What a weekend….

Usually I can say that is a good context, but this weekend it took a lot out of the team. After having the engine freshened up, we spent Friday installing it. Everything went well till we fired it up. Backfiring out the exhaust and really just not running right. The team realized the plug wires were crossed.

Saturday the team showed up to the track and realized we had a flat on the trailer, decided to change it after the race so no big deal. The team went through our normal pre race checks with no issues. Hank climbed in the number 11 Open Wheel and fired it up for practice. Well….as he practiced the bottom of the radiator came off its mount and bounced into the fan taking the radiator out. The team thought our night was over, so the search was on….

We asked around the pits and didn’t have much luck. Then we talked to Jordan Taylor. He walked to the front of his trailer and pulled out a box with the exact radiator we needed. Thanks goodness, team Hurricane was still in business. During the drivers meeting the team installed the radiator and filled her with water.

By the time we had everything buttoned up and filled with water it was time for qualifying. The gremlins weren’t done yet. Hurricane climbed into the car and made his qualifying laps and the car pushed badly. Neither lap was very good and came out with a 5th place qualifying effort. The worst of the year. The team regrouped thought about what was going on and we changed a few things and moved some tires around for the race.

Everyone was anxious as Hank pulled out on the track for the feature. We were all wondering if we had all the bugs worked out and made the right adjustments. All we could do was wait for the green flag. As the flag flew, we quickly had our answer. The car went into the 1st turn in 5th place and came out of turn two, three wheeling, in 2nd. Hurricane Hank passed three cars in one corner and the car quickly caught the leader. Hank was able to make a couple of runs at the leader but was never able to get under him to take the lead, so we settled for a second place finish. Not bad considering everything that happened that day.

Of course the drama wasn’t over; we still had to change the trailer tire. As we were backing the trailer up on the ramp to lift the damaged wheel off the ground, the tool box decided to take a fall. In the process the toolbox was a complete loss, damaging the case, drawers and breaking the top off the box. We did at least get the tire changed without much fanfare. We finally loaded up and headed home. We are very happy with our 2nd place finish after everything was said and done.

We would like to send a sincere “Thanks” to Jordan Taylor for allowing us to use his spare radiator. Without it, we would’ve been headed home early.

We would also like to Thank the “Wild Child” and his team for their help. They loaned us a grinder to work our tires with, a mud plug and Willie being “chauffer” while trying to find tires and the radiator. We would also like to congratulate them on a well deserved win!