Much to like about performance in Tulare

While Seth didn’t walk away with the Trophy Cup this past weekend, the experience of driving two days against the top sprint car drivers, and matching them stride for stride leaves the team feeling confident for 2008.

Jason Meyers, who finished fifth in the World of Outlaw series this season finally broke is drought to take home the Trophy Cup from fellow World of Outlaw drives Joey Saldana and Shane Stewart. Saldana was the main attraction this weekend after finishing second on the World of Outlaw tour with twelve feature wins behind eventual champion Donny Schatz.

The weekend didn’t start well for Seth after a long journey down I-5 to Tulare, California. As we were getting ready to role out for hot laps the car began to sputter and wouldn’t re-fire. After closer inspection the team realized that the injection lines were blocked, and was causing the problem. After fixing the issue we were able to get the car out onto the track and post a qualifying time of 14.5 seconds, which was only good enough for 62nd out of 84 cars. This left us at the front of the grid for the second consolation heat, and significantly down the points table.

Seth regained his composure after a frustrating beginning to the evening and posted a wire to wire victory in the consolation heat. This put Seth on the second row of the D-Main final. With the car issues behind him, Seth drove a risk free race and posted a second place finish, which allowed him to transfer to the C-Main final.

It was in the C-Main that Seth showed the crowd what he was all about as he worked his way through the field from 22nd on the grid out of 24 cars to finish 4th and gain a transfer to the B-Main final. Seth passes on the top and bottom of the Tulare Thunder bowl brought applause from the crowd and the praise from the announcers as he put the earlier disappointment of the night behind him and headed into the B-Main final.

With 84 drivers competing at the Trophy Cup it was no surprise that the quality of the field in the B-Main was comparable to that of any A-Main feature around the country. Seth started at the back of the grid in twenty fourth, and was faced with the daunting task of fighting his way to fourth in order to qualify for the A-Main feature. At the beginning of the race it looked like Seth was going to be resigned to finishing at the back of the field due to the quality of the drivers, but Seth thought otherwise and started winding is way through the field. Unfortunately there were not enough laps left and Seth finished in a gallant 12th, which was a tremendous result considering where the night started.

Night 2 Summary

The points that were accumulated from night one allowed Seth to start on the pole in heat 1, and the opportunity to progress straight to the B-Main feature. Unfortunately the team had not accumulated enough points on Friday night to guarantee an automatic birth in the A-Main so Seth was going to have to work his way through the B-Main final in order to qualify for the main event.

Seth’s heat pitted him against some of the top drivers from night one which included Tim Kaeding, the 2006 Trophy Cup champion, Bud Kaeding and Andy Forsberg. Seth started the heat really well but a mistake on turn 4 resulted in him giving up the lead to eventual heat winner Brett Miller and Tim Kaeding. After being passed Seth drove a more aggressive line on the top of the Thunderbowl and finished third right behind Kaeding.

With an inverted grid for the B-Main final Seth landed in fourteenth position out of twenty two, and with work to do in order to qualify for the feature. Seth was feeling confident in the car after the heats, and we were feeling good about our chances of progressing through the transfer spot to the feature. What proved to be the unknown variable was time. Friday nights event had run horribly late so race organizers had told all the drivers that there were time restrictions for each race. Unfortunately for the team poor race official planning earlier in the night resulted in the B-Main finishing after eight laps instead of twenty due to a wreck out of turn two. Seth ended up finishing the race in tenth and was left feeling frustrated and with thoughts of what could of been as the car was running fast at the conclusion of the race.

While the team didn’t end up running in the feature on Saturday night we were very proud of the way Seth drove the car considering how the weekend started. He showed a lot of maturity in the face of adversity and got everything he could out of the car. We are eagerly waiting for the start of the NSCS season in April 2008.