I ran my Crate 604 car at a track about an hour south of me called Buckshot Speedway. I’ve raced there a couple of times before so I thought it would be a good place to take it for its first outing.

Practice went OK. The track was pretty-heavy (wet, grippy and a bit rutty & bumpy) and the car ran well. It was a bit on the tight-side but it was ok for my 3-laps.

Qualifying did not go very well. I was still too tight and couldn’t keep the car up high enough in the corners to keep my momentum up. Of the 23 cars there, I clocked in 20th.

So that meant I had to start my heat race in 8th. With the track drying out some, the car started to come around, I passed a few cars and I was able to make it to 4th by the end of the 8-lap race.

In the 30-lap Feature, I started 16th, made it 1-lap and proceeded to drive straight into a massive pile up in Turn-1. As I saw the wreck happening, I broke hard but with only 3-wheel brakes, these big cars just don’t slow down very quickly on dirt. So I broadside-slid to the left and right into a car who was already turned completely around with his nose acting like a “ramp for me”. Hitting him with the back 2/3’s of my car, this in turn lifted the back of my car up off the ground about 3-feet.

Then after destroying the front of his car, I still had enough forward momentum coming off of his hood to do a 1/4-spin back to the right and then plow straight into the nose on somebody else that had also spun around backwards! In the end, there were 8 of us involved in the mess with some cars ending up partially on top of each other.

When a big wreck like this happens, the First Responders usually go to the cars that look the worst. Despite what I thought at the time, my car didn’t look too bad from the outside, especially compared to some of the others that only had 1 or 2 tires actually touching the ground. After sitting there for a few minutes, they made their way over to me and after giving my car the once-over, they said the right-side body and nose were caved-in a good bit and my right-rear tire was flat but if I was careful, I should be able to drive it back to the pits!

Once I got back to the pits and the guys that were there helping me (and some other crew members) literally lifted the back of my car up high enough to get a jack under it, raised it up and pulled off my flat right rear tire. After some quick inspection, some bodywork pulling and messaging with the jack handle and a few hammers, they bolted on a new wheel/tire and sent me back to the track saying that “they didn’t think” any of the suspension was bent too badly but “be careful just in case”.

While all of this took a few minutes, the big wreck on the track was taking longer to clean up so when I got back out on the track, it was still under a Red Flag. What this meant for me was that sense I left the track for repairs, I would have to restart at the back but I wouldn’t be down any laps, as the whole field was still just sitting there. So once a few cars got some quick repairs like I did and also rejoined the track, I ended up restarting 18th or 20th I think.

Once we got going again, I shook the car around a bit on the Pace Laps, gassed it up around a corner or two and was ready to “take my chances.” As it turned out, my car wasn’t as badly damaged as some of the other cars so I was able to get around a couple of them pretty quick. I then tried to find my rhythm and figure out how I needed to drive the so-so handling car after the wreck. Now being at the back on a somewhat narrow race track, I was really being held up by the cars in front of me so I ended up going to lap down to 1st & 2nd place before the next caution flag. During the final Green Flag run, I managed to get past a few more cars, held onto the cars in front of me and I ended up with a 9th place finish.

Sunday I spent about 5-hours getting the car cleaned back up but with work all this week I  haven’t had a chance to really look things over for damage, but I’ll be shocked if there’s nothing a fix/replace on the right rear, considering the severity of the hit. So far I’ve seen that the main bracket that holds the rear control arms is bent a bit, it naturally messed up my right side door (inside and out) a bit and the nose, but aside from that, the body came out pretty good all things considered. I’ve got some new parts coming from the factory and I should be able to be back in action next weekend for another go.

So there’s a bit of a race report. Had some fun, worked way too hard by myself (got to find a crew guy to hire) and after some repairs, I can’t wait to get back out there again…

Keep in touch,

DVB