With plans to run Bloomington Speedway for USAC ISW and then head to Twin Cities Raceway Park (TCRP) for a local show, I jumped in the car Thursday after work to make the 7 hour trek to Ohio. If you have ever made the drive from Charlotte to Southwester Ohio, you know that aside from paying tolls it is a lot less exciting than ripping the cushion at Bloomington or throwing sliders at TCRP. That time would come soon enough though.
Friday morning rolled around and we got the car prepped and loaded to head to Bloomington, a quick 3 hour drive from our race shop in Brookville, OH. Lucky for me, I work for a company that allows me to be remote on Fridays so I can maintain somewhat of a steady racing schedule throughout the summer. Anyways, plugging away at emails and working on a few upcoming projects made the majority of the 3 hour tow fly by.
Pulling into Bloomington for USAC ISW is a special feeling alone, with campers and tailgaters already set up at noon! This was a great start to what would continue to be a great night of racing. As for results, well the driver (guilty) got us behind early by qualifying 14th out of 21 cars in our flight. A 7th to 4th charge in the heat race would stop abruptly after running off the top of turn one and pulling in with only 1 lap remaining. Moving forward in a USAC heat race hasn't happened often for us in our handful of starts, so everyone was happy with the speed but obviously disappointing in the result of posturing for a B main appearance. In the B, I would charge from 11th to 7th falling just one spot out of the BIG DANCE. Besting 20 of the 41 total cars in attendance let us load up with something positive to say, even though the end result after provisional consideration was 23rd out of 41.
You can find full results here: http://usacracing.com/component/k2/item/8504-kevin-thomas-jr-s-last-lap-herocs-get-it-done-at-bloomi
Saturday was a much different story for our team at TCRP. After arriving to the track and unloading all before lunchtime, we got the car maintenance complete and had her ready to RIP! With 27 cars on the premises we would find a 3rd quick effort in group qualifying, setting us up for a 3rd place grid position in heat race number 4. In the heat we ran 3rd, challenging 2nd every corner down to the final wave of the checkered to no avail. After some significant tuning before the main, we would roll off 12th for 25 laps around a very technical TCRP. The end result was one that I am pretty happy with, advancing 7 positions to pick off a 5th place finish to wrap up our weekend!
Overall, we would have been much happier with some different results but left the weekend with our heads held high acknowledging some good speed and track adaptation both nights. As always, thank you to all of our sponsors that keep us going down the road: Line-X of Troy, Erwin Chrylser Dodge Jeep, and AirEase.
Thank you for reading, hopefully we will see you at the track soon!