The #86 car was the only team from the Spira Racing Stable that headed to Peterborough Speedway for the three day, 21st Annual Lucas Oil, Autumn Colours Classic Event. The team arrived on Friday along with Billy’s brother Rick, who brought his #72 in an attempt to qualify for 30 starting positions out of the 47 cars that had arrived for the event. Both drivers were pretty happy with their cars as they only required minor adjustments during the two practice sessions before the one and only heat race of the day. The format would have one heat race on Friday and one on Saturday to
qualify 15 cars with the top three averages in each race going into the 50 lap feature that would be held on Sunday and the final 15 positions would come from the B features held on Saturday night.
Billy started 5th in his heat and he quickly moved up to 3rd, where he would finish in the short, 8 lap race. With the day complete for the crew, they enjoyed festivities at the track before heading back to their motel for the night.
After a good breakfast, the team returned to the track to find that despite the car running fine when it was put away, the motor would not stay running. After three hours of trouble shooting and replacing components that may have been the issue, a faulty module was final found on the distributer and the car was ready to go. With the motor issue, the #86 missed the practice sessions and would line up for the 2nd and final heat race in the 4th starting position. Billy fell back to 5th, however worked his way back up to finish 3rd and qualify for the main event.
Although Rick ran a great race in the B-main, he did not qualify for the feature and he joined the crew in the infield pit area as the #86 lined up for the 50 lap feature with 30 of the best cars from
throughout the province. Billy had to slow up on the original start as the #49 in front of him was spinning his wheels as they approached the green flag and then before one lap was completed, the #53
was pushed up the track, where he climbed the wall and was hanging half on and half off the track to bring out a red flag condition. On the restart, Billy was in 12th and he moved his way up to 9th before the end of the 3rd lap. On the 4th lap, the #1 shot down in front of Billy from the outside lane and onto pit road with his arm waving as if he was avoiding trouble up ahead. With Billy
looking straight into the sun and not being able to see the green lights, he slowed for what he thought was a caution and was passed by many cars who realized that the race was still under a green flag condition. Realizing what had just happened, Billy jumped back on the gas, however the brief second event had cost him six positions and he found himself back in 15th. The caution did come out on lap 24 as the #89 hit hard into the front stretch wall, followed by another caution on the next lap for four cars that got together in the same location. Billy restarted 12th and was up to 10th on lap 28, 9th on lap 34 and 8th on lap 36. After one final caution, Billy was able to maintain his 8th place position throughout the final laps where he would finish. The driver was very disappointed with the result as he felt he should have been a top three car had he not slowed for what he thought was a caution early in the race, however the car was in good shape, the team had a great time so they headed home happy after huddling under blankets to watch the other classes race their feature events in front of a capacity crowd.
