Latest News
10/03/11 - Last Hurrah in 2011 at Seymour Speedway
In what would prove to be our final race of the 2011 season, we headed out to Seymour Speedway for their Fall Classic special. The track was pretty much locked down from the opening heat races, taking on rubber and becoming a one lane track on the bottom.
The track conditions made for some pretty uneventful races, but we wanted to see how the car would react on the dryslick having struggled the final few weeks of the season. We left our heat race setup in the car, and while it wasn’t terrible, I didn’t quite have enough traction to hang on the outside. I dropped to 6th with a few laps remaining, and narrowly missed recapturing 5th at the checkers.
That finish would put me on the pole for the semi-feature, and I took the early lead off the start. However, a caution would force a complete restart, and this time Jake Solin got the jump to the head of the field. I settled into 2nd place, and after a few more caution flags flew, I found myself sitting in the 3rd position. It seemed like forever racing single file on the bottom of the track, and finally the checkers flew and I transferred into the feature.
Starting 18th in the feature, I was waiting for the bottom groove to open up to make my move, but was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time as Joey Taycher suffered mechanical issues right in front of me.
After finally getting around Taycher, I was back about a full straightaway from the rest of the field. It only took me about 3 laps to rejoin the pack, which made me very happy with how the car was working on a surface we had been struggling with. I did get caught up in the only wreck of the race, and did have a little bit of front end issues from it. At the checkers I was fighting to grab the 15th spot, but Russel Franks broke coming off of turn 4, so I had to check up and ended up 17th.
With the 2011 season concluding for us, we will be tearing the car down and prepping for next season. The chassis needs a little TLC from the early wreck in June, but other than that we will be checking over suspension parts and getting everything cleaned up for 2012. Thanks to my 2011 sponsors for your support this season, and to all the fans who congratulated me on a very successful 2nd season in the IMCA sportmod division. See you at the track in 2012!
09/18/11 - Another Good News/Bad News Weekend
This past weekend was the Fall Classic at Luxemburg Speedway, which was a 2-day event on Friday and Saturday night. I drew right in the middle for my heat race starting position, and we didn’t hit the track until after 9pm for our heat race. By then, most of the track surface had dried out. I started 5th in the heat race, and tangled a bit with Brandon Long, clashing front rims and sending me towards the tail of the field.
I fell back to 8th, and then decided to try my luck on the outside of the track. It took a few laps to find the right line I wanted to run, but from then on the car was hooked. I tracked down Long, Chad Kaminski, Ryan LeMieux and finally Mark Joski to vault myself back into a 4th place finishing position.
Unfortunately for me, they were taking the top 3 cars to the feature on Saturday night, so that meant a last chance qualifier race was in order early Saturday night. Because of my heat race finish, I started on the pole for the last chance race. I immediately knew the bottom groove didn’t have much bite left, and set sail for the high side much like the previous night. I was running comfortably in 2nd position, when a yellow flag flew, putting me back on the bottom for the restart. I was able to find my way back up top and settled into the 4th place position on the restart, and that’s where I ended up finishing.
With that finish, I would start 19th of 22 in the feature. We experimented with our setup once again, figuring it would either work great or not work at all. Much to my dismay, it was the latter of the two outcomes, as I couldn’t get the car to go forward anywhere on the racing surface. I could see the leaders closing in on me in the next few laps, so I decided to head to the pits and end my night.
That wraps up the season at Luxemburg Speedway, where I picked up 2 heat race wins along with a semi-feature win in 2011. I picked up two top-10 feature finishes, one of which was a top-4 finish. All-in-all it was a very good season at the track, and I look forward to next season with a full year of driving this car under my belt.
Our final race of the season will be at Seymour Speedway on October 1st. After that, the car will be disassembled for maintenance checks and cleaning, then we’ll get it ready for the 2012 season.
09/15/11 - FREE Driver Suit Promotion from K1 RaceGear
K1 RaceGear is giving away a FREE driver suit to the person who can gather the most “Likes” for their suit on their Facebook page.
You can find the suit at the following link, all you have to do is click on the “Like” button to vote! Vote for Budzo’s Driver Suit
Thanks to all who vote, and you’ll all be entered to win a FREE T-shirt or DVD of my in-car videos after all the votes are tallied.
