Saturday was Stockcar day!

Back onto the road course for my final race on that track (I had decided before the nats that I would not be racing 4.5" Stockcar this year) it was time to break out some of the fantastic new Best O The West big diameter armature horsepower. In the past for the Stockcar races I have bought many many motors to the Nats for this class, but this year I only had 5 motors to test, and every one of them was fast. The new arms are so consistent and smooth, and unlike previous arms, they seem to run well on almost any track.

Brian Saunders decided that he was not going to race this class, so I gained myself a dedicated pit man for this class. In last minute practice the track showed signs of being inconsistent and loose again, so this time we were prepared (at least for the semi). Out went the treated tires, and we set the Flexi 5 up for maximum bite and to be as consistent as we could.

The field was a little bigger than the fields had been up until that point as the Port Jeff guys arrived from New York, just for this race. I’m not sure that Erkle, Chubby and Jonathan Sohl were all comfortable on the road course driving Stockcars, but they were all there, and all drove well despite a complete lack of practice and setup time.

Into the Semi finals, and I really cruised along, driving consistently, watching carefully to make sure I remained in a move up position in the 11 man round robin semi, while Brian worked his magic in between heats in the pit. By the end of the semi I was tied with Willam Burnside for the semi win, 5 laps clear of 5th placed John Martin.

Going into the main, Brian and I were confident that I would be competitive, and we though we knew what to do if the track went slippery once again, but unfortunately we were wrong! Starting out i the main things were ok, I was running in the top 4. The pace was fast, and once again mike Bressett opened up a lead and held it. As we got further into the race we could not keep my car hooked up, and I slipped back, finally settling in 6th place at the end of the race. Not the result I was hoping for, but at the same time at least I didn’t have to marshall the main!

With no racing for Brian or I on Sunday, we decided to go out somewhere, so we convinced Fred Hood to come with us and the three of us headed into the old part of Philadelphia to check out some of the nightlife. This time we got the phone number of the taxi that took us, and he agreed to come and pick us up once we were ready to go home. It was an interesting night, seeing some of the old parts of town, cobblestone roads and all was cool. We finally ended up in a part of town  that was party central, and we sampled a number of the local bars, which were all full to overflowing. once closing time arrived at 2am we called our taxi driver, and surprisingly it was only a 10 minute wait until he came and collected us, and delivered us back to the hotel.