Matthew
Reed - American Tour
May 9th - June 17th
The Reed Report – Part 5 – Feature Winner At
Sharon, Ohio!
Author : Reed Racing
Victorian driver, Matthew
Reed, successfully competed in the final two events of his
American tour this past weekend in Ohio, which resulted in a new
one-lap track record in qualifying at Skyline Speedway on Friday
night en-route to a second place run in the feature.
On Saturday night Matthew drove the Westside Honda backed Maxim
into victory lane at Sharon Speedway for his first feature race
victory in America, capping off a successful few weeks of racing
for the 5x time SRA Series champion. For all our fans and
supporters back home in Australia, this is Matthew’s final
weekend wrap from the USA –
“With thanks to
Paul Kistler, we were able to get our own motor fixed and bolted
back in the race car to head to Skyline Speedway last Friday
night. The Kistler Engines powerplants are nestled between the
rails of many of the World of Outlaw cars as well as a large
percentage of the All Star cars and local teams across Ohio, and
we were lucky enough that Paul and his team were able to get our
engine problems all fixed up within a few days.
We chose to go race at a place called Skyline Speedway for our
Friday night show. This was a track I had never seen before, but
in keeping in line with my desire to go race at as many
different places as possible I thought we might head south and
try it out. There are a whole heap of racetracks across Ohio,
and some of these I had never heard of before I left home. Some
of these places run on Friday nights and some on Saturday
nights, and it’s not uncommon to have two or three 410 shows on
the same night within a few hours of each other. Some guys make
a particular track their home base and chase the points at each
track each week, while others float about from place to place
and cherry-pick the races that pay good and suit them.
From what I have seen, Attica and Fremont probably have the best
payout for their regular weekly racing, and as such they attract
the strongest fields, including many of the All Star teams who
race weekly at these tracks during the breaks in their schedule.
Down south many guys do a Friday/Saturday double at Skyline and
KC Raceway, and over to the east on the Pennsylvania border
there are guys that race at either Lernerville and Mercer or
Sharon. There are also other tracks such as Moler Raceway Park
and Ohio Valley that have sprint car races, although these are
not as regular as the other places. Basically, you have plenty
of choices here!
One of the positive things about racing back home in Victoria is
that we are not confined to the one race-track each week. I
think it’s cool to go to a different place each week as you get
to race on tracks with different surfaces, shapes, banking, etc.
Admittedly some of the tracks are better than others, and some
of the places we go to we probably shouldn’t, but it does teach
you to be a more rounded driver, as you learn to adapt to
whatever you are dealt. When I got the opportunity to come over
here and race, one of the things I wanted to do was go to as
many different places as possible, which I figured would expand
my knowledge and teach me more than just staying at the one
place. It would certainly be easier and less expensive to just
base yourself at one place and race at the same 2 places each
week, but at the end when you fly home you would always be
wondering what the other places were like. I have tried to make
the most of my opportunity here and race all over the place as
much as I can for this reason. To hell with gas prices I say!
Let’s just go race and have some fun!
So after getting lost (again!) we arrived at Skyline for our
Friday night engagement to find a high banked 3/8 mile track
with red clay and a very wide racing surface. There was a wall
down the front straight and around the 1-2 turn, but halfway
down the back straight the wall stops, and like so many of the
tracks here, once you get over the edge of the track you run off
into the trees. From a racer’s point-of-view, I actually feel
safer with a proper wall and wire catch-fence all around the
circuit, but I guess that’s just because that’s what I am used
to. Guys back home from Parramatta probably hate the idea, but I
tell ya, when you look over the edge of some of these places at
where you might land, it scares the crap out of me! I think I’d
rather be contained in the track than land in a tree, but each
to their own.
The surrounding area had sustained heavy rainfall in the
previous few days, and as such the track started off pretty
sticky and heavy. The Late Models qualified first and they built
up a nice cushion about halfway up the track. Our car was a
little tight in hot laps, so I freed it up a little more as we
only got one lap to qualify and I wanted to try to make a nice
lap against the cushion, without the thing bouncing around and
eating up the time clock. Soon enough I got pushed off and it
was my turn to take the green. The way the track was I really
wanted to make sure I got the right-rear smack in the right spot
as we entered the turn, without cheating the cushion or blowing
through it. As it turned out, I hit it about as sweet as you
possibly could, and the Maxim chassis just rocketed around the
turn without me barely turning the steering wheel. I got through
the first and second turn that good that I had a big grin on my
face going down the back straight, cause I knew I had done
exactly what I needed to do. We made an equally nice run through
the 3-4 turns and I got off the corner real nice crossing the
line with a time of 10.43, setting quick-time and a new track
record in the process!! Well, that was pretty cool I thought…!
The format at this track was such that the top 4 qualifiers
by-pass the heats and go straight to a fully inverted 4-car dash
race. The finishing order of the dash race sets up the first 2
rows of the feature. I paid attention to what the Late Models
were doing to the track and sure enough as each heat was run you
could see the inevitable shine starting to appear off the track,
as it slicked off and started to get a glazed look. We tightened
the car up a little bit to run the dash race, where we moved
from 4th to second, which meant we was to start to feature from
the outside of the front row.
In previous weeks we have got way loose as the feature unfolded,
mainly because I haven’t tightened the car up enough for the way
the tracks slick off here. It’s my first look at most of these
places, so really we are flying blind and just guessing most of
the time. I made some decisions and we tightened the car up a
fair bit, and rolled out for the feature. Soon enough we got
going and I took the lead into the first turn and started
reeling off the laps in clean air, leading the race. About 5
laps in we started moving through the lapped cars, which was
always going to be interesting. Much like the week before, I got
a run around a guy coming off a corner and as I get right about
to make the pass he moves up and almost pinches me into the
wall. It was the sort of thing that happens all the time back
home when you race at Warrnambool. You get a nice run around the
top and have plenty of momentum, and then the guy you are about
to pass moves up coming off the turn, and you need to make a
quick choice whether to stay in it or abort and hit the brake.
Usually if you can at least get alongside the guy you hope that
they can see you enough that the don’t keep moving up, but on
this occasion even though I was committed to the top and had my
momentum going, I knew I was gonna either ride a wheel or get
squashed if I continued, so I got on the brake and tried to get
back down under the guy. Meanwhile, Danny Smith gets a nice run
off the bottom and takes advantage of me getting baulked and
takes the lead. I swear I could even see him sucking on a
cigarette as he roared past down the back straight. Damn! This
happened last week!
While Danny is not 25 years old anymore, he’s still damn fast
and his experience counts for so much. He took it right up to
Greg Wilson last year in the battle for the All Star
Championship, finishing just 2 points behind at the conclusion
of the final race. I can remember back home when I was a little
kid sittin on the hill at Warrnambool, Danny was the big, fat
Yank with the 10-gallon hat that we all booed back when he
started rolling to all those Grand Annual Classic wins in the
1980’s. Years later, as a 16-year old sporting a mullet
hair-style, I got to crew for him when he was driving Darryl
Nash’s #7. When I first started racing my 360 car when I was
about 20 years old, Danny needed a car one night to race in
Adelaide and he took the wheel of my #92v for the night and ran
5th in the South Australian Title. I remember it as clear as
day, cause he wanted us to buy a new tyre for the feature. Hell,
I don’t think I had ever bought a new tyre up till then cause
they cost about 3 weeks wages!! The guy has been around the
sport for so long and done so much, that you have to like him
and have an enormous amount of respect for him, and for an
Aussie guy like me to get to come over here and go wheel to
wheel with him for the lead in a couple of feature races is just
gold in itself.
Anyways I got by the lapped cars and started chasing the old boy
down. He never got away as we worked our way through the lapped
cars. Sometimes I’d make ground, sometimes I’d lose ground.
There was a couple of yellows which gave him clear air, but even
then our car was fast enough that we could stay with him. We
just never got the chance back in lapped traffic to re-take the
lead, and we crossed the line in second place. I didn’t feel
like I had done anything wrong or that I had missed the set-up
with the car, it was just I got baulked by that one car and
that’s all it took. That’s just how racing goes sometimes.
We got the car washed and munched down a gourmet Wendy’s
fatburger at about 1am, before getting some sleep. We awoke the
next morning and serviced the car in the hotel car park, and
that’s about when I decided to race at Sharon that night. There
was another race close-by at some place called Ohio Valley,
which I had never heard of, but I decided we would head
north-east to take a look at Sharon Speedway, and about 4 hours
later Christen’s navigation had us sittin in the pit entrance.
I liked Sharon Speedway from the moment we arrived there. I
could see a wall and wire catch-fence all around the track,
sponsors billboards and an electronic scoreboard, complete with
a neat grandstand full of people and all the track officials
neatly dressed in matching uniforms, as they roared around on
golf carts getting things organized. The only thing I didn’t
like was the portable toilets in the pits. Those things just
stink, literally. When you just can’t hold off any longer and
have to go, and you peer into the bottom and see all that muck
laying there, you can’t help but feel woozy. I mean, you’re
looking at raw evidence of what the human body thinks of all the
fried food and cheeseburgers these people eat, and it’s just not
good. Yucko! I closed the door on the way out, gasped for air
and shook my head and tried to re-focus on the job at hand.
Taking a look at the track, the size and shape of Sharon
reminded me of Moama back home. People say it’s a big 3/8 mile
track, and it was fairly flat. When I look at these places over
here, I try to see if it resembles anything I’ve seen before,
and try to work out a gear and basic set-up from there. You
watch what the local guys do with there car, and just try to
figure out a starting point. Even though I’m a dumb Aussie that
no one knows, I sorta know at least who some of the fast cars
are at each place, so I made sure to take a look at the black 2L
of Ed Lynch Jnr and the white #6 of Bob Felmlee. These two guys
have won a lot of races in this part of the country. Ed Lynch
had a 96” left rear bolted on straight away, so I figured either
he was nuts or the track was gonna slick right off.
I attended the drivers meeting to find out that we don’t get a
hot lap session here. There was no qualifying, just a random
pill draw that sets up the heat races. There were 24 cars here
and I drew a good pill to start off the pole in the second heat.
We got to watch the first few Modified and Late Model races and
it was pretty obvious the track was going to dry out. It was the
sort of surface that didn’t build anything much of a cushion,
with the top just dusty, loose dirt. These are not my favourite
types of surfaces to race on, as I often struggle to get the car
hooked up enough that it goes forward off the corner without
spinning the wheels, and still being able to turn it nicely.
Having hung around Brian Kemenah’s shop the past few weeks, you
can’t help but pick up on little things on how to make the car
better on these types of surfaces. Brian is a well-respected
mechanic and has a ton of experience, and when he talks you just
gotta listen attentively and shut up. He has helped us out a ton
over here, and I am truly appreciative of his support. Needless
to say, this place was going to present a perfect opportunity to
try out some of the new ideas we had learnt.
We bolted on some of these options and headed out for our heat
race. Although we didn’t even get a hot lap session, I was
confident that the car would be pretty close. We took the green
and drove off into the distance, winning the heat race easily.
From there we had plenty of time before our feature event, so I
kept watching the track and got to think a lot about what to do
for the feature.
The feature field is set up by either a zero invert, or a 4, 6,
8 or 10. They have a spinning wheel thing that a kid from the
crowd comes down and spins and whatever it lands on is what the
deal is. More often than not, the field is inverted, as of all
the options on the wheel there is only one zero, whereas all the
others have multiple places for the wheel to land to encourage
some sort of invert. Well I gotta thank the little dude from the
crowd, cause he spun that thing and landed it plum on a zero
invert, meaning I would start the feature off the outside of the
front row! Woohoo! That’s living right there!
I decided on what I wanted to do with the car, and the guys got
the tools cranking. In some ways I was a little unsure because
we were about to do things we had never done before, but I knew
if I didn’t do what needed to be done I was gonna look like a
goose as I backed up through the field. I didn’t want the
embarrassment of being the Australian that had his reversing
lights on the whole way through the feature, so amongst other
changes, the big, bad 96” left rear got rolled out of the
trailer. I’ve never ran one of those. I mean, I mounted one up
once back home in Perth at Kwinana and thought it looked silly
so I took it off. Well tonight it was going on, whether it
looked silly or not!
Soon enough we got out on the track for the feature. I had Ed
Lynch Jnr starting on the second row right behind me, and to be
honest I sorta figured he’d blow by within a lap or two. In my
mind I was just going to try to make nice smooth laps and hope
that we were good. The flagman waved his green flag and we took
off from the outside of the front row. I mean, we REALLY took
off. Wow! That’s forward drive right there I’m thinking as we
got towards the first corner. I wonder if it’s going to turn? A
split second later the wing pushes the left rear down and the
car just turns itself into the corner. Cool! We drove off the
corner onto the back straight and I mean we really DROVE off the
corner. I go up the other end and much the same thing happens.
Wow, we got ourselves a race car here!
From the first lap, I knew in my mind we had a pretty decent
car. I just had to stay focused and concentrate on not screwing
up with the lapped traffic, which at times, was rather heavy. As
we got to them I tried to remain calm and keep my car on the
right parts of the track. This wasn’t the type of track where
you would just hug the pole all the way round. I was up high
enough that a guy could get under me if he was faster, but I
felt I was driving on the best part of the track. There were
some parts that were slicker than others, and I tried not to get
the thing parked on those spots. There was a couple yellow
flags, which gave us clean air again, and I got to look up on
the electronic scoreboard and seen that the 2L that I was so
concerned about wasn’t even on my tail! He was still in third.
It was about then that I started to wonder who the guy behind me
was, that I had started along-side. I figured he must be pretty
good too if he was holding out Ed Lynch Jnr.
Anyways we got going again and although there was another
stoppage for some guys that flipped I was able to keep calm and
maintain a nice, smooth line and reel off my laps. I seen the
white flag as I was working my way through some more lapped
cars, and just tried to not make any errors on that last lap. We
rolled around one more time and crossed the line to record a
feature race win in the United States! Woohoo!
I knew I had seen the chequered flag, but I did an extra lap to
be sure. The cars started to slow down, and my brain moved from
concentrating on driving the car to what we had just achieved.
At first, I was actually a bit stunned. I didn’t know what to do
or think. I mean, it was a lifelong dream for me just to get the
opportunity to race over here, but to actually win a race? Wow!
Then the radio in my ear asks me to ‘please stop the 92v car on
the front straightaway”. That would be me I guess. I stop and
can hear the fans in the grandstand all cheering, and the
flagman is there with the chequered flag. I start to take off my
gloves, then I realize that the photographers and everyone is
waiting for me to get out. I figured they wanted me to wave the
flag or something, so I climb out and the guy gives me the flag.
I quickly jump up on the back of the car and start waving the
flag and pumping my fists. There are photographers’ flashes
going off and the fans and announcer are all yelling and
cheering. It was just the most awesome feeling!! The pride to
have bought our own car from Australia, and to have gone out and
won a race, was overwhelming. For those next few minutes it made
every dollar I have spent on racing over my lifetime seem
worthwhile. For every one of the many tough nights I had
endured, every argument I’d had with my dad, the sacrifices, it
was all worthwhile. There is no doubt that sprintcar racing is
like a roller-coaster, with some amazing highs and some gut
wrenching lows. Sometimes you wonder why you do it, but standing
on the back of my car waving the chequered flag at the fans, it
all seemed worthwhile. We had a quick interview on the front
straight, before getting pushed over to the scales on our way to
‘Victory Lane,’ where many of the fans had gathered. We then had
more photos taken with the sponsors of the night, some fans and
the crew.
Now I know it wasn’t the Knoxville Nationals or a World of
Outlaws race, but to me, it was just huge. I’ve won many races
and championships back home, but this was something else. I
really want to thank everyone that has helped us achieve this.
Many of you guys unfortunately were not here to experience it,
but be assured your help over the years has played an important
role in making this happen.
To Ray Soloman, words cannot say how much I appreciate you
letting us use your trailer while racing over here. This whole
trip may not have even happened without your generosity.
We are now preparing to pack all our stuff into a container and
fly home. I would have liked to stay on for Ohio Speedweek, but
complications with changing our flights mean that it is not
possible. I’m not sure what the future holds for me racing back
home, but right now I feel I’ve been fortunate enough to achieve
more than I could ever have hoped for.”
Be sure to keep a watch on www.inchargeracing.com for regular
picture updates.
The Reed Racing Sprintcar team thanks the following companies
and people for their continued and valued support of their
racing program:
Westside Honda – Mark and Danielle Charge
Workplace Safety Wear – Steve Courtney
Tritech Oils – Perry McCowatt
Dynamic Test Systems – Christen Barnard
EA Plant Hire
Maxwill Racing Engines
Ray Solomon
The
Reed Report – Part 4 – One that got away…
Lead
driver of the Westside Honda / InCharge Racing team, Matthew
Reed, competed in two events this past weekend in Ohio, which
resulted in a podium place on Friday night at Moler Raceway Park
and a ‘B’ main finish at the famous Eldora Speedway against the
World of Outlaws on Saturday night. For all our fans and
supporters back home in Australia, this is Matthew’s weekend
wrap –
“Whilst
preparing our car for last Friday night’s race, we found a
problem with an exhaust valve on our motor, which possibly was a
caused by the engine taking a big rev two nights earlier when we
broke a driveline. Although the motor checked out all good after
Selinsgrove, we found a valve had a broken tip after Port Royal,
so we were forced to swap over to our borrowed Maxwill motor for
the weekend’s events while our own engine was repaired.
We
headed south to a track called Moler Raceway Park on Friday
night, for a $2000 to win race. Moler is a pretty neat little
place, with a wide racing surface and a decent amount of
banking. It was only a small ¼ mile track, not much different
really to most of our tracks back home. The car felt pretty nice
right away in hot laps, and we were able to set third quick time
in qualifying. We started our heat race on the front row
alongside Danny Smith, and we got a good start from the outside
and won our heat. Moler is the type of place where the bottom
has a very tight radius, and you seem to be able to carry more
speed through the corners if you are up around the top where the
radius of the corners is not as tight. We spent the whole race
up near the fence and the car felt pretty free and nice. From
there we were set to start the 4 lap dash race from the pole and
we made a nice run to win this event too.
I had no
idea how this track was going to change over the course of a 30
lap feature. We obviously had a pretty nice car and I had it
really free to where I could drive it wherever I needed to. I
felt that we needed to be up around the wall to gather momentum,
and it’s always uncomfortable trying to drive close to the wall
and wrestle a car that is too tight and doesn’t want to turn at
the same time, so I decided to leave it pretty much as it was.
We started on the pole alongside Dean Jacobs, and we got a nice
start and led the first lap. From there we got rolling up around
the top leading the race, but I could feel straight away we
didn’t have the speed from earlier in the night as we wasn’t
stuck as well as we needed to be. I started cranking on the wing
valve and about 8 laps in we got to the first of the lapped
cars. I came up on a guy that was on the bottom of the turn, and
figured I’d drive around him pretty easily, but as we got
halfway down the front straight his car was sliding up the track
just as I was coming past on the outside, and I got squashed
pretty good into the wall. It was a pretty decent hit in the
left side, and I thought it might have damaged the rim. There
was a restart here as the guy bounced off me and spun out, and
this placed Danny Smith on my rear bumper.
The cone
was placed on the back straight for the restart, something I
haven’t seen back home since about 1984. I figured maybe it was
a retro night or something? Anyway I wasn’t sure whether to try
to run in on the top or the bottom, as I knew that the bottom
would be wide open on the restart and I would be vulnerable.
Sometimes when the track is wide you really need to be careful
on a restart, as you don’t have the momentum to make the top
work on that very first corner. I watched Brooke last year at
the Knoxville Nationals lose the preliminary night feature by
driving into the first corner after a restart on the top, which
allowed Jeff Shepard to dive under him and slide him, and I
remember telling myself not to make that mistake if I was
leading a race. Even though the top might be the fastest way
once you get going, you sort of need to get in low and protect
the bottom enough to not allow anyone to slide you and then
drift up and catch the cushion on the exit. It’s all very easy
to do when watching from the grandstand, and I knew what I
should have tried to do, but when it come time to do it I drove
the thing in too high and as expected, the wise old veteran in
Danny Smith rolled in under me and slid me for the lead. From
there we raced down the straight with me calling myself all
sorts of names for being such a dumbass. Anyway we got racing
and I couldn’t do anything about it as we just got too loose to
be able to challenge Danny for the lead. I put the wing in the
trunk and that only made things worse as then I couldn’t steer
the thing on the cushion, and as I wrestled my way over the
cushion Dean Jacobs got under me with a few laps to go. We
crossed the line third, which wasn’t a bad effort, but if I was
smarter before we even pushed onto the track and tightened up
the car some, and if I drove the thing a bit better we could
have had a feature win and some much needed cash to go with it!
We got
the car all washed up and started the two-hour drive back
towards Sidney where our hotel was. The weather wasn’t real good
and about 1am we found ourselves confronted with your typical
Ohio thunderstorm. On the rare occasion back home that it
actually rains, you are lucky to even get wet, but here we found
ourselves smack in the middle of some seriously heavy rain and
60 mile per hour winds. The radio was constantly broadcasting
tornado warnings and sirens and it all got a bit exciting for a
little while there. The recorded radio messages tell you to stay
inside away from the windows, which is great if you are in a
house, but what do you do when you are driving down the road in
someone else’s truck and trailer with your entire life’s assets
in tow? Luckily for us we didn’t catch the very worst part of
the storm and we got back to the hotel without any major drama,
although there were several cars ran off the road and crashed
during the drive back.
We awoke
the next morning to prepare for a World of Outlaws race at the
legendary Eldora Speedway. When we raced with the Outlaws a few
weeks back at Lernerville, I didn’t really have time to look
around or talk to anyone much as we was running way late, but
this time we were better organized and got to look around a
little before things got started. It’s amazing how far the whole
Outlaws deal has come in the past few years even. I came over
here to crew on Terry McCarl’s team back in about 2004, and just
to see how far advanced everything has become in such a short
time is amazing. The trucks and trailers are all bigger and
better, and the money that these guys have invested is just
crazy. In past visits I’ve spent some time down around
Mooresville, North Carolina checking out all the NASCAR shops
and you can see the very real similarities between the whole
NASCAR deal and where the World of Outlaws are heading.
Earlier
in the week we had taken our motor out to Kistler Engines to
have the valve repaired, and whilst there some of the Outlaw
teams were preparing for the weekend, including the Tony Stewart
owned teams of Donny Schatz and Kraig Kinser. Schatz’s guys had
three cars all laid out in various stages of preparation for the
weekend at Attica and Eldora, and they were all working very
hard getting things where they wanted them to be. The Kasey
Kahne owned car that Joey Saldana drives was being prepared in
the same hotel that we were in at Sidney, and it was interesting
to get an up close look at that car with all the bodywork off.
You can’t help but wonder how the rest of the teams will be able
to keep up with these two teams owned by Tony Stewart and Kasey
Kahne, complete with funding from NASCAR based connections. The
huge budgets combined with the professionalism of these teams
and they way they go about their business may very well be the
reason why they dominate so many of the races. It’s a real
credit to these guys that they are single-handedly lifting the
sport of sprintcar racing to another level, although one fears
whether the ‘little’ guy will be able to go with them to that
level. Time will tell I guess.
Before
we got started I had been able to chat a little with some guys
about actually driving the race-car around Eldora. It’s
obviously a big, fast track where the cars generate very high
speeds, but I gotta say that once we got rolling around the
track it didn’t seem like such a monster. It’s hard to explain,
but to me it was just another racetrack, certainly it was big
and fast, but not ‘different’ in the way that Williams Grove
was. Dean Jacobs probably explained it best when he said to me
that it’s not a hard track to drive around, but it’s hard to
learn to go fast there.
Ex-World
of Outlaws crew-chief, Steve Fitzpatrick, had given me some
advice that Leonard McCarl had passed onto him when Terry first
started going there, and that was that as you enter turn 3 you
virtually have to turn the car right to drive up the track, as
the combination of the banking and the air on the wing turns you
straight back to the left and you end up on the bottom of the
racetrack by the middle of the turn. Terry himself had told me
to try to lock my left arm against the side of the seat, and
just try not to turn the car as every flick of the wrist eats
into the time clock and slows down your lap. I took all this
advice on board and we headed out for our hot lap session.
The
green flag waved and we ran on down into the first turn and the
car rolled through there really sweet. I instantly thought to
myself that wasn’t so hard! Then we raced on down the back
straight into turn 3, past the gate. SLAM! The car slams into
the ground that hard it feels like my brain is rattling inside
my skull. Instantly you correct the steering wheel and then the
same thing happens. SLAM! All the way around the corner the left
side rail is just pounding into the ground. It is a very
uncomfortable feeling, and one that I certainly wasn’t familiar
with. Our car is a regular rail car, and I can often feel the
left-side chassis rail dragging the ground, particularly on
corner entry, but this wasn’t your usual dragging feeling. This
was just a constant SLAMMING into the ground, to the point where
you could literally feel the whole car laying into the ground
and then the torsion bars wrapping and rebounding the car up
again before the wing mashed it back down again. I tried
different lines and techniques getting into the third turn but
all too soon our hot lap session was done and we headed back to
the pits. Hmmmn, how can I be so good at one end and so terrible
at the other I thought?
I talked
a little to Kerry Madsen and he said that every one had the same
problem up in that turn, and that I should load up the left rear
with some more bump-rubbers to try to keep the rail out of the
ground. We did exactly that and I went out to qualify. I had a
basic idea of what I needed to do – run the thing wide open,
keep the car straight and try not to turn the wheel. As per our
hot lap session we got through the first two corners real nice
but as we entered turn 3 at about 140 mile per hour the thing
just again buried itself into the ground. The problem here is
that every time it slams the ground the car takes off in a
direction that isn’t really where you want to head, so you find
yourself making constant corrections to your flight path on the
steering wheel all the way through the corner! Of course the
problem is that every time you turn that wheel a tiny bit the
clock is going tick, tick, tick… Knowing that it can’t possibly
be fast doing what I just did I tried to enter a little lower on
my second lap, which was a smoother entry but then the car got
too sideways through the middle of the corner when I had to turn
it and scrubbed off a lot of speed. We ended up 33rd
out of 37 cars, which meant it was gonna be tough night!
It was
obvious to me that I needed to somehow try to make the car more
comfortable to drive through that corner, so I made some more
changes as best I knew before my heat race. We started out of
position 9 and the first few laps were very hard to see anything
because of the dust. I pretty much followed Chad Kemenah the
whole way, although I noticed an unusual noise towards the end
of our race. There was something odd happening on the left side
of the motor and when we got back in the pits we pulled the left
side plugs out to find we had burnt a plug up pretty bad. Our
borrowed motor was right about ready to melt down. I had been
warned by a lot of the guys here that you really need to watch
your fuel settings on this track as the high-speed bypass is
pretty much open the whole way round the track. We had a 5.18
gear in and the tach showed that the lowest rpm for the 10 laps
was 6700 rpm! The high rpm was around 7900rpm, which meant that
for the whole heat race we were pretty much wide open. You
basically need to really wind up the high-speed to ensure you
don’t lean the motor down. We had wound ours up, but obviously
not enough as the plug was burnt away pretty bad. We quickly ran
a leak down test on the cylinder and tried to check stuff out as
best we could to try to determine if there was a melted piston,
but it all seemed to be ok other than the plug and, so we then
cranked the high-speed some more and put a new plug in and
headed out for the B.
Because
we was messin with the motor I didn’t get to pay much attention
to the track or change anything on the car. I wasn’t even sure
if the thing was gonna run, so I took the green and was probably
paying more attention to the motor than trying to race the car
in front of me. The motor felt ok so I pressed on. I had started
13th and I exchanged positions with the car in front
of me a couple times before ending the race in 13th.
The track had widened up a little by now and the cushion was
starting to get up the track a bit, and I was pleased that I had
enough confidence to run up against it, although the car still
felt damn ugly every time it slammed into the ground.
I
watched the feature from up against the inside wall in turn 3-4,
as I really wanted to see how the other cars got through that
corner. I figured that Joey Saldana and Jac Haudenschild would
be way up the top, and Joey definitely was, although they had
watered the track from the middle down before the race started
and a lot of cars were running around the bottom. It was
interesting to watch the guys run into the turn and bounce
around, as I had just ‘felt’ exactly what I was seeing. Joey
Saldana spent the entire 30 laps around the top and at times his
car was bouncing and didn’t look nice at all, but he is such a
skilled driver that he could make it fast anyway. Jason Meyers
led the majority of the race before he got over the cushion and
tagged the wall. Schatz was all over him towards the end and had
actually just passed him for the lead when this happened.
It must
be said that Schatz is an absolute freak! He has the ability to
make his car work and be fast where others simply cannot. While
some guys are either on the cushion or hugging the bottom,
Schatz can seemingly drive all over the racetrack at will and be
fast. He can somehow change lanes halfway through the corner and
still carry his speed and not lose ground. At times Joey would
get a good run around the top, but then a lapped car would halt
his run momentarily on the cushion. Schatz however seemed to be
able to do as he pleased, as even on the very last lap of the
race his car was locked down and driving forward right through
the middle of the track, going forward on the part of the track
where most everyone else would spin there wheels. You have to
wonder just how many races Donny Schatz is going to win if he
chooses to stay racing sprintcars as long as Steve Kinser has.
Right now it seems he has the complete package, and judging by
what I seen at Kistlers earlier in the week his team just works
harder and they have everything in place to win races.
This
coming weekend we hope to get our own engine back between the
rails of our Westside Honda Maxim. I’m not sure exactly where we
are gonna race yet, as this will be the last weekend of racing I
have over here unless I can somehow extend my stay. I’d like to
hang around and run the Ohio Speedweek, but I need to find a
truck and trailer as Troy Little is arriving next week and he
has the use of the trailer for the next couple months. I feel I
have been very lucky and privileged to have had the use of Ray’s
trailer for the past few weeks, and must thank him for his
generosity. If this is my last weekend I have one chance left to
race at Knoxville Raceway, so we might head out there, but being
an Outlaw race it will be pretty tough. There are some IRA races
we could go to up in Wisconsin, and I’d also like to get back to
Huset’s on Sunday night and race there again before we go home.
There are also a few races around Ohio that we could run.
We’ve
sat around all week in the hotel waiting to get the motor back,
and to be honest the living out of a suitcase lifestyle grinds
away at you after a while! There’s only so many donuts you can
eat and so many ‘soda pops’ you can drink before the novelty
wears off and you crave a home-cooked meal back at your very own
kitchen table. I haven’t worked for about 4 weeks and I felt
the urge to paint something so I went down to Walmart earlier
today and bought some pressure pack cans of paint and touched up
the race-car. In a few weeks life will return to normal so we
must try to make the most of this weekend and give it our best
shot on the track. Next week will be our final update and I can
then drift back into obscurity and return to my own quiet little
world with my girlfriend Peta and Ted, our pet dog, who also
happens to be my best mate! I got quite a lot to tell him about
when I get back!”
Be sure
to keep a watch on
www.inchargeracing.com
for regular picture updates.
The Reed
Racing Sprintcar team thanks the following companies and people
for their continued and valued support of their racing program:
Westside
Honda – Mark and Danielle Charge
Workplace Safety Wear – Steve Courtney
Tritech
Oils – Perry McCowatt
Dynamic
Test Systems – Christen Barnard
EA Plant
Hire
Maxwill
Racing Engines
Ray
Solomon
The Reed
Report – Part 3 – Racing the Pennsylvania Posse!
Last
weekend, former Victorian Sprintcar champion Matthew Reed hauled
his Westside Honda sponsored Maxim into Central Pennsylvania to
compete in the annual Keystone Cup speedweek series, taking on
the might of the PA Posse right in their own backyard. For the
Aussie fans back home, this is how Matthew described his 5x
nights of action competing in arguably the toughest area of
sprintcar competition on the planet –
“It was
with mixed emotions that I arrived in Pennsylvania last
Wednesday night for my first night of competition against the
racers commonly known as the PA Posse. Many people told me I was
mad! Some even said I shouldn’t go there, but life is what you
make it and for whatever reasons I wanted to experience what
racing a 410 sprintcar in Pennsylvania was all about. On one
hand, I was really excited to finally be here and have the
opportunity to race against this group of guys, on some of the
fastest racetracks a sprintcar would ever turn a wheel on, but
on the other hand I had a very real understanding of how tough
the next 5 nights would be. A ‘speedweek’ in any form is always
hard, as the night after night of racing and the constant work
in between can grind away on even the most organized and
professional teams. Just trying to find the racetracks, and
figuring out what happens when you get there and where to go and
where not to go is an effort in itself! Operating out of a
trailer with a somewhat limited supply of tools, equipment and
money in a foreign country definitely doesn’t make the job any
easier, however I was going to try to make every effort to make
the week a success, and hopefully by maintaining a positive
attitude when things go wrong we could somehow make it through.
As we
arrived at Grandview, the sky’s opened up and we got some
serious rain which had the potential to ruin the night. I was
really hoping the track would get this show in, cause just by
looking at the place I felt that it would be a cool track to
race on and that it would suit my style. Of all the tracks we
would run this week, this was the smallest, which incidentally
was still bigger than most places back home! Eventually the
track crew got the surface ready to go and we got out and hot
lapped, and I was pleased to feel pretty comfortable right out
of the box. Grandview is about a 3/8 mile around with some nice
banking in the corners. I thought it was a pretty racey sort of
place, maybe about the size of Moama back home but with more
banking than Warrnambool. We started out of 7 in our heat and
they took the top 6 direct to the A feature, so I found myself
trying to get past Jeff Shepard for the transfer spot! Shepard
had set a new track record in qualifying, and a couple times I
got close, however we ended up 7th and had to run the
B main. We started 3rd and finished 3rd in
the B to get us a start towards to rear of the A feature.
We
really had no time at all after the B to do anything for the A,
although I honestly wasn’t real sure what I would have done
anyway. Without having ever seen these places how would we know
what the track surface does over the 35 laps? We filled up with
fuel and loaded up with tearoffs and headed out on to the
racetrack. We started alongside a World of Outlaws racer in
Jason Sides, and once the race got underway, I found myself
racing with him and Paul McMahon, as well as some local PA cars.
Most guys were mainly on the bottom, and after maybe 10 laps it
started to dry out to the point where we were getting loose. I
started moving around trying to find something better and
quickly realized that our car worked way better on the cushion
or above it, and as such we started to go forward from there. On
the 21st lap, I got blinded in oil down the back
stretch and then couldn’t steer the car into turn 3, nearly
collecting the wall, and I soon figured we had a steering
problem. We rolled to stop and sadly recorded a DNF, with a
blown seal in the steering gear the problem.
I had
all day Thursday to get this fixed and the car prepped for the
next assignment, which was a Friday night race at the famous
Williams Grove Speedway. I have seen racing at the Grove before,
and read a million stories about the place. It is so entrenched
in history and unique that you can’t help be overwhelmed when
you arrive there. I have raced sprintcars for quite a while now,
and can honestly say I rarely get nervous before I race, but on
this night, I felt like an absolute rookie again! I mean, I’ve
seen the speed that the cars generate down the straights there
before, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that the potential for
disaster was quite high if you didn’t head onto the track with
the respect it deserves. I headed off to the drivers meeting
and started to listen to what the officials were saying, but
honestly about halfway through the meeting my mind drifted off
and I started to think “What the hell am I doing here?” Before
long the meeting finished and we were getting called up to fire
the motors, so I strapped in and headed out onto the track.
Sometimes when you look at a racetrack from the grandstand, it
looks totally different than when you roll around the place in
the race-car. Most of the time for me, the tracks look big but
when you start rolling around in the car they aren’t as big as
you think. Well when you roll around turn 2 at Williams Grove
Speedway and look down the straight, under the bridge toward
turn 3, it looks like an absolute monster. The straights are
just way long. Way long. Way, way long.
We got
the motor warmed up in the pits, and the first group of hot laps
took to the track. If I was nervous before, watching the cars
fly past in a blur into turn one did nothing to ease the stress
going on in my head. We were pitted on the infield just past the
flagstand, and watching the cars roar past you notice they have
a different noise than normal. Its hard to describe, but it’s
more of a ‘drone’, like what you hear at a Nascar race, than the
screaming, free revving engine noise you hear at most other
places. Within a few minutes my group was called up and we were
rolling around the track ready to take the green. I was telling
myself over and over in my head to keep the thing as smooth as
possible, and not to turn the wheel to quickly and pitch the
thing into the corners. I’m idling around and my eyes are the
size of dinner plates, and although I have raced for over 10
years I really have no idea what is about to happen! Next thing
the green flag is waving and we are hot lapping at the Grove.
It’s
hard to describe exactly what its like to run the car down those
straights into the turns. You gotta remember that my racing has
mostly always been on quarter-mile tracks, where the speed is
not really that high. About halfway down the straight, I found
myself traveling faster than I ever have before anywhere. That’s
about when the guardrail and the people in the grandstand become
a blur. You know they are there, but they are not really visable
anymore. The car is buried on the left rear bump-rubber by this
stage, and it feels like the right front is 8 inches in the air.
You keep accelerating down the straight, and you can literally
feel the whole car working. The engine is revving, the wheels
are spinning, and the air over the wing is just mashing you into
the track. Getting the car into the right spot to enter the
corner is difficult, as the left rear is squashed down that hard
you feel like you are heading toward to wall. You want to get
out toward the wall so that you can enter the corner in a nice
arc, but you are aware that there is a beaten up old guardrail a
few feet to your right, and that if your right rear wheel
catches that you are gonna be in for a wild ride and its gonna
hurt like hell. As you drive down the straight at warp speed,
you can’t help but briefly hope that nothing breaks on the car
here, or that the crew hasn’t left anything loose.
After a
few laps of this madness, the yellows come out and that is the
end of my hot lap session. I head back to the pits, with a sense
of relief that I at least made it through hot laps. We didn’t
really change anything on the car for qualifying, as it was
obvious that the way forward for me was simply more laps to try
to get more comfortable with everything. I tried my best with my
two timed laps, recording a time of 17.230, which wasn’t the
slowest time ever recorded at the Grove, but on this night it
would put me 32nd in a 35 car field. Alan Krimes set
quick time with a time of 16.570.
If hot
laps and qualifying was one thing, competing in a heat race was
something else. I started on the last row of my heat, and my
only goal was to try to make smooth laps and keep out of
trouble. We took the green and I got settled into a rhythm,
trying to make as smooth a lap as I could. With every lap you
feel more comfortable, but this is not the sort of place you are
going to come to and feel at home right away. You race down the
straight and try to absorb everything the car is doing, and
trust me, there’s a lot going on. At first you struggle to
believe you can do it, but with every lap you start to build a
little confidence as you get accustomed to what is going on.
Respect is really the key word here. At this speed, you need to
have an enormous amount of respect for the car, the track, and
your fellow racers. A dumb move at this place could end in
tragedy. We ran our 10 laps and ended up in 8th
place.
We were
scheduled to start out of position 12 in the B main, and by now,
I felt that we could improve the car by making some changes, as
I had at least got some laps now to get a feel for things. We
changed a few things and headed out for the B, and I was pleased
to realize that the changes we made helped and things felt more
comfortable. After 12 laps we recorded an 8th place
finish, and with our racing over I headed back toward my pit.
Now I gotta tell you, that for any normal night a 8th
place finish in the B main would be a total disaster, but on
this night, I wasn’t unhappy at all! It might sound dumb, but I
felt a sense of achievement knowing that I had finally raced a
night at Williams Grove Speedway. I didn’t wreck or get in
anyone’s way, and hey I wasn’t the slowest car on the track!
The next
night we headed to Lincoln Speedway, which is a track that many
people had told me that I would like because it was smaller, and
that it was a similar size to Parramatta. I’m not sure, but I
guess it would be about 1/3 or 3/8 of a mile, and it has a
concrete wall around both the inside and the outside. Many of
the tracks over here have walls around the infield, and frankly
I think it’s a great thing, as it totally eliminates the whole
‘cutting the pole line to gain an advantage’ thing. It does
obviously take some getting used to because you can’t see all
the way around the corner like you can when it is just flat
grass or dirt.
We hot
lapped our car and was way too tight, the front-end of the car
spending too much time in the air, so we freed the car up a fair
bit for qualifying. In hindsight, it wasn’t the right thing to
do as the track really dried out and we sat there buzzing the
tyres on our two qualifying laps. We were 25th in the
34 car field, again missing the invert and starting from
position 7 in our heat race, needing a top 5 to get directly
into the A. I made a strong start to my heat race getting into 6th,
but we were still way too loose and I couldn’t keep the car
pinned to the bottom of the track. We crossed the line in 7th,
which set us up for another B main. From there we tightened up
the car some more, hoping to get going in the B, but as the race
started I instantly knew again that we was way out. I tried the
top with little success, and the only real way here it seemed
was to use plenty of brake and try to keep the car pinned to the
bottom. For the last part of the race I pushed the brake pedal
through the motor plate and probably made my best laps of the
night, but by that stage it was too late and we ended up 8th
again. All up it was a pretty disappointing night as we just
really missed the setup everytime we went out. I guess without
any local track knowledge that was always going to be a problem.
We stood
on the roof of the trailer to watch the A main, and it was a
pretty interesting affair. Fred Rahmer literally owns Lincoln
and has the most feature race wins in the history of the place,
and for years I’ve read reports of how tough he is to beat
there. Anyway the feature gets going and Rahmer clears out a
little from his front row starting spot, but Brian Monteith is
coming on the high side and clearly has a pretty decent car.
These two guys were really going at it for the lead. Hard!
Within 5 laps Monteith makes the pass for the lead, but Fred
Rahmer isn’t gonna go down at Lincoln without a fight and slides
right into the side of Monteith. Monteith could have avoided
contact by getting on the brake, but slowing down isn’t the way
races are won in Pennsylvania. There was a red flag when Doug
Esh took a huge flip down the back stretch, and on the restart
Rahmer drove it back in under Monteith, with Monteith going
right back by him on the exit of the corner. They raced down the
back straight with Rahmer entering on the bottom and putting a
pretty brutal slider on Monteith, who chose not to get out of
the gas. As the exited the turn Monteith tried to turn back
under Rahmer but he climbed up his left rear wheel, knocking the
front axle out of the black 21. With no front end, Monteith’s
car slewed across the front straight and was cannoned into by
Greg Hodnett who had no where to go, whilst Rahmer has his own
troubles and lost 4 spots before he got to the flagstand. The
red flag waved, and the crews began to clean up the mess. It was
amazing to watch these two go at it so hard, but it was so
typical of everything I have ever read about Fred Rahmer at
Lincoln, and racing in Pennsylvania in general! All of this
happened within the first 10 laps of a 30 lap race! Sure the
race paid $5000 to win, but I can’t help but think that these
guys would race just as hard if first place was a glass of
chocolate milk! An interesting thing that occurred here is that
Rahmer had to restart the race in 4th, as here it
seems that if a pass is clearly made the pass sticks regardless
of whether there is a yellow or red. Back home it always goes
back to the previous fully recorded lap, but here if you make a
pass it’s deemed a pass and it sticks. Stevie Smith would slide
Mark Smith for the lead on the restart and drove away to win the
feature on this night.
We drove
up to Selinsgrove for the Sunday night, which is another huge ½
mile speedway. Some say it is even larger, closer to 5/8 of a
mile, but whatever it is to me it was damn big. I went with a
set-up that I felt would be comfortable for the high speed that
this place was sure to provide, and actually felt really
comfortable in hot laps. We had an early marble and things were
looking good, up until I had to go qualify. I got all strapped
in and rolled backwards out of my pit to get pushed to the start
area, and as I push gently on the brake pedal to not roll into
the push truck I hear a loud crack. Yep, I just sheared both of
the bolts that hold the inboard caliper onto the rear end. So in
a mad panic Jason disconnects the brake line and we head out to
qualify on a half mile or bigger super speedway with not even a
brake caliper bolted to the car. I qualified 26th out
of the 34 cars, but I cant help but think it would have been
better if I at least had the psychological knowledge that I
could slow down if I wanted to.
When I
got in it was all hands on deck to swap rear ends before our
heat race, as the bolts has broken off flush in the side hat and
we couldn’t get them out. Of course the spare rear end was in a
box under about 20 tyres and other boxes packed away in the
trailer, but we managed to get it done. I was to start out of
position 7 and again had to get into the top 5, and although we
had the mechanical dramas in qualifying I was feeling pretty
confident that I could do it. After Williams Grove I got to
think for a fair while about everything the car was telling me
at speed on these big places and we had made some subtle changes
to the car, which made it a whole lot more comfortable to drive,
and I was getting more used to the air on the wing and taking it
all in. We took the green and on the first lap I got past a guy
for the 6th position, and was looking to work over
the next car for that elusive transfer spot. We got a great run
coming out of 4 on the second lap and the next thing there is an
almighty bang, something smacks my foot and the engine screams.
We roll to a stop. I pretty much know what has happened without
looking down, and for a split second I wonder if I still have my
feet. Sure enough, the universal on the back of the crank has
broke and the uni joint exploded, right between my feet. It made
an absolute mess. Smashed off the ball housing and the torque
tube, and twisted up my nice magnesium motor plate as it ripped
the housing off the plate. There was broken stuff everywhere
down there. Expensive broken stuff, and the worst part was the
tell tach was showing 9900 rpm. Most engines don’t like that
kind of rpm.
We did
make an attempt to get back out for the B, but with the motor
plate all screwed up we ran out of time. Again, the sport of
sprintcar racing provided me with mixed emotions. How you can go
through such a rollercoaster of emotions in one night is
amazing. Just when you think you are going forward, something
comes up and goes smack right between the eyes!
I wasn’t
sure whether we would get to Port Royal for the final night, as
I had real concerns about whether the only engine I own would be
ok. We needed to get a driveline in it first to be able to turn
the thing over and check it all out, so we started work in the
hotel carpark the next morning getting things fixed. It actually
all worked out pretty good, and we got things fixed and
thankfully the motor was ok, with no sign of a problem. We
headed on to Port Royal for the final night of the Keystone Cup.
Port
Royal is another wide open, fast place, around ½ a mile or maybe
a little larger. I was determined to make good of this night, as
I know we were better than our results had shown, and whilst I
respected the speed with which the cars race here, I wasn’t
spooked out by it like the first night at Williams Grove. We hot
lapped our car and it felt awesome right away. We had a late
marble for qualifying, which wasn’t going to help. Then it
rained. For a while it looked like we might not be able to race
which would have made me mad as hell, but the track guys got the
track rolled in and we ended up with a perfect smooth, fast
surface to race on. Because of the time delay, we only got one
lap to qualify, which I find really hard. I wasn’t sure how much
the rain had affected the track, and I chose to leave the car
alone. I was a little bit too tight, but it wasn’t a bad lap for
me. There were 40 cars in the pits, and I missed the invert by 3
spots, qualifying 23rd. That would put me on the
outside of the third row of my heat, alongside Doug Esh, and I
needed to get into a top 5 for a direct start in the A.
I left
the car alone as I felt that by my heat the car would be pretty
close. We got rolling around and I am determined as hell to make
it into the top 5 of this race. I’m starting 6th and
needing to pass 1 car, so I’m looking at who I might be able to
get past as we start to form up. Well, I got Doug Esh, whose
nickname is ‘The Hammer’, alongside me. Lance DeWease, who
kicked the Outlaws butt at Lowes a few nights earlier is right
in front of me, then there is Stevie Smith and Todd Shaffer. I
wasn’t sure who was on the pole but he was probably a bad ass
too! Anyways we roll around turn 3 and go green and I am on it
as best as I can. For a moment I think I’m gonna get squashed
into the wall on the front straight, but I stay on the gas and
don’t lift. We run down into turn one, DeWease goes one way,
Shaffer goes another, and I see a spot and pretty much just hope
for the best. Somehow, don’t ask me how, I’ve managed to beat
Doug Esh into the first turn. I’m in 5th place. But
with 9 and a half laps to go. Well I ran that thing for the next
9 and a half laps wide open. Don’t think for a minute I drove
away from him. I was on the cushion, which was about 2/3rds up
the track. I knew the bottom was open, and sure enough he came
at me. He probably thought, I’d move over or get out of it, and
to be honest for a split second I thought about doing just that.
But I was sick of running those damn B mains. I was in 5th
place and they took 5 to the feature, so I didn’t move an inch
and never lifted. We touched wheels, at about 140 miles per
hour, but luckily for me I kept going forward and it caused him
to bobble a little bit which gave me a tiny breather. It was the
longest heat race I’ve ran for ages. Finally I seen the white
flag, and then the chequers. I finished 5th! I had
locked myself into the A feature, defeating one of PA’s toughest
dudes in the process. Whilst it was just a heat race, I felt
like I had at least accomplished something.
The crew
got things ready to run the 30 lap feature, while I pondered
whether to change anything much on the car. I decided to pretty
much leave it, although I figured if it slicked off I would
probably get loose. I was starting out of position 22, as the
feature was lined up by qualifying times. We got on the track
and it turned out to be one of the longest races I have ever
ran. We had two redlights, countless rolling laps under yellow
and then a fuel stop before the 6th lap had been
completed. There must have been debris left on the track from
one of the wrecks as Lance Dewease, Jeff Shepard, TJ Winegardner
and myself all cut down tyres within those first few laps. We
got to go to the work area to get it fixed, which was an
experience it itself. We don’t have no work area’s back home in
Victoria. You get a flat tyre you go to the infield. Hell, my
guys weren’t even sure what to do. Dad thought I had pulled a
professional yellow! Anyway we got the tyre changed and tagged
on the back behind Lance. Now Lance has won the odd race or two
at Port Royal over the years, so I figured trying to follow him
would be a good deal. For the first 10 laps or so I kept within
a car or two of him, but as the cushion got ridiculously close
to the turn 1-2 guardrail, I watched him drive away into the
distance. By now I was getting used to the speed and all, but I
wasn’t about to go tearing the thing in half by driving beyond
my limits. I was actually really relaxed and enjoying the race,
as with every lap I could absorb more and more of what the car
was doing and how different corner entry and combinations of
brake, steering and gas would effect the car. Eventually Fred
Rahmer blew past me and put me a lap down, so I figured I best
hold a constant line and not do anything silly. In an effort to
not screw up the leaders, I lost a couple spots. Mike Erdley was
still behind me, and when I seen the car on my inside I gave him
room thinking it was one of the leaders, when in fact it was
Mike racing for position. At that time I was around 14th,
and unfortunately I lost another spot to another guy doing the
same thing. I guess next time I wont be letting anyone through!
We crossed the line in 16th place, which I was pretty
happy about.
So with
that we loaded up and headed east towards Ohio where our next
races would be run. Mike had to get back to the airport to fly
home the next day so we drove right through the night.
Eventually everyone drifted off to sleep, and as I rolled along
the Interstate toward Toledo the night sky began to get lighter
as the sun started to rise. I was tired and exhausted but I had
a smile from ear to ear. Sure, our results were anything but
flattering for the week in PA, but ya know, I’m just a guy from
Melbourne, Australia, and after many years of dreaming about it
I got to tow my sprintcar into Central Pennsylvania to race
against some of the toughest guys out there. I even made a
couple A mains! How cool is that?
I really
need to thank all my crew for the past week. It was a tough
deal, but we stuck it out. Passion, desire and a strong work
ethic got us through. This week we got a little ¼ mile place to
race at on Friday night called Moler Raceway Park, then the
World of Outlaws at Eldora on Saturday night. This article has
got way too long, but next week I will try to tell you about
some of the difference in the racing here compared to back home.
Trust me, it’s different….!! ”
The Reed
Racing Sprintcar team thanks the following companies and people
for their continued and valued support of their racing program:
Westside
Honda – Mark and Danielle Charge
Workplace Safety Wear – Steve Courtney
Tritech
Oils – Perry McCowatt
Dynamic
Test Systems – Christen Barnard
EA Plant
Hire
Maxwill
Racing Engines
Ray
Solomon
The Reed Report – Part 2 –
Racing & Rain!
The Westside Honda Maxim
made its first visit deep into All Star territory the past
weekend with races at a very slick Attica Raceway Park and also
Fremont Speedway in Ohio. This is how driver Matthew Reed summed
up the events of the weekend –
“After getting things a little better organized we headed to
Attica Raceway Park in Ohio on Friday night to compete in what
was meant to be a regular night of 410 sprintcar racing. The
track had a $10,000 to win World of Outlaws Late Model feature,
and the sprintcars as such were a support to the Late Models.
The sprintcar numbers were boosted due to the cancellation of
the All Star events for this weekend, meaning that many of the
gun All Star teams would be competing at both Attica and Fremont
as their regular races had been cancelled.
Now the locals gave me plenty of warning that we were to expect
a slick track, as the Late Model guys prefer to race on a
smooth, slick surface. We hot lapped our car and things felt ok,
but then had to sit through what seemed like hours as 56 Late
Models time trialed for 2 laps each and then they ran 5x heat
races. With this they blew the cushion clear to the edge of the
track and in some places blew right through over the edge,
leaving us an incredibly slick surface to race on.
The heat races here for a club show are drawn from a random
draw, and they take the top 4 finishers to the A, the next 4 to
the B and the next 3 to the C. The local guys warned me that if
you started too far back you would be screwed, as the track is
impossible to pass on when it is like this. Sure enough, I
pulled the worst possible marble to start dead last in the first
heat race!
We were pitted alongside current All Star champ Greg Wilson, and
as his crew bolted on a 96 inch left rear for the heat race I
figured we was going to be in trouble. Hell, I’ve never even ran
a 96” left rear tyre! Anyway we go out and frankly it was just
so bad words cannot describe how things went. I had plans to try
to get to the top and lean against the thin cushion that was
left on the edge of the track, but starting last in the heat
race I couldn’t even see the edge of the track for the dust. It
took 2 laps before the dust cleared enough that I could figure
out which way the track went. I got rolling around and passed a
couple cars, and then a guy spun right in front of me, leaving
me nowhere to go. I pretty much hit him dead square at about 5
mile an hour and tried to push him out the way to clear a path
to get through, which all worked pretty good, other than he kept
going too and I never even picked up a spot out of it, leaving
us with a 10th place finish and a C main start.
The C was run straight after the heats and we didn’t really have
too much time to change much other than fix the minor damage to
the front of the car. We started 5th and tried the top, bottom,
middle and nothing seemed to work any good. I spent the 8 laps
racing the hell out of some guy for 6th place in the C! It was
just one of those nights where nothing seemed to work, and I was
pretty happy to get out of the place and move on down the road
to Fremont for the next race!
It would have been easy to get all upset about such a poor
performance, but the good thing about racing so regularly is the
next night presents a fresh opportunity to start again. I was
somewhat concerned because for years Fremont Speedway has had a
reputation as being arguably the slickest track in the country,
and after the night before at Attica I wasn’t really in the mood
for rolling around at half throttle all night. I mean, I wanted
to race a sprintcar because they go fast, not roll around at
40mph at half throttle trying to not spin the wheels. Well as
luck would have it, there are new promoters at Fremont, and they
must think that the whole slick track thing is crap too, because
they prepared one of the wildest, sticky, rough, heavy race
tracks you could get! Hallelujah!! Think of a wet, heavy
Warrnambool at Easter time, or a Parramatta back in the days
when it was called Granville and that’s about what we were dealt
here! I mean, some guys were flipping in hot laps, and even
myself on the first lap of hot laps I pulled a wheelstand the
length of the front straight!
Again we only got one lap to try to qualify in, although that
was at least a better deal than the random draw we had at
Attica. I tried to ensure I got a clean run at the flagstand for
my lap but in trying to drive around the rough I ran clear off
the edge of the track, so by the time I got back on the
racetrack I was about 20 yards from the flagstand, leaving me
with very little momentum to start my lap. We ended up 21st
quick out of the 38 cars. This was good enough to make the
invert and get us a front row start in the first heat race.
I was set to start alongside a guy called John Ivy, who is a
multi track champion at Fremont. Anyways the mighty Aussie-built
Maxwill engine won the drag race into the first corner and from
there the supreme handling characteristics of the Maxim chassis
allowed us to negotiate the rough, heavy surface with ease, as
we drove away to win our first heat race on American soil! The
heat winners had to pull up on the front straight after the race
and after a brief interview they gave us a trophy that we took
up into the crowd and gave to a young kid of our choice. It was
a somewhat daunting experience climbing up into the fairgrounds
grandstand looking for a suitable young kid with all these
people screaming and yelling at you and wanting to give you high
fives and congratulations! Meanwhile back in the pits many of
the local guys were struggling with the track conditions and
started complaining, but we had our car pretty free and could
roll around the track pretty nice, and frankly, I thought it was
an awesome surface to race on! Way better than the ice we were
expected to perform on the night before! Each to their own I
guess…
The way the format worked here was that the top 4 from each heat
would directly transfer to the A, and then the highest qualifier
would draw an invert for the feature, inverting a 6, 8 or 10.
The cars that transferred from the B main would then get their
time back and start after the inverted cars, so I found myself
starting 17th courtesy of my average time trail, behind the guys
that transferred from the B. The B in itself was like a regular
feature, with many of the All Star guys fighting for one of the
4 spots on offer. To try to illustrate just how tough the
competition is here, many of the guys that were at the front of
the feature the night before at Attica barely made the show at
Fremont. Paul Weaver, who likes the slick and won at Attica with
help from super mechanic Andy Potter, didn’t make the transfer
out of the B, as did last weeks feature winner at Fremont Phil
Gressman (11th) and Brock Mayes (6th), who ran 3rd the previous
night at Attica. The four guys that did transfer from the B were
Mark Keegan, Dustin Daggett, Brandon Martin and Kenny Jacobs – a
pretty decent bunch indeed!
We pretty much left the car real free to run the feature, as I
felt it would be easier to steer the car if the front wheels
were occasionally touching the ground. We got gridded up ready
to go behind Dale Blaney, who ran 2nd the night before at
Attica, with Dean Jacobs also just in front. We made a pretty
nice start and passed some guys, and within a few laps we got
past Blaney and tagged on the back of Jacobs. Dean was boppin
around the highline trying to make something happen, and sort of
clearing a path and I was trying to follow him through. After
about 8 laps Chad Blonde flipped over the edge of the track in
turn 4 bringing about a red flag. There was another yellow a few
laps later when someone lost a driveline, and I had an anxious
moment trying to miss the errant torque tube laying in turn 3.
At the restart I kept persisting to run the top and follow what
Dean Jacobs was doing, but the top was just getting too heavy
now and we was getting too tight and starting to bike the thing
and get ugly. A few more laps in Dean flipped into the night sky
in the 3-4 turn bringing about another red. I sort of conceded
to myself whilst waiting for the race to restart that the
potential to crash was quite high if I kept trying to drive
right through the heavy stuff, so for the remainder of the race
I got locked on the bottom. We passed some more cars to
eventually finish in 9th place, which was our best result over
here so far.
We had plenty of people come up afterwards and congratulate us
and what the thought was a good job, and almost everyone
commented that in 20 years they had never seen a Fremont track
like this. With that we headed to the car wash before leaving
Ohio for a 10 hour drive into New York to make the World of
Outlaws race the next night at Orange County.
As luck would have it, it rained pretty much non stop all the
way up there and the race was inevitably postponed due to the
rain. We headed to a hotel to get some rest and the next morning
headed out to the Orange County Choppers shop to take a look
around. These are the guys who have the TV show on Foxtel back
home, and they have some absolutely amazing custom bikes on
display up there.
We have now arrived back in Pennsylvania ready to take on the
mighty PA Posse for the Keystone Cup. As I sit here I must say
the weather looks pretty bad, as it is raining outside and meant
to rain tomorrow when we race. We are meant to race 5 races over
the next 6 nights, and I can only expect that it will be awfully
tough. I mean, these guys regularly kick the Outlaw’s butts when
they come here! The tracks we compete at include Grandview,
Williams Grove, Lincoln, Selinsgrove and Port Royal. Basically 3
of the biggest, baddest ½ miles that exist and a couple ‘little’
3/8 or 4/10 mile tracks!
Hopefully I can report in sometime next week with some positive
news!”
The Reed Racing Sprintcar team thanks the following companies
and people for their continued and valued support of their
racing program:
Westside Honda – Mark and Danielle Charge
Workplace Safety Wear – Steve Courtney
Tritech Oils – Perry McCowatt
Dynamic Test Systems – Christen Barnard
EA Plant Hire
Maxwill Racing Engines
2008-05-13 Lernerville WoO
Australian driver Matthew Reed PAUL ARCH PHOTO
The
Reed Report – Part 1 - Living the dream!
Five-time SRA Sprintcar series champion Matthew Reed has
commenced his first racing tour of the United States driving his
own Westside Honda Maxim. Many Australian fans have been asking
about where they can find out information and results and as
such we hope to bring you regular updates via some media
releases and also photos uploaded to the Incharge Racing
official website. After an incredibly hectic opening few days
Matthew reports in with the following news -
“Well,
after what seemed like endless months of planning we have
finally arrived over here ready to race our car. It’s been a
somewhat surreal past few days, arriving here and meeting up
with my very own race-car and all our stuff that we packed into
a container many weeks ago. I feel that I have been incredibly
fortunate to get the opportunity to race over here as for many
Australian racers it is truly a dream to be able to compete over
here. There are so many people that have been tremendous in
helping us get this far, and without their support the next six
weeks would not be possible. I am particularly grateful for the
use of an awesome tow rig that is owned by Ray Solomon, as
without the use of this we would never have been able to travel
the endless miles between racetracks.”
“The
past few days have been absolutely mad. We arrived in Toledo,
Ohio at around 10.30pm Friday night, where we met up with Brian
Kemenah who has been looking after Ray’s trailer. Brian is the
brother is World of Outlaws racer Chad Kemenah, and quite a
successful and popular mechanic in his own right. After getting
some instructions about how to maneuver Ray’s investment down
the highway we set off on the 10 hour drive toward Knoxville,
Iowa where our cars and parts had been shipped to.
Most
normal people would have gone to sleep when they arrived after
the flight from Australia but I knew that there was a race car
back in Iowa with my name on it and there also happened to be
some racing on at Knoxville and Husets. Our cars had been sent
to Steve Fitzpatrick in Knoxville, as I needed to send them to a
contact for Customs reasons. We started to unpack stuff and
assemble things as needed, and after an hour or so I realized
that I could probably actually get this together to go to
Knoxville that very night. So from there we thrashed around like
mad getting the motor in and things ready. Unfortunately
Knoxville got rained out whilst trying to get hot laps started
and as such we headed to a hotel for some much needed rest.
The next
morning we continued to unpack our stuff and assemble things in
order to go to Huset’s Speedway, South Dakota, which is about a
5 hour drive north. Huset’s is a neat place to race as it has a
lot of atmosphere and is really banked and racey. I had seen
this track when I came over here to crew on Terry McCarl’s #24
car a few years back and I instantly felt it would be a cool
place to race at. It was still a mad thrash to try to get up
there, and we arrived with very little time to spare. The cars
are all pitted on the infield at Huset’s which is a little
different for us Australian’s, so you need to unload what you
think you will need on the infield. That was a little difficult
for us given that half of our stuff was still packed in boxes!
Anyway
we took the bare minimum and got ready for hot laps. I made a
bad selection on the gearing for my qualifying run leaving us 16th
quick out of 24 cars. With a different gear and some chassis
adjustments we then started our heat race from the front row and
ran a reasonable race to finish 3rd. The top 6 cars
transferred from the heat races into the feature so that got us
locked into an A main start out of position 11. We made a good
start and got past a couple cars locked onto the bottom, but
then I got too impatient and tried to drive around someone and
quickly realized that we were way too loose up the top. There
was no real cushion around the top of the 3-4 turn and I made
some bad laps there trying to figure out what I was doing!
Eventually I got back down the bottom and found my rhythm again
and passed some cars back. On the last lap I tried another
highline attempt that didn’t work and lost another spot, leaving
us with a 15th place finish out of the 20 cars that
were in the race. Afterwards the promoter came down and gave us
a pass for a free hotel room for the night with a complimentary
breakfast so that was pretty cool. We headed off to the car wash
to get things cleaned up before going to sleep.
The next
morning we woke ready for a 18 hour drive to Lernerville
Speedway in Pennsylvania. Anytime you race a sprintcar in PA you
know that you will be facing the toughest local cars in the
world, but this event also happened to be a World of Outlaws
show! In an ideal world I wouldn’t choose to go to such a race
straight up but there was a race on and we had the chance to go
to it so we went! What is really hard is that when you arrive
you have no real idea of where to go or what happens, but I
guess that is something that we just have to figure out as we go
along. We signed in and got ready for our first Outlaws race.
Lernerville is a pretty fast ½ mile speedway that has no fence
off turn 2 or down the back straight. You seriously don’t want
to get over the edge of turn 2 as you will end up crashed
heavily into some trees at the bottom of the hill! My girlfriend
Peta had given my strict instructions not to do this!
It
definitely takes some getting used to with the speed of the cars
on the larger tracks as the air over the wing pushes down a lot
on the car at these speeds. At a World of Outlaws race if there
is over 40 cars you only get one lap for qualifying, which is
real tough when you have never raced on the track. I again
screwed up the gear choice for qualifying and screwed up the 4th
turn, pinching the car too low and scrubbing off too much
momentum leaving me with a time of 13.344 that was 33rd
quick out of the 44 cars. We made some changes to the car for
our heat race that improved the car considerably, and starting
from position 9 we got past Shane Stewart and Charlie Holben,
then slid Jason Sides for the 7th spot. There was a
caution which bunched the field up and the next car to try to
pass was Craig Dollansky! As expected that didn’t happened and I
crossed the line in 7th place, with the top 5 going
directly to the A feature, 6th through to 8th
to the B and 9th to 11th to the C.
We
started the B from position 12 alongside Stevie Smith, with Chad
Layton and Randy Hannagan behind me. We ran three wide down the
straight sandwiched between Smith and another car, getting past
them both to take the 10th spot for the first few
laps. By now the track was slicking up and I made two errors
climbing the infield kerb and losing momentum on subsequent laps
which allowed Layton and Hannagan to get past. From there I
followed them for the remaining laps to cross the line in 12th
place, bringing to an end our first Outlaw race.
Given
the mad rush to even get to these events from when we arrived I
am not disappointed in the results, although I hope to do better
and certainly believe that with some sleep (!) and a little
better preparation we will definitely improve. We hope to race
this Friday night at Attica Raceway Park and then on Saturday
night at Fremont. Both of these tracks are in Ohio, and the
local guys here are pretty sharp. Both these tracks are 3/8 mile
and we have spent the past 2 days getting things where they need
to be in terms of preparation.
We hope
to head over to Pennsylvania again next week to compete in a
speedweek type series called the Keystone Cup. It is 5 races in
6 nights against the toughest locals cars in the world! Some
people would question why I chose such hard places to race, but
it is all about getting an education over here and I figure I
might as well go to school at the best college there is. I’m not
really too focused on the result we get on the night over here,
as it is all about getting experience and learning, and we are
surely going to do a lot of that over the next 6 weeks!
I’d like
to take this opportunity to thank all the fans at home for their
well wishes and we appreciate the kind words of support. We hope
to get some pictures uploaded onto
www.inchargeracing.com
as soon as possible.
There
are many more things I could write about but this has already
gotten way too long so until next week when I get a chance to
write another update I bid you farewell!”
The Reed
Racing Sprintcar team thanks the following companies and people
for their continued and valued support of their racing program:
Westside
Honda – Mark and Danielle Charge
Workplace Safety Wear – Steve Courtney
Tritech
Oils – Perry McCowatt
Dynamic
Test Systems – Christen Barnard
EA Plant
Hire
Maxwill
Racing Engines
|
