January 22, 2008

Due to the bad weather forecast through Ontario and the upper states on Friday, the team left for Florida early. Unfortunately sometimes the best plans get messed.
At 2:40 a.m. Friday
Feb. 1st as the team truck and trailer was traveling through Toledo Ohio (I hit black ice),
2 complete revolutions on I75 hitting the cement walls on either side, we had a large problem. The Ford F 350 is very badly damaged and the trailer, pit box and right side of the race car are also not looking overly attractive. Most important (I was o.k.) but heading in the wrong direction and the storm had not even hit.

Suffice it to say we were in a pickle. Fast forward 24 hrs, I have a borrowed F350 / 3 new tires & rims on the race trailer, new torsion bars, trailer hitch, only ¾ of our pit box tools and one very tired group of three (Tyler, Telsa & dad). Oh… and a damaged race car to fix once we get to warm weather (bent rear end / right side rim and body work). We will have our web site updated with photos very soon and by the way the trailer is not square anymore, but the holes in the side and concrete marks add distinction.

All the above said….we are very determined, and back on the road. As this is written we are in the middle of Kentucky for the night and by tomorrow mid-day we will be at the Florida border for the night.

I need to thank some very exceptional people, Jim Mullins & family for lending me there 2008 Ford F350 so our mission could continue, Crew chief & brother Glen Brown for 2 trips (early a.m.) from Windsor to Toledo to help us on our way, All the staff at Bi-State Sterling Truck Centre in Toledo for use of their facilities, demo vehicles, staff, hydro and parking lot.

Well and so begins the trip. I hope the future updates will be better. Don't worry, we are still having a good time and heading south to race.

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Well, after a couple of testy nights, we are in St. Augustine. It was a very uneventful day (which we needed). Other than Telsa almost having a heart attack from a close call with a post office van we're all ok. Last night we met up with Mike and Don Blair and the boys took the dads out for dinner…….Telsa tagged along. So now were are all soaking up the "cosmic rays" relaxing the rest of today, tomorrow we will assess the damages on the car.

"We got a half pack of cigarettes, half tank of gas and we are wearing sun glasses at night. We are on a mission from God! (Blues Brothers Movie)

From: "The Team"
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Tuesday - 3 days before we start racing.

Today was the day we unloaded the car to assess the damages incurred in the accident. Needless to say I was a little restless last night not knowing what we would uncover. I am happy to say that once we unloaded the car, it was not as bad as we thought. I spent the morning trying to fix the body work, bracing and exhaust. Although it doesn't look showroom quality it will be fine. As our crew chief says, "at 90 mph in a snow storm no one will know". We still have a bit of cutting of damaged bracing and welding to do on the right side but that will wait until Thursday when we are at the track. Don Blair spent some time cleaning up the mess in the race trailer, then the car was washed, dried, windows cleaned and then loaded back in the trailer.

Tomorrow Dad, Tyler and Michael will haul the car to the track and get our parking spot in the pits. We are hoping to pit next to fellow Canadian Kirk Hooker from Chatham. Although Tyler races against Kirk in Canada regularly, Kirk is in a different division down here.

Crew Chief Glen Brown is en route and will meet up with us at the track on Thursday morning.

The attached picture is of the race car shortly after unloading for the inspection and cleanup this morning.

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WEDNESDAY – tomorrow it starts. Trailer after the accident

Today we got our pit spot at the speedway, and because there are so many competitors they make you uncouple from your trailer and they use a 'bobcat' to maneuver your trailer into your spot. Tomorrow the fun starts, although we don't race until Friday, pits open at 8 a.m., pre tech opens at 9 a.m. and practice begins at 2 p.m. And, we have a 60% chance of rain.

The crew will leave for the track at 6:30a.m. with the RV's to follow a few hours later. Tomorrow we will settle into the campground which is 12 minutes from the track, and that becomes our base and home for the next 10 days.

This is a picture of our camp site where we just spent the last couple of days, as well as a picture of the trailer that "kissed" the cement in Toledo.

We are looking forward to sending updates soon that will have race recaps

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Thursday - official practice.

Today we were at the track early and spent 3 hours going through "tech inspection" for our division, known as ASA Late Model. We discovered that we have to lower the car all around by 1 inch and that we're also 1/2 inch too wide. These issues will be resolved when we scale the car tomorrow. We also managed to uncover a brake problem that we will address tomorrow morning along with the height and width issues.

We still managed to hit the track for practice today, but unfortunately after our first session the skies opened and the rain came. With the rain being steady and heavy at times, we loaded the car and headed for our campsite. However, in our haste we left the camera behind with some good shots of the pits. We will send some more photos tomorrow but our update will come late as we race tomorrow and won't get home until close to midnight.

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Race night #1

We just arrived back at our campsite after spending 17 hours at the track. It was long and tiresome but in the end everything worked out okay. By the time we solved our brake problems we only had time for one round of practice, followed by qualifying. With no time on the car, Tyler was instructed by his Crew Chief to lay down two solid laps. Unfortunately that placed us 31 out of 34 cars.

The race was a caution filled wreckfest, but Tyler managed to keep the car clean and run a conservative race, and brought the car home in 12th place.

Wish I could go into more detail but I feel the need for a bed.....We will report more tomorrow.

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Speedweeks day #2

First, I need to correct my communication from last night (or should I say early this morning). I said Tyler had qualified 31st and finished 12th, I was wrong. Tyler qualified 30th out of 34 and started the race in 27th because of 3 no shows, still finished 12th. Sorry for the mistake.

Now on to day two! This is a good read so make sure you enjoy (said with sarcasm). Sometimes you're top dog and sometimes you're the fire hydrant. Unfortunately on this trip, 4B racing & driver Tyler Brown have been designated the fire hydrant.

The first official practice that the #91 took today was going well, until Tyler cut down a front right tire. After a quick trip to the pits to replace the front tire he was back at it…. for 2 laps. What I saw next was the #91 go up in smoke half way down the back straightaway. The motor grenaded 'big time'. I will tell you as a father, that it was daunting as I watched my kid fight to get a 140mph car slowed while running blind due to all the smoke in the cockpit, and keep it off the turn 3 wall. But he did!

Once we got the car back to the pits we put out the call to the G.M Performance Racing representative that was at Speedweeks. He did have a new motor in the truck but unfortunately it was a stock G.M. crate, and not an ASA legal crate motor. This means we would have been down more than 10% in horsepower, which of course would make us non-competitive. No other ASA teams had motors that we could rent or lease for the week which was understandable - teams would want to keep their essential parts in case they had problems.

Between Team Owner Darrell, Driver Tyler and Crew Chief Glen the decision was made to pack it up. This is a very disappointing communication to write and an unbelievably depressing period for everyone that supports this team. But in the end, it made no sense to try to run with a motor that would not keep up with the others. If we tried to do that, Tyler would be at the back of the field in every race and in the position to be involved in every wreck.

So this will be our final communication -
I have made the decision to stay here and enjoy some of the Speedweek racing and Florida weather (because I understand back home it is not great). I have bought tickets to the Gatorade Duals for everyone on the team at Daytona International Speedway on Thursday and then we will head for home on Friday.

I hope everyone has enjoyed our daily blurbs and I truly look forward to doing this again in the future.