Saturday, April 5, 2008

USAC at Eldora Postponed; McDowell's Wild Ride at Texas

I'm sitting in Tallmadge, Ohio this morning outside Akron, feeling the disappointment of another weather related racing delay. I thought I'd had enough rain delays in 2007 but it's bitten me again with Eldora Speedway's announcement that the USAC sprint car show has been postponed. The track website list Saturday May 10th for the make-up date for the event, which also happens to be Pole Day at Indianapolis for the 500. So I'll drive back to Indy today with no pix to show for it. The good news is I got to spend some time with my Mom and help her with some items around her property. So I guess I'll just pack up later and start thinking about the ARCA show at Salem next weekend.

Speaking of ARCA, my man Michael McDowell, last year's ARCA rookie of the year, had a horrific tumble at Texas yesterday but walked away unscathed. I don't know all the details but I am positive something broke on the car, as my experience with him has been he doesn't make mistakes that get him in that kind of trouble. He rarely put a scratch on his ESR cars last year in ARCA, so it seems unlikely he would have had this problem without mechanical failure, especially since he was already locked into the Sprint Cup race lineup. But I could be wrong. His teammate Reutemann qualified very well (he had to) so maybe Michael was trying a little too hard to get into the top 10. You don't mess with the fast Texas track though, so perhaps we chalk this one up to a rookie mistake. He'll start with a provisional tomorrow so I hope he can make a charge from 40th in his backuo. He needs to stay in the Top 35 in owner points and I think he'll recover from this and be strong tomorrow and in the weeks ahead.

Here's a link to the video posted on YouTube:



Talk soon.

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