Heading to Wall Mart

In the back of every racer's head whether he admit's it or not, is always the fear, or at least the thought of crashing. That moment where a controlled chaos becomes an uncontrolled nightmare, Where you go from driving, to simply being a passenger. Yesterday i got a glimpse of that. All you that know me know that i am not scared of anything. I define the word fearless in and out of the race car. And at times, it bites me in the ass. I'll start from the beginning. The new engine has been together almost two weeks now and has proven to be quite the challenge to tame. In redneck words. This thing is a beast. As of last friday, I had yet to make a full throttle pass. There seemed to be no amount of power or adjustment that i could take out or put in that seemed to work. The car was extremely violent and bad mannered altogether. So we changed torque converters. Now let me tell you, this thing is tight. And it seemed to really load the engine. Which is what i was looking for. So friday night i decided that since it was raining in most of the entire southeast and most of the country, that i would just simply drive where the sun was. Well it happened to be sunny and 85 degrees in orlando, fla on saturday. So at 6 am saturday morning, I woke up and decided that i was gonna race if i had to drive 500 miles to do it. My buddy Wes said he would go so i tore out at a high rate of speed and headed south. I picked him up in Jacksonville fla and we made it to the track just in time to miss first round of qualifying for the Battle of The Brands Outlaw Radial class. We unloaded and I put the laziest tune up i had in and second round qualifying we finally made a full throttle pass. It was slow but i was happy. Last round i pepped it up a little and picked up 4 tenths. That put us 3rd. And all was well. Sunday morning the weather absolutely went to shit. It rained for two hours, then got cold as balls. The track cut all the classes back from quarter mile to 8th mile. For safety, The wind was blowing 30 miles per hour. Well first round I burned in and staged the old girl for the first round of competition of the year. After Lopping the other guys head clean off on the tree we both proceeded to smoke the tires and pedal. I was sideways going thru the traps taking the win by two hundredths of a second on a holeshot. Boy i was fired up. I knew the track was marginal but man it got loose quick. So the next round i took out all the power i could. i used the same super lazy tune up from second round quailfying. I knew that if i just went a to b then i had a good shot at winning the race. I staged and once again in steve jackson fashion cut the tree down with a chainsaw. The car launched hard and straight. The old girl was on a rail. then the shit hit the fan. About 400 feet out the car shook the tires. The guy i was running also had problems earlier on. I pedalled the car, straightened her out and the wacked the throttle. Up Up Up and away we went. It stood straight up at roughly 140 mph. I lifted and when the car came down it was pointed straight at the center line and straight at the other guy. In the blink of an eye i made an instinct decision.I snatched the wheel straight toward the wall and smacked the throttle to spin the tires and stuck it straight nose first into the wall. It was either lose one car or both. I decided in that split second to keep my car out of his lane no matter the cost. The car rebounded off the wall and again went toward the center and again i snatched it straight into the wall. It spun around about three times hitting the wall each time. I really took a shot. Talk about sore today. I can hardly move. The car appeared to be totalled out. But i never crossed the center line and didnt hit the wall till after the 8th, and won the round. What a shitty way to turn the W on. I was disqualified because i couldnt cross the scales because the car wouldnt roll. I loaded up my junk and my pride and headed north. Driving all night and getting home at 5 am this morning. I was certain that the car totalled and my season was over. The first ORSCA race is three weeks away. Then like they always do, my boys came to the rescue. My crews endless devotion to my dream amazes me constantly. you can always tell who your friends are when the shit hits the fan. We win and lose together in everything we do. And not just in racing but in life as well. I woke up at 8 am to the sound of a beating and banging in the shop. I walked out and there was Big Johnson and Chris Bell disassembling the whole car. I didnt even ask them to. The just showed up. I hobbled off to work. By 10 am the car was completely stripped. Neil and Van at the paint shop said the would do whatever it took to get us going. Brian (stickman) Canada donated a parts car at no charge . The car is now on the frame rack. I will know by the morning if it can be fixed or not. We have three weeks to get this thing or something running before the first race. So its time to do what we do and get busy. Updates will follow. In other awesome news, We picked up a new sponsor this weekend. I will make the announcement later in the week.