March 26, 2005

The pits are over flowing, 3 classes to run tonight with thirty six 360 Sprint cars entered, with a Full Moon coming up and Green Arm Bands on, anything can happen. It starts out with a pill draw of #46 out of 50.

We start in the 3rd row of the 3rd heat, 9 cars total. About half way through two cars spun bringing out a caution. Cole is running in 3rd place at the time of the restart, he stays with the top two. On the last lap comming out of 4 he gets under the 2nd place car and on the bumper of 1st place car. They go across the line with the 31 car 1st, Cole 2nd and the 14 car 3rd. The track announcer calls Cole in 2nd. The crews and drivers all agree Cole was 2nd to the line. It was close but clear to all of us and the track scorers that he was 2nd. This was important because it put Cole on the pole for the main. As the other two classes ran we checked the lineup on the pit board. Yes we are on the pole.

So Dave Ellis and Dave Legue preped the car for the main. When we pushed the car out for the introductions we noticed the front row taken. We pushed up there and was told we were moved to 6th row. Nobody on the track could explain. So we started 6th row. (Full moon, green arm bands)

As the race started out Cole ran ok, trying to avoid a couple of crashes. He lost spots back to about 18th or second from last. The last 10 laps he worked his way back up thru the field and finished a somewhat repectful 11th. The Ellis car handled very well with the Don Ott engine pulling the front wheel up comming out of turn 4 and pulling very well down the straight. Cole in just his 5th Sprint car race doing well but needs to improve on corner speed and getting a jump on the starts.

One more Sprint car race next week end and then it's back to the midget on April 16th. Hopefully these races will give him a jump on the midget driving. Trying to find out why we were put in the 6th row for the line up, we were told that even though everybody saw Cole cross the line in 2nd, evidently the transponder (or so they say) scored him in 3rd. Only thing I can see is that the transponder is located at the rear of the car. It is obvious that the front of the car crossed the line in 2nd. Is it possible that the rear of the car crossed in 3rd? If this is true in a photo finish with the 360's it's the rear of the car that crosses the line first that counts. All these years the Manzy track scorers have apparently got it all wrong. (Full Moon, Green Arm Band)

Catch us at the track, April 2nd meanwhile I'm busy moving the transponder to the front of the car.