Fall Out from Delaware

In my Delaware summary a couple of weeks ago, I reported that the car took a big hit on the inside wall of the front stretch, ending the night for us. At the time it looked like the car would be OK from the spring pockets back but after striping the car and trying to re-jig it, it will need a little more work.

Kevin had to cut out the cross-member along with the front lower a-arm mounts. While it wasn't bent into a pretzel, the mounts were off enough that it would have been a different car. Had we more races to run, it may have worked the way it was, but since it's the off season for us we'll put it back to where it was and know what we have. Higher res shots are now located further up.

After a three event LOSC season, we need to thank the people that helped get us to the track. To Moes Mechanical (519-792-3734) for coming on board for some tires and shop use, L.A. Collision for car paint and related help and Leitch Performance Engines for helping us stay in the game. As well, we'd like to thank the Robblee's again for the good used tires they gave us for Delaware, much appreciated and you are a great representation of the teams out there.

Brad has also been a tremendous help to Kevin this year and just happens to be a great 'kid' (I can call him that because he's younger than me). Nic and Korey helped out when time permitted, Joey McColm also lent a hand as spotter when he could, which is appreciated, and Fleetham sports photography for taking some shots @ Mosport.

The results may not show it to everyone, but we feel it was an excellent year for this 'shoestring' operation. The car did what we wanted when adjustments were made and proved to be very competitive. With some additional resources, we're confident it's a top 5 car. Let's hope we can attend more races in the ???? series next year. ;)

Thanks for taking the time to read the Trevellin Motorsports Blog, we'll try to throw some tidbits of info in here during the off season so be sure to keep an eye on it. GO FAST, TURN LEFT!

Video From Delaware

The video is from a Sony Mini DV camcorder that does pretty poorly at night as you may well imagine. At any rate, here's about half the footage Brad shot (the rest is too repetitive for everyone). The Raabe/McGlynn incident is near the 4 minute mark and Kevin's pit lane interview is at the end. It's a smidgen over 6 minutes. Enjoy it for what it is.

Delaware Summary

Well, the LOSC McColl Racing 100 is in the books and so is our season.

First off, thanks to the Robblee's for scrounging up some good used left sides for us, we only had enough to buy two new rights and our 'stockpile' of good used lefts were done.

Now that that's out of the way, we started the day by slapping on the Hoosiers and heading out for practice. After two sessions, we ended up moving the bar down a total of 3 turns. The car re-acted as expected to those changes, with Kevin reporting the car as racey and satisfied with what we had.

He then proceeded to qualify 16th. Blah!!! In his defence, qualifying turned into a hurry up due to the program being behind schedule and instead of rolling out 6th, he went out 2nd and he never really had a chance to get into a 'qualifying' mindset. No problem, we know the car is better than that. :)

The first 50 starts off great as Kevin and the crew realize the car works great in the high line of turns 1 and 2. He moves up a number of spots and around lap 10, drops the left side tires off the track in turn 3 and reports a problem as a result. The car ends up on pit road under green and we fix the problem and check out the car while we're there, losing a handful of laps. Returning to the fray, Kevin felt out the car to make sure it was OK and decide to save his stuff for the second 50. We finished 16th.

We moved the bar down another turn for the second 50 which starts out much better for us. A first lap caution puts us into 8th from a 16th place start. Kevin lost a few spots on the following re-start and was in the process of working back past those cars. After clearing the #68 of Tony Bawden coming off turn 2, the #11 of Cole Weber (fast qualifier) got into us going into turn 3. The resulting spin put us in the back of the pack, to be joined by the #11 before the re-start (we assume the NSCA sent him back). Cole came down and apologized after the race, which was appreciated.

Wait, the chaos isn't over yet. Some laps later, the #12 of Mark Patrick ends up in the wall in turn 3, and is upset at Kevin for a reason we have yet to figure out. I did not personally see the event, but Kevin assures me he came down on our car going into turn 3 and took himself out. He apparently felt differently about it and proceeded to tell Kevin he was number one, in sign language if you know what I mean.

The final moment occurred a short time later while making a pass on the #10 of Mitch Brown. I'd have to see a re-play to know for sure what happened but the left rear corner has lots of white paint transferred to it and it certainly LOOKED like he turned Kevin coming off turn 4. The ensuing fish tailing resulted in a typical Bristol style inside wall hit.

The suspension pick-up points appear to be good but forward of the springs may have a little bend, we'll have to jig the car to find out for sure. We spent the rest of the 50 getting the car to a loadable state but from all accounts, the boys continued to wreck without us and finished 12 or 13 cars.

I have some video to go through this week and hopefully will be able to post a clip by next week-end, keep an eye out for it.

We're done for the season but we'd like to thank Moe's Mechanical (519-792-3734), L.A. Collision, Leitch Performance Engines and Border City Stunts for your support!