a very good late model driver, and multiple tracks champion) came over and congratulated me on a great race he said. I said, well, I guess they didn't like my driving. He said yeah, sometimes they (officials) don't....LOL....That was a good highlight in my book for the weekend; to have someone who is a very good driver come up to you afterwards and tell you how well you were doing.....Just my opinion.

Chris started on the pole for his heat race. Now, some say that he should have started there, while others say he should have started on the tail. Here's my take on that. I think it was good that he tried it once this year. I told him to get a good start on the outside pole sitter, and he did. Now, this is where the learning process comes in. He hits the turn at a good speed, the outside pole sitter comes in on his outside. So far so good. Rob Stambaugh (an accomplished late model and modified driver) is right behind Chris. He taps Chris lightly. Now, I think Chris got on the throttle a little too hard, causing the car to start to loop,  thus collecting the outside pole car (Jeremy Scott) and Rob Stambaugh. He made it out of that melee without a lot of damage. He restarted the race, and finished 6th. I had the opportunity to follow Chris for a few laps during the feature. He has become a lot smoother, and is hitting his marks better. Car doesn't push as bad, because he is hitting the corners a lot better. Chris has progressed nicely this year. Next year should be better, he's maturing as a driver, and I look for him to start sticking his nose down inside better on a competitor. Look for him to be back next year, but in a different colored car (possibly pink).....LOL.......NOTTTTTTTT.

My wife and I would like to personally thank Bob and Judi from Lakeville Speedway for having our division there. Although we had only 15 cars, and had 26 sign up, I hope he continues to have the mods at the Dirt Blowout. Our class has continued to grow, and will continue to grow, as long as we have promoters that allow us to.

Oct. 3rd, Tom King #89 modified, is getting married. Congrats to Tom and his soon to be bride. I have to work in the morning, but we plan on attending their reception that night.

Oct. 9th, we will be at Cedar Point.

Oct. 10th, we will be at the Riceland Golf Course, for the local racers benefit event. Now I have heard most of those other racers cheat at the game of golf. I guess we will find out first hand.....We are bringing two of our great sponsors, a rep from Pepsi Cola, and the owner of Ace Engineering, Mr. Rick Maffett. We are in the process right now of planning a golf outings for in the spring.... Stay tuned.....

By the way, the motor ran good after we changed the filter Friday night. Should have known better than to run an AC Filter...My fault....for those of you who didn't know, we had BadMan Racing Engines throw us together from our used parts stock, a motor for the dirt blowout. It was as strong as our last motor. Maybe it will last all season....LOL......season is basically over....

Jeremy Scott broke his crank at the blowout. Not as bad as we did though. He should be back in business without a lot of cost...hopefully.

Thank you to our fan club for coming out and supporting us. Yes, we actually have one or two of them (fans)....LOL Thanks Roger and Sharon, Dad and Mark for coming out and supporting us.

I would like to race one more time before the season officially ends. Where? Stay tuned!

Sept 26, 2004
Sunday

Jay did a good job on our weekend summary.  I just want to add a congratulations to our friend Larry (Brother Bear) Kugel on bringing home the win. 

Also, nice job Rocky Kugel in your brother Ziggy's mini stock.  The car ran pretty good on 3 cylinders Friday night, but much better Saturday on all 4!

And another congratulations to my Bullet Motorsports teammate Dave Connolly who brought home his second Pro Stock win of the 2004 season tonight.  Dave's only 21 years old, so I'm sure you'll hear his name for quite awhile in the NHRA Drag Racing world (and on our diary)! 

Stay tuned to see what we get ourselves into next!

Oct. 6th, 2004
Wednesday

We have decided to call it a year racing wise. 

At this time, we would really like to thank our GREAT sponsors. We strive to present an image that reflects upon their business. Please let our sponsors know that you seen their advertisement on our car.

See ya soon in 2005! Great things are going to happen. Have a safe holiday season.

Oct. 10th, 2004
Sunday

Although it was a non-racing weekend for us, Jay and I had an eventful weekend.  We spent Saturday at Cedar Point.  Of course we had to pay a little extra to take some laps on their "Grand Prix Go Kart Track".  They have some pretty nice karts.  Jay and I had a clean race (unlike the incident from the Niagara Falls go kart track we tried last year).  The weather was beautiful, which unfortunately meant the park was crowded.  We still had a blast though!

We joined some of our fellow racers at Riceland Golf Course in Orrville today for a golf outing hosted by the Delaney Late Model team.  Jay and I brought in two of our sponsors, Rick Maffett Jr. from Ace Engineering and Steve Burdick from Pepsi Cola of Mansfield, to round out our golf team.  We had a good time, although, I can't say too much about our golf game except we lost A LOT of golf balls! (what she neglected to tell you was that there must have been over 20 squirrels that stole our golf balls, LOL). We all had fun though, so that's what counts. Thanks goes out to the Delaney's and Mrs. Drown for putting on a nice outing!  Also, a thank you goes out to Al Hutchinson, Jr. for keeping our beverage holders filled in our golf carts!  We appreciated it! 

Ogle and Pistol Pete....where were you two hiding? Sleeping???? Who needs sleep.....it's over rated....

Four years ago, we had tossed around the idea of doing our own golf outing, but never went through with it.  We've decided to give it a shot in 2005.  We're tentatively planning a Sunday date in late May/early June at Brookside Golf Course in Ashland, Ohio.  We haven't put together pricing and booked the date yet, but we would like to get a list started of golfers and sponsors that would be interested.  If you'd like additional information, email me so we can add you to the appropriate list(s). 

If any of you play Hot Shots Golf Fore online, Jay is:  RACERX and Cindy is:  Extreme1  We're a lot better at HSG4 than real golf...but I'm not sure that's really sayin' much!

Oct. 20th, 2004
Wednesday (written by "Hollywood" Howe)

No rest for the weary......fall/winter = rebuilding time for the cars. Here is what has happened so far:

Motor pulled out of Chris's car, along with all the sheet metal. Now it gets washed again. When you pull the sheet metal off the cars, you realize how much you missed when you washed it......Mostly Heather's fault.....always in a hurry.....LOL.....just kidding Heather. Don't throw anything at us this week, pleaseeeee.....LOL....

Rearend out of Jay's car, repainted. Motor had gas ran through it to lube the internal components. Headers repainted.

Working on the sheet metal brake right now. Making it easier to use.

More to come soon.

Oct. 24th, 2004
Sunday

Even though we're in the "off-season", we're still meeting up at the race shop at least once a week.  We dropped the rearend back into the Hot Modified and reattached the bars, shocks, brakes, and springs. 

Chris rewired the inside of his car making it more organized.  He ended up with "extra" wires, so hopefully it all still works!  Chris also moved the switches from the right side of the cockpit to the left.  Every time he would adjust the brakes, he'd shut off the car! 

Jay and I dropped Chris' engine off at BadMan Racing Engines yesterday to get freshened.  Then we met our friends Roger and Sharon Miller for dinner and a movie.  If you get a chance, go see "Without a Paddle".  It's pretty funny!

Oct. 28th, 2004
Thursday
--written by Jay--

I received a nice email today from the owner of Lakeville Speedway. He wants to have a couple modified races in 2005.

Now for those of you who have been following our diary, you know that we struggle at that track to finish a race. We seem to have a fast car there, just can't make it through the night. This past time was partially my fault. I probably try to hard to do well for the local fans, since we live within a half hour of the track. Then again.....

Stay tuned for more details as soon as I receive confirmation on the dates.

Can't wait to race there again! I do enjoy racing at Lakeville.

Oct. 30th, 2004
Saturday
--written by Jay--

We found out today that our banquet for Wayne County Speedway will be held in Ashland, at the Ashland University Convo Center, February 19th, 2005. Please give the track office a call to reserve your tickets for the banquet.

November 6, 2004
Saturday

We met Chris and Heather at the race shop last night.  We had painted Jay's fuel cell and redesigned the strapping and safety bars for it.  We put it all back together and secured it in the car last night.  There really isn't a whole lot more to do on the Hot.

The Huff car that Chris drives is a different story though.  It's stripped down to prepare for a chassis painting.  We sanded the chassis last night and will get it painted this week.  We looked it over closely as we sanded looking for cracks, broken welds, and bent tubing.  It looked really good though. 

The rearend is out of the Huff too.  We cleaned it up and made sure it was not bent.  It's getting painted this week too. 

BadMan Racing Engines called this week.  They're almost done refreshing Chris' engine. 

I figure we're going to have to step-up our shop time to 2 or 3 nights a week or start meeting on weekends where we have more time to work if Chris is going to Georgia with us to race in February.  We still have to paint the chassis, paint the rearend, drop the rear in, drop the engine in, shift the fuel cell and re-secure it, bolt everything back on, design a new body, put the body back on, set both cars back up and scale both cars.  We wanted to make some changes on how Chris' Upper A-arms mount too, so we'll still have to figure that out.

November 18th, 2004
Thursday (written by "Hollywood" Howe)

Update: Chris's car is starting to come around. Chassis is painted, fuel cell to be painted next, install new front upper "A" arm brackets, then re-assemble the car. Motor is about done.

Jay's car is mostly done. Leaving the body on it as is, since we have been asked to put the car in an "Autorama" in January, for the TV pilot series (Gearhead Nation). We think it might be better to leave the car as it was for the show, instead of putting all new sheet metal on it, etc...What do you think?

December 1, 2004
Wednesday

We had a terrific weekend at Mansfield Motorsports Speedway.  Our friends, the Kugels, brought over Ziggy's mini-stock for the first annual "Leftover Race".  Larry Kugel piloted the Ford Probe.  Larry qualified the Probe 9th fastest.  Pretty awesome especially for Larry's first time in that car and the first time on asphalt!  The Feature wasn't so awesome though.  It was a horrendous start.  I think it took 30 minutes to get 3 laps in!  Like most racers....you can win on the first lap...even if the race IS 100 laps long!!!  Well, Larry threaded one big mishap in lap 2 and came out clean.  He was involved in an incident in lap 3, but I can't tell you about that because I missed it.  After everyone got straightened out, the race restarted and there was a bump and run on the backstretch.  Larry tried to squeeze by on the inside, but they nicked him and he went for the wall.  We actually thought we saw the front of the car start to lift, before the wall and gravity launched him back onto the straightaway.  The car looked pretty bad from where we sat, but it turned out to mainly be a destroyed radiator that puked all over the track upon impacting the wall.  The safety crew checked out Larry and towed the Probe to the infield.  Larry watched the next 46 laps from the infield using the ice machine as a wind blocker.  After the first 50 laps, there was a pitstop, which allowed Larry to exit to the pits. 

We had a really nice dinner with the Kugel family after the races.  Even though there wasn't a whole lot of racing on our side, we still had a blast.  Hope they come up again next year.   Maybe we'll find Jay a car to play around in for the race too!

Now, for an update on our Modifieds.  We met Chris and Heather for dinner and then headed to the race shop.  Chris and I put the rearend back in his car and secured all the bars, shocks, springs, and suspension pieces.  Jay and Heather worked on the new upper A-arm setups for the Huff car.  We need to replace part of Chris' brake line.  Why?  It has a hole in it.  How did that happen?  Probably from the fire.  What fire?  Well, Jay got a little carried away welding.  Next thing Chris and I know there's a lot of commotion at the front of the racecar.  When we looked over, Jay and Heather were trying to put out the fire.  It was pretty comical.  Thank goodness the engine wasn't in the car yet!!!  It's not the first fire we've had...probably won't be the last either!  If you want to read about another fire story, refer to paragraph one of our May 25, 2003 entry, a.k.a. "Hold This".

December 11, 2004
Saturday (written by Jay)

We attended the PRI Show (Performance Racing Industry) in Indianapolis, Indiana. What a huge event if you ever get the chance to go. We met up with our friends from "Gearhead Nation".  They were out there to help promote and generate enough sponsorships for a TV package. Chris and Heather came out Friday and Saturday. Not sure what they thought of the show, but I am pretty sure they liked it.

We also visited with a few of our sponsors, and potential sponsors. We had a great time. Met a lot of nice people. Cross your fingers.......

Thursday night I had the unique opportunity to go to a kart track, and race against Nextel Cup driver Michael Waltrip. But, yours truly declined the offer. Don't ask me why, but I did.

We are excited about 2005. We stopped by the AMRA booth, visited with the good people of AMRA, Bill Hayes, Steve Davis, Mark Dickson, and Larry Keifer. Picked up the new rules, and the AMRA Road Warrior Tour Schedule. We were shocked to see a May 20th date at Attica Raceway Park.  We'll definitely be adding that date to our schedule!

We are awaiting Wayne County Speedway's schedule, before we post ours. Stay tuned....We plan on hitting at least 4-10 different tracks this year, in the US and Canada.

December 31, 2004
Saturday (written by Jay)

At Howe Extreme Racing, Inc., we would like to wish you and your family a Happy New Year. May God bless you and yours in 2005.

Oh yeah, 91 days left to the first practice day at Wayne County Speedway.