The trip to Spencer was a qualified success. I got third. Unfortunately, since there were only 5 cars and 1 didn’t start, that’s not saying much. The fact that I was a lap down is even worse. I’m not sure why the car count is so bad there. It’s a nice place and the track is pretty decent to drive on. The management and officials were awesome and the competitors were helpful. In order to pull some more cars, they’ve pretty much said bring whatever you have within reason. They even let us run 800/890s. The Super Stock class at Spencer has been hit pretty hard by the fates. They had a good field earlier in the season but for various reasons, many of the cars have been kept home. They’re exploring their options for opening the rules to make more cars eligible for next season in hopes that some of the cars sitting will be able to come out.

I had really hoped for a better run. I spent the week changing the car over from Evans Mills, putting in a closer gear and getting the weights and ride heights to where they should be and I figured I’d have something at least race-able. Jason decided he wanted to come down and try the place out so we headed down together. After about 20 minutes of filling out NASCAR forms, we got in and unloaded. I managed to loop it in the first hot lap session and put some wedge in it for the second session. Then I figured out that my corner entry was making me loose so I took the wedge back out… Jason went out and immediately turned competitive laps. Unfortunately, the motor let got at the end of the second session so he was OFN. I spent the heat trying again to find a decent line and got through with no incident other than turning 7200rpm, which seems like a lot with 5.13 gears. The car did get hot again so we filled it back up and put a new cap on it hoping that would help. The feature was also pretty uneventful. I ran what I hoped was a decent line but couldn’t keep up with the leaders and lost about a second and a half a lap for pretty much the entire race. Changing the cap seems to have taken care of the overheating problem but I’m still turning over 7000 rpm. I think I better look at the clutch again…

I think if Jason had run the feature, he and the top two guys would have put on a great race. As it was, the top two were glued together all night. I’m hoping that Jason comes back and I get a better handle on the car so we can be part of of that. Jason was on the phone that night already campaigning to get more Evans Mills cars down for the next two shows. I hope we can convince some people to show up. It’s not a bad haul and if I can get third a lap down, someone with a car that works should do pretty well.