Update #25 Race #40, #41 & #42

KJ Motorsports
Update #25
Race #40, #41 & #42

By Kenny Johnson
08 Sep 2010

Well, best grab a snack and a drink, for this may be a long one! Thursday we went to WVMS for a rain out race from back in May. We started 7th and made our way up to 3rd. But we were having an issue with the car smoking for we had sucked a valve cover gasket. You see, our engine is very tired and worn out and is way overdue for a freshen up. Because the rings are so worn it creates a lot of crankcase pressure and that pressure has to go somewhere. I was watching my gauges very close, so close that I missed my marks in turns 3 and 4 and was passed by Chris Stotts on the last lap, so we finished 4th. All in all I was pretty happy with the run.

Friday we went back to WVMS for $2,000 to win. 40 some cars showed up and we set 8th fastest time to start us outside pole of the 4th heat. Because the engine was a little sluggish I decided to put more gear in it. It did bring the car to life and we won the heat race. Started 4th in the feature and moved right into 3rd behind Jr. Nolan and Jared Landers. Jr. dropped out with overheating problems and Jared Landers was sent to the tail for spinning a lap car. This put us in the lead and surprisingly we went on to get win #16 for the year. I never would have thought we’d get a win against the competition that was there and to be honest, if Jr. or Jared would not have had bad luck, we probably would not have won. But we’ll take the win for sure!

After cleaning up the oil mess again on Saturday, we went back to WVMS. We set 10th fastest time and they inverted the top 4 in each heat. This put us right where we wanted to be on the outside pole. We started right beside car owner Jr. Nolan and we took it into turn 1 just a little deeper than he did and that got us the lead and we went on to get the heat win. This started us 3rd in the feature and the inside line was not the ideal place to be. We fell to 6th place before we got to the high side. Once on the high side we started getting the car going good and we passed for 5th and was reeling in 4th, when I had to pull off because the oil pressure was fluctuating from all of the blow by the engine has. I feel we could have gotten a top 5, but we still have races to run this year and I definitely did not want to hurt the engine.

Again had an oil mess to clean up and get things ready for the 100 lapper, $10,000 to win show at Tyler County. They had 60 some cars and was group qualifying. We sure had a tough group of cars with names like Bobby Kitchens, Rick Aukland, Dave McWilliams and Corey Conley. We were 4th fastest in our group, but we were all close. They inverted the top 4 and that put us starting on the pole. Now here is where I made a HUGE mistake. With the track being slick I used our Skyline mentality on tire choice and we went soft on tires. Well, that was totally wrong and it costs us big time, for we wound up finishing 5th in the heat race. Very big mistake! We started 7th in the consi and finished 5th. They were only taking the top 3, but we knew all along that we had a provisional for the high AMRA point man. So we got in the show started 23rd and at one point were in 7th. But we had changed 2 tires at different times along the way and wound up finishing 10th. All in all a respectable run and I was very pleased with the car and set up once we got the right tires on it. Along with the help of Cooper, I want to thank Louie Krushansky’s and Mike McPherson’s crew for their help during the feature. Coop could not have done it by himself.

All in all a pretty decent weekend, although it feels like it took a year or so off my life, for it was a very tiring weekend. This weekend Skyline is running on Saturday and this will be the last point s race and if all goes well, I think we will win the points championship at Skyline. Skyline will be our only race this weekend. So we hope to see you there! For those that read our newsletters, we are now searching for sponsorship for 2011. If you have a contact or know of a business that would be interested in advertising with our race team, please get a hold of me.

Remember! To make this work, support those that support us!

Thanks again for your support, KJ