Wednesday night, January 27th was scheduled to be night three of the annual Lucas Oil Winter Nationals at East Bay Raceway Park. However, the weather predictors had included a chance of showers and thundershowers for early Wednesday evening and they turned out to be correct, turning the racing program into a shorter than planned show that will be concluded on Thursday night.
Seventy two cars signed in to race on Wednesday night with Bobby Pierce and Kerry King the most recent additions to the field as both showed for the first time on Wednesday, Pierce with his Wild West themed tin still on his race car from his western adventure.
Missing on Wednesday night was Freddie Carpenter who had his car up on jack stands and was working away on it along with his crew, trying to repair the damage resulting from his wild flip on Tuesday night. He has stated that he hopes to race again on Thursday but perhaps that might be just a big optimistic but we have seen race teams do some amazing things over the years.
Dave Hess Jr and Shane Clanton were both seen working on their cars as I toured the pits but both opted to take the night off while the rigs of Drake Troutman and Jeff Mathews were both still in the pits but neither chose to race on Wednesday night. Mathews' team mate Devin Dixon planned to race but then opted out of qualifying and did not turn any more laps on Wednesday night. With the addition of the two new drivers, we have now seen eighty different teams in racing action here so far this week. Kyle Strickler switched cars for this show in an effort to improve his performance and also repair damage to his car done in one of Tuesday night's wrecks. It did not help much as Strickler had problems during qualifying and then started and finished last in his heat race.
With rain on the way and everyone focused on their electronic devices' radar, the program moved along quickly, just as it always does here but with perhaps even more urgency than usual. They actually started the show a few minutes early and tore through the heat races at break neck speed.
The track was very fast on Wednesday night and an up front starting position was crucial, just as it is with all time trial shows that start the heats straight up. In fact, that point was very obvious on Wednesday as all six heat races were won right off the front row. Especially impressive was Pierce in his first laps on this track in 2021 and the Florida battle won by quick qualifier Mark Whitener over Kyle Bronson.
Tony Jackson Jr was especially impressive when he came from the seventh hole to win the first B Feature over Rick Eckert and we were six laps into B number two when it started to rain. I had thought that with the pace being set that we might be able to get the show done before it started to rain but it seemed like the showers picked up their pace marching inland and spread out a bit quicker than expected. And once it started to rain on the surface that was by now well packed in, there would be no saving the track on this night. With the rain showing increased intensity and a few flashes of lightning, the show was then terminated for the night.
The remainder of B Feature number two, plus the third B and the main event will now be run on Thursday night, following the entire show for that night. This will be a challenge for the teams running two forty lap mains nearly back to back and any drivers that wreck out of the first main will be in trouble unless they have a back up car to roll out. And whether they are allowed to retain their starting positions if they switch cars is another issue for Lucas Oil officials to weigh in on. Either way, it should be interesting to see how the track responds to the extra laps and the crews will really have to be "on the ball" to keep up with changing track conditions from race to race, a task that is tough here under the best of circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment