There were no less than 5 Sunset mini's in attendance..#13 Dave Glaze who won the feature. #91 x Andre Pepin, #50 x Scott Burlovich, #27 Gilles "Frenchy" Harpin, and #40 Andrew Swindells.. Swindells has run more at Pete and Kawartha over the last several years but is registered at Sunset and has the Sunset decals on the car.. As mentioned Swindells finished 5th in the 20 lap main.. The 27 of Harpin had a hard wreck and rolled over on his side after hitting the tires at the enterance to pit road.. Pretty scary there for a moment but he was alright..Also in the PS field was #36 Corey Young of Sauble who finished 6th-7th if memory serves..
I actually thought the Sunset mini's were off last night but I see they did indeed race.. Wonder if the 5 Sunset guys in attendance came to Barrie in search of higher purses or cause they were missing the A main down yonder?? Glaze was pretty quick the night I seen him at Sunset finishing 6th or 7th, so I wouldnt of thought missing the A main would be an issue for him.. Sure hope "Gipper' is returning to Barrie on a full time basis or at least considering it after the hat trick last night..
Also find it pretty neet we've had 3 first time Thunder Car feature winners in the last 3 weeks (Hallyburton, DenHollander, and Burrage)
i didn't get to congratulate chris, but good job bud and its nice to see you get that first big one. congrats to all of your team!
Thanks to everyone for the congrats. Its being along four years coming I'm still on cloud 9 not to sure when I will come down. The only sad part about the win is that Sam Semple who helped build the car 4 years ago is not here to see it win, but I could feel him with us last night. Once again THANKS to everyone me and my crew really appreciate it. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
;D You simply Deserve and worked hard for that one!!'' Chris Congrats '',,I hope yo Helmet still fits LMAO''..
Congrats Chris, keep pluggin away.
Now for my take on last evenings racing as a whole:
both heats that I was in were terrible. 1 car was leaking fluid on the track making for an even more slick race track with the temperatures. Then another car puked water everywhere all over the track. The clean-up crew (which consists of 2 guys) throws a load of sand over it. No sweeping was done. We drove over it for a few laps and then they set us free again for a green white checkered which did not need to be done as I think we were already on lap 11. If they had of called the race then we would have all been ok with that. But anyways they set us free and bot Jim, Ken and I were loose as heck. I watched as both almost lost it coming out of 2 as I was way out of shape and in a 4 wheel drift. Dirt was kicking up from behind Jim's rear tires all the way down the chute. Then both Jim and I stopped in the corber post race to say let the official know what we felt about what they had done. All i got was a couple of swear words and the flagmans flag smashed into the side of our racecar. For one we don't race for points, money or trophies in the heats. It's pretty much pointless unless your a competitor at heart and wanna go hard all the time. The track needs to clean up the track properly. But after that it was time for the LLM feature #1 and they gave them a bunch of hot laps through the sand to get rid of it. If the track wasn't ready for the LLM at that point then it should never have been ready for us to do a green white checkered.
My 2nd heat, same thing. A car puked water all over the corner in the top groove. 2 guys dumped sand on it. didn't see any sweeping done. 2 or 3 times around the track and they set us free again. I again was in a 4 wheel drift all the way through the corner and was pointed to the inside wall coming out of 2. I backed down and pulled off the track in disgust as I did not want to wreck the racecar because of a lack of proper clean-up. The track needs to do a better job. I was given no satisfaction when complaining about the surface and lack of clean-up. So obviously I was not a happy camper.
Now comes Feature time. first caution around lap 3. Why the #10 was deemed responsible is beyond us as the 12 car decides the bottom lane is his and as the 10 car is keeping it tight to the bottom, the 12 car comes down and cuts across the 12 cars nose. 12 gets his spot back and 10 to the back. on the restart the 12 car pushes me all the way around the corner before taking the green. the 67 car has not even started going, i am almost a car length ahead of the 67 and have to wait till the 67 goes while still being shoved by the 12. I didn't want to caught for jumping so it killed me going into corner 1 as now i'm almost a car length behind on the high groove. Then a few laps later the 12 pushes us out of 2 then slams us down the back chute a couple times, then he gets into my left rear quarter and he's still in the gas into me as i brake for the corner. the 12 doesn't lift until I am sideway. We tap the wall and it throws out our toe and shoves the bumper bar into the frame as out tired landed in the wall. Restart. Now I have the 14 car pushing me all the way through the corner before the green, the car is now junk and i give way to folks on the bottom. when the 12 car is passing me on the inside were fully straight now almost mid way down the back chute. there's 1 1/2 feet between us and the 12 car jumps up the track and gives me a good door shot. by this time the car is junk and i can't even keep it down in th ecorner at 60% anymore. So when the 12 comes by to lap me I make sure that nobody is around and give him a light tap to send him out of shape. I didn't wreck him nor was I trying. I was sending a message and I hope he got it. I admit it was wrong to retaliate but what's done is done. anyways watching the remainder of it the 12 almost spins the 49 in the closing laps. my point is the 12 was way too aggressive the whole race. bumping a guy is one thing but dumping him when you have plenty of time to let off is uncalled for.
Post race i throw a few choice words to the 12 in the tech shed heading to my pit area. i grab my smokes and head back to watch the LLM feature. While going by the tech shed again the 12 gets a few more choice words. At this time the 12 gets out of his car and storms towards me. he pushes people outta the way to get at me. he grabs me by the throat and tries to throw me on the ground. a few more of his crew guys storm at me and one of my crew guys. This is the time I think it's time to back off. as i did. his crew members were shoving my crew.
So in the end I get the black flag for rough driving, the 12 gets his spot back, finishes 3rd. assaults me in the pits. his crew lays hands on my guys and the 12 is not DQ'd....makes me wonder. Thus the reason there's no point in returning to Barrie Speedway. If they had of given me last place points, I would consider it.
I have raced Jim and everybody else real clean the first 5 weeks and this is what i get for it.
Also the track needs a back stretch flag man
The track also needs to stop telling drivers that they can bump and bang all they want as long as they don't sping somebody. They need to preach that guys need to respect one another and try to pass clean. Theres too much time and money spent for the track to turn it around to a beat and bash division because they say you can do it. Things need to change at that Speedway. and if nothing changes, the track is going to lose cars that they cannot afford to lose. They have already lost a pretty good car with a pretty good rookie driver in the #38.