The WSORR staff was amazing! They were polite, respectful, and more than willing to find someone to help you out if they couldn't. The organization also put on a wonderful dinner on Friday night for all the racers and teams. It was flattering to have them personally thank us for traveling to Missouri... and we race in the Sportsman class. What was even more amazing was that they sent us a 'thank you' email after the event. We don't expect to be noticed by anybody and yet this is a group that truly appreciates all it's racers and is more than willing to tell you. It was a great feeling to be a part of an organization that cares as much for their Sportsman racers as it does their Pro racers. Not to mention that the series announcer, Shane, came over to our pit late Friday night to introduce himself and shoot the breeze with us for over an hour. And to top it off, Pro 2 driver, Dan Vanden Heuvel cruised over and shared some good stories too. He even took the time to talk with our 3 yr old daughter who was pointing out the 7's on his golf cart. We also met a great family from Wisconsin who races in our class, Jesse Plawman, his sister Veronica, and their dad Al. A great family who was more than willing to help us out with our carb issues. We got some great video action of Jesse and a few pictures of his late roll-over on Round 2. The track crew rolled him back on all 4 and he was able to still finish the race.

The weather played havoc almost from the get-go. It was crazy. We had thunderstorms following us through Texas and western Oklahoma. We continued east on I-40 thru Oklahoma to move away from the storm path. That slew of storms moved NE ahead of us and soon effected the racers coming down from Wisconsin. We arrived on Friday afternoon with a few hours to spare before practice and the WSORR dinner that followed, and the weather was great... sunny & 85º. But by the end of the night we knew things were changing. Saturday we had severe thunder storms, tornado watch, and more rain than we've seen in years. It was kind of exciting but we really wanted to race. Sunday was much better with sunny skies once again, and that sure helped the track conditions.

Friday nights practice went fair for us. It was good to get a look at the track and what to expect, but we were struggling with more carburetor issues. We had a crack in our 2-to-1 hose that connects the boost bottle to the carb. We sealed that up and thought we were ready for Saturday's practice. We didn't even get a full lap in on Saturday morning when we brought our buggy back into the pits to work on the carb, again. We adjusted the float, needle & seat, and were anxiously awaiting our 7pm start time. Mother nature had other ideas though. The winds picked up, followed by the rain... buckets of rain. Hickory county was soon under a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch for the rest of the day. And unfortunately the Lucas Oil Speedway was right in line with the numerous storms passing through. The races were delayed about 4 hours and then the Super Trucks finally took to the track. They got their race in while rain doused the track and made it just a sloppy mess. The trucks were having such a hard time getting any traction. It was like watching a bunch of rookie drivers on an icy road. They were everywhere. The drenching rains eventually postponed the rest of the races until Sunday morning. Teams were up all hours of the night pulling layers of mud from their trucks. It was wild. Sunday morning came with clear blue skies early and held for the majority of the day. Our class, 1600 buggy, was the 2nd race of the morning and it was a sloppy, slippery, track. Jeff Barrett in the BRM OFFROAD GRAPHICS ^#334 had a terrible time getting his Toyo Tires to hook up. We just needed more grooves cut to get some bite out there. Jeff didn't have much of a choice but to finish 11th in round 1, but the good news was the carb problem seemed to be solved J. With the sun and other races drying the track, we were anxious for Round 2 to see what we could do. Top finishers in Round 1 were Terry Fitzgerald, Mark Steinhardt, & Mike Seefeldt.

In between races we washed off the 20 pounds of mud or so, had Toyo groove the tires, ate lunch, and were ready to go for the next race. We started well and were in a 3-way battle for 2nd by turn 2 when things just fell apart. Jeff was coming down the back stretch and passed Chris Ernster in the ^#381 on the inside while at the same time Mark Steinhardt in the ^#331 passed Chris on the outside. The 3 of them were coming into the left-hander of turn 2 with Jeff on the inside, Chris in the middle, and Mark on the outside. Soon Mark made a very aggressive move and went from the outside of the track to the inside of the corner, pinching Jeff between Marks side and the berm to his left. The contact and braking action hung Chris out to dry and he wasn't able to react in time before slamming into the back of Jeff's buggy. It only got worse from there. In a sense Mark caused a 4 buggy pile up as Chris was then slammed from behind by another racer, followed by Kyle Lucas in the ^#314 slamming into the 3rd victim and trying to force his way thru the pile (there's a great picture in the JP3 link below, ^#81, showing Chris into the back of Jeff and Chris' right rear tire off the ground from the force of Kyle trying to make something happen). That gave Mark a lot of separation between 2nd and 3rd place while Brad Erickson tried his best to hold the lead for 1st. At the checkers it was Mark Steinhardt, Brad Erickson, & Terry Fitzgerald on the podium.

stay young, have fun, PLAY!