The best thing about Saturday's race was that I finished! After the year I've had, even though you would assume that it wouldn't be that hard to finish most races, this was actually quite an accomplishment.

The Lucky 7 Sportsman car is really fun to drive. It handles so good and it's got a ton of forward bite coming off the corners. We were down a good bit on horsepower after they made us change the carburetor but we went out and got the biggest cam that was allowed by the rules and that picked the motor up quite a bit. Still, there are a few issues that we have to deal with to get the car back in top racing condition.

The Lucky 7 Sportsman car has been in mothballs for about 10 years. In it's day it was pretty fast and now I think we have it back up to where it should be for today's cars but there is one other thing that we have to work through and that is the age of the car. Every piece of rubber and all the sealant that was used to build the car many years ago is slowly deteriorating and each part seems to fail one right after the other. We get one leak stopped and another one develops. As we get one thing sealed up it creates more pressure at another place which causes that to leak or break. It's sort of like trying to catch spaghetti that is falling off your plate before it hits the floor while taking a sip of milk!

After we put the new cam in we had to break it in at the shop so we ran the car quite a bit at a higher RPM and didn't have any problems with leaks anywhere. Sure enough though, once we got to the track, everything started to fall apart.

When we got the car we noticed that the fuel line passed under the headers on its way to the fuel pump. It was wrapped in a reflective, fireproof cover but it sure looked like it would melt being so close to the heat like that. I guess this is one of those times when God gives you the wisdom but you decide you know more that he does so you don't use it.

In the first practice session, the motor was missing going down the straight aways so we started looking for an ignition problem. Then, we noticed something dripping under the car. After smelling it we realized we had a fuel leak. With a little more poking around we found a hole in the fuel line under that cover that was about the size of a dime. I don't know how the car ran like that. We replace the fuel line and put it back in the same place as it was and went out for the next practice.

When I got back to the pits it wasn't leaking anymore but it was still missing so we continued to look for an ignition problem. We replace the coil and went out again but it just got worse and now the motor was making so much noise it sounded like it had rocks in it.

When we took off the hood, we found it was leaking fluid again, but this time it was water. The upper radiator hose blew a hole in it so we ran down to the parts trailer and bought a new one and put it on. After that we kept looking around and found that the manifold gasket had blown a hole under the heat riser in the intake manifold that was supposed to be plugged up. That's where all the noise was coming from. It was like not have an exhaust pipe on that side. We made up a cover for the hole in the manifold and at the last minute my crew chief ran and got a longer piece of fuel line so he could re-route it around the headers.

The only problem now was that practice was over and we don't run heat races at New Smyrna anymore so I was looking at starting the feature race not knowing if the car was fixed or not. I went over and begged the officials for a few more laps of practice. They must have been watching us scramble over the car for the past 2 hours so they gave me a break and let me go out one more time. This time the car ran perfect and we were relived that we finally had all known problems fixed. At least for now.

I started 4th in the race and when we got to the start I missed a shift so it took me a few moments to get the car into 4th gear. That got us spread out a little but I was able to maintain 4th place. We ran the next 17 laps without a caution. I lost one position but got it back by passing another car. I was getting faster with every lap and I was running down the 3rd place car. He was pretty loose and when I got within a car length of him he tried a little too hard coming off turn 4 and spun out right in front of me. I started to lift as I always do but then I remembered what happened in the last race so I jumped back hard in the gas to get past him before he wrecked me. It worked! I made it past and the caution came out and then I lined up to restart the race in 3rd.

On the restart the same thing happened as before, I missed a shift again. This time I couldn't get into 4th gear at all. I had to mess around with it half way down the front stretch until it would go into gear and while all that was going on I lost the position I had just made up and one lapped car got by me too. I finally got the car going and I ran the last 3 laps all out. I made it past the lapped car but that's as far as I got so I started the race in 4th and came home in 4th as well. After the race the winner was disqualified so I was given credit for 3rd place.

Instead of doing my race report on Sunday like I usually do, I went to the shop and pulled the transmission out. Then, after school on Monday I ran it down to a guy to have him take a look at it. Turns out there is nothing wrong with the trans so the only other thing it could be is that the bell housing is not lined up right. We only have 2 more weeks in the racing season so I've got to get my cars back together. I'm hoping to get the Sportsman fixed so I can race again this coming Saturday and I think I'll have the Late Model back together too so I'm going to try to race them both.