A long 2006
As with some new teams, things did not go well for us following the March Meet. Prior to the Good Guys Pomona race the team dissolved. I decided to follow the NFCA with Jeff Gaynor and help when possible. The travels gave me time to think and learn about what nito racing is all about. I and Rex Hutchinson joined Jeff in Pomona for some good racing. Salt Lake City in July, Spokane and Boise in August and my fateful night at Famoso in late September. Regroup for 2007!
Rex and I made the trip to Salt Lake City where we met Mike Adams and his crew along with Jeff and Bob Bradley. Salt lake city was a four car match race. The whole trip was nice. Following a few weeks of work (keeping the lights on) Bob and I drove Jeff's rig to Spokane for an even better weekend. Nice track - nice crowd - nice performance. I hope to return with my car next year. Bob and I drove to Boise where I flew home to get my car and head back for the 35th Pepsi Nightfire Nationals.
A long time coming - Boise. I had heard a lot about this race and planned on this all year. Rex and I along with Big Mark and Pete Jensen headed off to Fernley where we met Mickey for a caravan through the desert to Boise. We met up with Jeff Utterback, Bill Sweeney and Mickey's son Glen when we got to Boise. As we set up camp an ominous dust cloud blew through with 70 MPH winds, not exactly the welcome we expected. Things did not look to improve any time soon so we left with the track crew having a big clean up ahead of them. We set up and prepped the car the following morning. Once again I had an overwhelming feeling of my father's presents as I sat in the trailer watching everyone work on the car. I would not know the significance of this feeling until several days later. After working through our difficulties with the car we moved to the lanes for our first qualifying attempt.
What a let down. All the planning, work, talk, hype, adrenaline and I forget to take the throttle stop off. Jeff was so kind as to volunteer to drive and I make the whole group look silly. I wanted to get the throttle stop set up so I could use it when I started the licence process. The pre run activity went smooth, nice but lazy burnout, stage, and blah. The crowd showed their appreciation with applause as I held my head down. Re group. Back in the morning.
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