Have you ever seen a picture of a big, adult dog getting picked at by puppies, only to just sort of lay there and take it? That was kind of the night EBR Crew Chief Justin Hoium had last night at Beaver Dam Raceway, as the Legends got to run with the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars. We had a crew of nine. Cody was MIA, but we picked up Grandpa Blumer, Owen Leatherberry and Ryan Liegel, along with the normal cast.
The new crew members were happy to help, but you always want to check their work, so it sort of duplicates effort. The result was semi-organized chaos. Justin took it all in stride, except when Owen (who, like our family, Justin’s known since he was born) mishandled the gas can and spilled fuel on Justin’s well-pressed shorts. Even then he was just sort of irked. Luckily Eric stayed out of trouble tonight so there was little scrambling to be done in the pits.
Before the races, we had a lot of visitors to our pit area. Eric greeted friends like the Koltes Family, Mike Hughes and crew and Furseths. He also engaged fans who were curious about the car.
Eric started in the third row in his heat and finished third. The car seemed OK, on the track, but it was smoking some and he and Justin felt like it was hot. We went to work cleaning the front grill and such, while Justin and Eric looked for leaks. All seemed alright though.
In the feature Eric started tenth, with a lot of frontrunners ahead of him. He ran the high grove mostly and would get good runs off the corners, as a rule. They were three wide often and he went wheel to wheel with Mike Mueller in the Lightning McQueen car again. Eric and Jeff Wesell (the host of the Driver’s Meeting radio show Eric was on earlier in the week) also battled for much of the night.
Eric might have snuck into the top five for part of a lap or two, but with the top eight to ten within two seconds of each other, it was an uphill battle. Eighth was the best Eric could muster, he could have just as easily been tenth or sixth the way they were running.
Eric wasn’t happy with the run. He felt the car was strong early, but it ended up pushing badly after a red flag. Justin calmly explained that the track may have changed some and maybe they could have made a different call on the tire pressure. Justin took no offense. We never thank Justin enough for all of his work during the week or the leadership he brings to the team and especially Eric. Getting this race report out on Sunday morning is a small token of gratitude. Justin always jokes how he’s disappointed every morning after a raceday, when he hopes to open his computer to a recap of the night’s events only to find none until later in the week.
I was glad Ryan came along as he’s one of the most knowledgeable pre-teens I know, when it comes to Open Wheel Racing. It was fun seeing Ryan get more comfortable with the group. He knew most of us, but he was a little hesitant to jump in for fear of messing something up. In the end, he said mud scraping was fun. He chose to hang with the crew rather than watch the heat races of the headliner.
Brady seemed to have a good time telling Ryan what to do. “Ryan get the…” was a common refrain, just like we would otherwise do to Brady. Everyone’s getting more confident with Brady’s abilities and we don’t look over his shoulder nearly as much as we used to as he deals with the gas or tightens the lugs.
It was great to spend time with Owen once more, as he and Eric have been friends their entire lives and Owen will be shipping off to the Merchant Marine Academy in a day or two.
After the races there were more fans who stopped by including the Chris and Dakota Van Syckle and one of the Trent boys. We had so many visitors today that we ran out of Dog Guard Out of Sight Fencing Koozies.
We got home around midnight. It’s 8:30 a.m. now. Given the forecast we are not sure if we will make the tow to Dubuque tonight, where the Legends are on the card with WoO again. If not, hopefully Angell Park will get the races in tonight and we can cheer on Doug Schenck and Craig Campton with the Club LaMark team.
Coming up this week, we have a chance to run Chilton on Friday, but we are not sure if we are going. Otherwise, we’ll for sure be ready for another tilt at BDR on Saturday.