Spira Racing – Post Race Update #2014-03 – May 11, 2014 Sunset Speedway

All four cars headed north to Sunset Speedway along with team member, Steve Laking, who would be running his pro-late model in a 100 lap event. Minor adjustments were made throughout the practice sessions and then the drivers attended the drivers meeting to be informed of the format to be implemented to set the field in the 25 lap feature. With 32 cars in attendance and only 28 starting the feature race, there would be three 10 lap heat races to start. The top four of each race would be locked into the feature and would run a 10 lap dash for cash that would give
the winner additional points towards their season total. The balance of the field would run two last chance races that would set the balance of the field.

Scott, Samantha and Jake were in the same heat race with Scott starting on the pole, Samantha 5th and Jake 11th. Scott finished 4th, locking him into the features top 12, Samantha finished 5th, Jake gained two positions to finish 9th. Billy started 9th in his heat race and quickly moved through the field to finish 2nd.

Samantha started 2nd in her last chance race and quickly moved into the lead where she dominated throughout the 10 laps to get her first win of the season. Jake started 4th in his race and moved up to 2nd where he battled side by side with the #87 for the lead. The lead was exchanged multiple times throughout the final laps and the young driver held his own coming up just inches short of getting the win. Billy lined up 6th and Scotty 11th for the 10 lap dash for cash race and with the fastest cars of the night running all out for the bonus points, positions did not change much with Billy gaining two positions to finish 4th and Scott moving up one to finish 10th. With the qualifying complete, the
track called all drivers to a meeting where the dash for cash drivers drew numbers from 1-18 to set their starting positions followed by the rest of the field that drew from the remaining numbers to set the back of the field. As a result, Scott would start 3rd, Samantha 11th, Jake 15th and Billy 17th.

The first two laps of the feature had everyone trying to get to the front as soon as possible and with the mixture of the faster qualifying cars scattered throughout the field, it did not take long for the lack of patience to cause mayhem on the track. The #35 pushed the envelope by diving to the inside lane of a three wide pack, resulting in Samantha, who was running fine in the middle to get squeezed into contact with the cars on both sides. The result was a pile up and contact that caused severe damage to Samantha’s #81 machine and she was out of the race. The 23 out of 28 remaining cars returned to racing with Scott 2nd, Jake 10th and Billy behind him in 11th. As the race approached the half way mark, Scott was losing a little ground and fell back to 4th as Billy was picking his way through the field with a
great handling car into 6th and Jake found himself running steady in 11th. A caution for the #40 car hitting the wall and taking out another car in the process, also collected Scott, causing some damage to the right front and forcing him into the pits to have his crew change a flat tire, returning to the track in 17th. As the final 5 laps ticked away, Billy got by the #35 and it was clear that he had a better handling car than the leaders, however the race was just a few laps short of the time he required to pass them and would finish 3rd. Scott moved his way up through the field in the final laps to finish 9th, just behind Jake who had a great run to finish 8th.

In the 100 lap pro-late model race, team member Steve Laking was dominating with a very fast car in the early laps of the race where he led several laps before fading back with a loose condition to finish 6th.

Next up for the Spira Team will see the team split up between three tracks. Scott will be at Flamboro Speedway, where the pits open at 3, the main gates at 5 and racing starts at 6:00pm. Billy will be heading to Sauble Speedway for their opening night, pits open at 3, main gate at 5 and racing begins at 7:00pm. Samantha and Jake will be returning to Sunset speedway where the racing begins at 6:00pm.