Weekend Recap: CJ & Dubuque (Memorial Weekend)
Another podium, another new track and another top 5 finish in the books after this weekend’s double header for Memorial Day weekend!
Friday Night @ CJ Speedway:
The weekend started off at a track we are pretty familiar with at this point, CJ Speedway. The track took longer to slick off than we had expected so by the time we were ready to go out for our heat race the track still had a lot of moisture. We started the heat race in P4 and were able to capture one position before taking the checkered flag in P3. Even though the car felt pretty good, we had to make some changes before the feature race to account for the changing conditions and the track slicking off over the course of the night.
In the feature event we started in P6 and in only a couple of laps had secured the lead. After an unlucky caution and restart we lost the lead and fell back to P2 where we stayed for most of the race fighting to try and gain enough to get past the leader. With about 5 laps to go I got hung up on a backmarker and let the cars behind me close the gap. At that point we were in a 4-way battle for the lead with lots of hard side-by-side racing. On the last lap we had a 3-way drag race for 2nd and crossed the line in P3. Great to have another podium under our belt but can’t help being a little sore having come so close to a second season win.
With Saturday off, we were able to take our time getting the car ready for another night of action; this time at a new track for TAR!
Sunday Night @ Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway:
For my first visit to Dubuque our class was a support group for the Super Late Models. With those big ground pounders we knew the track would be really slick and black top to bottom. In our heat race we started P6 and ran down second place quickly. We weren’t able to get a hold of the leader, though, and we finished the heat with a solid P2 putting us on the outside second row for the feature.
Starting in P4 we got a good jump off the green flag and secured P2 where we held on throughout a few cautions really early in the race. Once things calmed down and we got a decent stretch of green flag racing, the leader and I were able to pull away from the pack. Unfortunately I didn’t quite have enough to secure the lead position and late race caution bunched the whole group back up. Again we found ourselves in a 3-way battle for second. The other cars fighting for it ran their tires on the bottom and the leader and I decided to send the top and give the fans the best show we could. Throwing a Hail Mary and running up on the cushion we crossed the line in P4.
Racing on Memorial Weekend is always special and I’m thankful to be able to do so. Huge thank you to all of our partners, sponsors and supporters. We’ll get ‘em next time!
- Sincerely, the TAR Family