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Race Diaries - 2009

O’Reily Raceway Park, Indianapolis IN (September 17 - 29)

Bracket Finals 2009 - Go Team MMM

Thursday, September 17, 2009 - by Kevyn Ashbay

Bob and Shelly left yesterday afternoon to get in line at the gate so we get an optimal parking place. I, on the other hand, left today at about noon. Traffic wasn’t too bad and I made it within 3.88 miles of my exit in Brownsburg when everyone on the freeway STOPPED. 20 minutes later I pass the remnants of a car that had been on fire. I figured it would be somethingg interesting when three fire trucks passed on the shoulder so I had the camera at the ready. My plate says Michigan so if nothing else people think I’m a tourist.

At the track everything was already set up and ready to go for a day of waiting. We got word that their was a cool die-cast shop out by the entrance to the track (which is about a mile away, that info will be needed shortly) Mike let us borrow his golf cart so the three of us could ride up to kill some time. When we get there we found that it closed mere minutes before we got there. And to make things worse, when we went to take off back to the trailer, the cart would not move. After some fiddling, I took it upon myself to volunteer to jog back to the trailer and get a cub to tow it back. After running about ¾ of the way back I get a call from Bob saying it started so I had started sweating and cramping for nothing. Mike was notified of the problem and after some troubleshooting, found that the battery went bad. So once again Bob kills another battery. This prompted me to start the “Bob’s Battery Count” board and as of today it is up to 6 batteries that he has killed just this year. (and counting)

Not much else was going on today. We had a little wii party with the three of us and little Marckini. We golfed, we bowled, we tennised, and we curled (yes, curling is available on the wii). Bed time was just before midnight and lights went out and everyone got to sleep lulled by the sound of a thousand generators. ZZZZZZZ

Friday, September 18, 2009

After being here for the better part of a day we finally got our first time trial run at 12:25. It ran a 9.79 @ 130 MPH. Not too bad for the first run out of the box. Usually it tends to run a little slow as it looses everything up. But, when our second run came around it ran nearly identical 9.80 @ 130 MPH. And with those two numbers, one would think it would be easy to dial in only another hour later. We put a 9.80 on the side and went up for first round of the Race Of Champions. Bob had just been up on stage getting his hat and picture taken with all of the other S/P Bike track champions when we learned who our 1st round opponent would be... Chad Eisely. He won the whole bike class here last year and when to Pomona. Needless to say, we were just a bump in the road on his way to winning the ROC. For reasons beyond our knowledge, the bike fell off to a 9.85 and Bob just couldn’t get around him at the end.

Besides racing, there was lots of time to kill. Chris Donahue was our only other bike from Mid Michigan Motorplex and he was missing his help. So, I got the bike started and went to chase him at the top end for both of his runs. Plus, Dave Acha (who is parked just to the west of us) made it all the way to the semi-finals in the ROC. He got some great luck with three straight red-lights for him in the first three rounds. Dave had him covered in the semi’s but broke out by mere thousandths. And to finish the day, as we always do on Friday night, our MMM potluck was a couple trailers over. A table from here to Gibraltar was full of great food everyone brought. Bob made his fudge again, this year in orange and raspberry flavors. As usual, everyone loved it had had to ask who made it. Tomorrow we get one more time trial run in the morning and right into round 1 and probably even round 2 as rain is supposed to make its way in sometime on Sunday. So I would assume they will go as far as they can Saturday to try and get everything in. I’m sure they don’t want a repeat of last year when less than a handful of finals had to be run on Monday morning when everything dried.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Today is another beautiful day. Its have been such a great week for weather. Sun all day and high 70’s and nice cool temperatures to sleep to all night long. Early in the day there were a few clouds which make it nice while sitting in the stands. I haven;t wore any sunscreen yet and I look a little raccoonish. You can tell where my glasses sit because of all the sun while watching all the racing.

The funniest part of the day had to be when Mike came over to our trailer and asked if Bob had borrowed his Scooter because the battery had died. We had a conference and even though I fought for Bob, we had to give him a half of a mark on the Count Board because he was in the near vicinity so in Mike’s words he was “guilty by association”.

And eventually someone is going to ask so I might as well get to the point... Racing didn’t go well all week. We had a good run this morning running a 9.81 in the cool temps. So going into first round (after last nights slow down to the 9.85) we put a 9.83 on the side of the bike but still slowed to a 9.86. Bob got off the line first but just couldn’t get the bike down the track. We are still kinda scratching our collective heads why it slowed in both of the money rounds. All the time trial runs are perfect and it just seemed to slow when it was most inconvenient. And as for the rest of team: Aside from a few racers, Team Mid Michigan Motorplex was devastated. Especially after our great showing last year, everyone had high hopes going into race day. Everyone put their best foot forward and we are proud of everyone for making it this far but guess it just wasn;t our year. The team ended with 18 points (almost half of last year). But all in all it was a great weekend. I know personally I love these races because I get to meet all the peopel we race against every weekend and get to put a face to the names I hear on the PA. It seems every year I make new friends and this year was no exception.

A couple of great news items much be pointed out today though. Right at we were running our first round, the officials announced the winners of the best appearing vehicles. In the bike class our own Chris Donahue won in the Bike class. His Kawasaki was wrapped in purple and green was a beautiful piece of machinery. Secondly, Scott Keifer’s Cobalt Pro-Stock car won the award for best engineering. It definitely is my favorite car at the track. It is absolutely perfect! Also, late breaking news is that Team Mid Michigan won the Team Spirit award. This award goes to the team that best exemplifies sportsmanship and togetherness. I feel these qualites are what we MMM racers feel are most important. With our Pot-luck we always have on Friday night and all the team members occupying the the wonderfully decorated grandstand section, we all are there fro each other. And not to mention the fact that Mike and Karrie Ledford (Track owners) are at the starting line for EVERY MMM car that goes down the track. I don’t think any other team can say that. They are just unbelievable people and have all of our love and admiration!

Mid Michigan Motorplex, Stanton MI (September 6)

Last tune-up before Indy

Sunday, September, 2009 - by Kevyn Ashbay

Yesterday didn’t go very well, maybe because I wasn’t there. But probably not. Even though I wasn’t there Craig Klooster was. Craig is an old friend from back in the sand days back in Silver Lake. You may remember him from the Old Timers race we organized a few years back at the old Silver Lake Sand Dragway. (Craig was the “All around nice guy”) He hasn’t done much drag racing since then, but Bob talked him into entering his pickup in the Sportsman class (Street cars). Although he got a tough match-up first round and lost, Craig had lots of fun and I’m assuming we could talk him into doing it again some time.

Sunday was about as good of a weather day as anyone could imagine. Mostly sunny and warm, but not hot, temperatures. Also, today was the first day my new son (3 months old) got to attend one of our races. As of now, he wasn’t much for any of the loud cars but he seemed to like all the colorful ones. I guess that’s kinda how I like my cars too though. If it doesn’t look good, it doesn’t matter what it sounds like. He even got to see our first round win. Although it came in the second round, it was a win nonetheless. A nice package in that round got Bob the win and sent us to the third round where we faced the same dragster we lost to in the first. This time, he gave us the win when the dragster redlit right offf the line and brought us as far as we have gone all season. In the 4th round, humidity levels shot up fast as the sun disappeared while we sat in the lanes. That slowed the bike much more than we anticipated and an almost perfect light by Bob wasn’t enough to save the race.

One of the best parts of the weekend had to be Cory Mataya and his camera. Cory is a neighbor of Bob and let us borrow his on-board camera. We got two great runs with it showing how intense it is to make a run at over 100 mph on two wheels in just over 6 seconds. One of the runs was with the camera facing forward. You are looking through the front fairing just like Bob does. The second was taped backwards looking back at Bob as he is started up, does the burnout, stages the bike and launches his was down the track. It is dome of the most incredible footage I have ever seen. My first though when I saw the first run was that it looked like I was playing the NHRA Drag Racing game on PS2. It was Awesome!!!

Mid Michigan Motorplex, Stanton MI (August 30)

Back in Action

Sunday, August 30, 2009 - by Kevyn Ashbay

I hadn’t been to the race track in.... I don’t know when. If you haven’t read any entries, basically everything seems to be braking at the most inopportune times. As for today, everything is going as planned. The plan was to continue to brake in the belt that started the year on the twin but gave up on when it wouldn’t work quite like we wanted. That was the reason we came out of the box a tenth slow. Second time run came and things came together and ran a 9.80. With all the wind that seemed to be pushing us towards the wall, that was pretty good. Even the 9.84 the Bob ran in the third time run seemed in the right range. This was proven when we ran dead on with a 5 in the 1/8 mile “run-for-the-money”. It was just too bad we had to run on with a 0 to get even half the money.

First round came up quite quickly and we rushed to throw a dial on the bike and were third in line in the right lane. (Usually we are first and waiting for the second car to arrive) A late light and a sightly slow bike did us in , also very quickly. Even though we went out in first round and didn’t buy back, it was a small victory because everything was in one piece. Or so we thought. Buying back into second round was much of an option because a cramp in Bob’s leg. (Reportedly upon arriving home, a doll dress up as Bob was found near Beta with bunch of pins in its leg. How weird is that?) Also a call from Bob the next day revealed that the TV was not strapped down in the trailer and it took a tumble rendering it useless. And another call later in the week informed me the engine in the truck will have to removed solely to replace the oil pan.

Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend which is a three day race, of which, we usually attend the Saturday and Sunday races and that is what is expected this year. But as the rest of the year has gone, hopefully Beta will let us make it through Saturday before anyone thinks about Sunday’s Race.

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