The Season opener

This past Friday night was our season opener and it went really well.  After a long season last year of not getting one feature win we were definitely due.  The night started out a little slow, with us putting up the fourth fastest time in practice but we knew we were headed in the right direction.  With it being the first local race of the season we all had to qualify in.  We ended up qualifying in the second spot with a 14.667, and the top qualifier was Glen Hertzke with a time of 14.664, only three one thousands of a second better than us.  In the first heat race after the field was inverted from qualifying we started on the back row, but didn’t stay for long.  After three quick laps Trent had made his way through the whole field but still had “The Gentleman” Jim Gaunt left to get by.  Going into turn one Trent was on the inside and Jim was on the outside.  Jim was leading going down the straightaway but Trent tried to dive under and outbrake Jim but got to deep and slid up into Jim’s right rear sending him into a spin and causing a caution.  With damage to the right front we had to come to the pits and unfortunately we had bent some steering components and finished 10th in the heat race.  With not a lot of time till the next heat race we had to work quickly to make the repairs needed to get it out.  For the second heat race we started on the pole and led the race from start to finish with not much pressure from anyone.  For the feature race we had to start at the back of the pack again but with 40 laps there was lots of racing time.  The pace started off fast and guys were jockeying for positions with lots of side by side racing.  From lap 5 on their were different battles going on all over the place, and by lap 20 we found ourselves in third trying to overtake Dave Bone in the 38 car.  It was a great battle but managed to get by him with about ten laps to go.  With Greg Vangool in first he was the last one on the march to the front, in less then two laps we reeled him in and took the lead.  The last few laps were a little scary as we knew that our brakes were getting warm but we were able to hold on for the win.  At the end of the night we are sitting one point out of first in the standings behind Jim Gaunt.  Our next race will be on Friday June 11th.