Zero to Hero
Tuesday - May - 2019
The weather has been so off an on. Weekly, we stare at the computer or our phones checking for updated weather patterns. We caught a break as the weather stayed south and we loaded up for Lernerville on Friday.
Photo by Cody Darr
A horrible pill draw, 48 out of 50, lined us up last in the heat race. A good start got us to 3rd where we settled for the finish. It was enough for the feature redraw where we lined up 7th. We quickly made our way to 2nd and fell in line behind the leader for the beginning portion of the race. We showed good speed and focused on maintaining a close gap while we reached the spread out lapped traffic. An unfortunate incident on a lap 6 restart caused us to get very sideways on the exit of 4. I had the car saved but had to let it carry down across the track to avoid another driver. Sadly, the driver behind me had no where to go. He drilled our LR and snapped the axle instantly. We ended the night with a DNF, but with a lack of attendance at the speedway, our finish was 10th.
An early morning allowed us to get the car repaired. We replaced the rear end, checked the driveline for straightness. We were very lucky to escape without too much damage. After re-prepping the car, we loaded up to head to Sharon for a special $3000 to win race. We have been good at Sharon the last 2 visits. We have a fast time award there against the ASCoC and a 2nd place finish to Dale Blaney during a weekly show, however, we start struggling badly once the track slicks off. We have worked very hard to improve in situations like that but obviously can’t see our improvements until we went back.
Photo by Rick Rarer
It was our first race at Sharon this year and they were qualifying us in our hotlap session. I took a guess on the gear but missed it by 300 RPM. Nonetheless, the car was incredible and we went 2nd quick overall! Our laptime was good enough to automatically lock us into the top 10 feature redraw. We moved from 4th to 3rd in the heat race. Our real break came when we were pulled to start 2nd for the A-Main. The leader and myself set a quick pace to start the feature. I fell off around the midway point but moved around until I started picking up ground again. We passed back for 2nd and ran down the leader in lapped traffic. Our maneuverability allowed us to get through lap traffic well. We had a restart with 8 laps to go and pulled away for our first win of 2019 and first ever at Sharon!!
It was a huge win for our team and helped give us a strong boost of confidence going into next weekends Weikert Memorial Weekend at Port Royal. The money was important and will help us get back on track after the repairs from Friday night. The fan support from this past weekend was massive. We sold a ton of merchandise and met some incredible people.
Thank you Ferguson Heating and AC, Fence by Maintenance Service, Chernega Construction, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Red Robin Catering, Johnny Carpet, JD Byrider Monroeville Pennsylvania, Stanford’s Glass Service, Townsend Gas and Oil, Rising Six Crossfit, DMI Racing, Fluid Film, Smith Titanium, Bell Racing, INDY Race Parts, TBM Brakes, BMRS Hoses, Kinser Air Filters, KING Racing Products, Dr. Neff Eye Care Center, and the rest of my marketing partners for the continued support!
If anyone is interested in my Youtube vlogs and races, they can be found at www.youtube.com/CompleteChaos2
Merchandise can be found at https://aj-flick-racing.myshopify.com/
Thank you all for the continued support!