Rainy Weekend

It's a good thing there wasn't money in my wallet Friday, so I skipped out on Black Rock...turns out they rained out before features. Still, Saturday I couldn't resist; I had to see a race. So, keeping an eye on the radar and websites, I decided I'd gamble on it and go to Woodhull. Right before I left I called the track...no rain there yet. (As I'm sitting in my car getting rained on). It rained all the way there. We got to the track and the place was packed anyway. The way the radar looked the rain was moving on by, so we went in and sat down.

Was good fun watching the packer cars struggle to stay on the high banks while they were so slick. They got it worked in a bit, and then some real tires rolled out; the modifieds. They ran hot laps for the mods and went right into heats. Car and fan counts didn't seem to be suffering much, even on a rainy April night. 33 modifieds in the pits and stands pretty nicely filled. On a night when most tracks would lose their ass, Woodhull seemed to do fine. On to the racing.

In the sportsman heats, the pink #17 (sorry, dont know drivers in that neck of the woods) just plain stomped everyone. The 358 modified heats were a bit more heated. Both of the VanPelts looked very fast, along with Dylan Dewert, Gil Tegg, and the rest of the usual suspects in the T3 All Star Series. All except for Ray Bliss in the 27z who just was not with the front runners, having to go to the consi after entering Woodhull 3rd in T3 points after his finish at Black Rock. In super stocks, Bruce Miller's car looked fast as a late model hooking the cushion and three wheeling like crazy. That bit him when he went around the high line and was hit by the driver below him. It must have damaged the suspension because he was done for the night. In the second heat, Dave Miller and Larry Knowles both looked fast, with Knowles taking the win. Some awesome 3 and 4 wide racing was seen in the RWD 4 cylinder class, great stuff to watch. Then came the features...

The sportsman feature started off well, with the pink #17 starting deep; somewhere around 1oth I think. So it was cool to watch him. Then he went off the track under a caution and lost a few laps before returning. Larry Keegan went on to win the sportsman feature and was awarded the final starting position in the T3 358 feature. The 358 feature started off wildly with a big pileup on the backstretch. Involved was #2 Billy VanPelt. After a trip to the pits, VanPelt started dead last with a noticeably bent right front. (TONS of negative camber going on). Going back green, he wasted no time trying to get back to the front. The race turned into a caution fest, with little more the 3 lap long runs. Still, VanPelt was flying. In one three lap run he got by 6 cars. It was awesome to watch. After so many cautions, officials decided to cut the race to 30 laps rather than 40. Now midway, Billy VanPelt was still on the move, working all the way to 3rd before disaster struck. In turn one he hit a rut just right and broke the bead on his left rear, ending his night. With the #2 gone, attention turned back to the battle for the lead. Ridiculous amount of cautions aside, Dylan Dewert and Curt VanPelt had a great battle for the win until a restart right near the end of the race where it seemed VanPelt ran out of gas. From then on, it was Dylan Dewert. The super stocks came out to race their feature and piled them up on the first lap when the 2nd place runner spun in front of the field. There was one more restart and another caution...then the rain came back. The drivers gave track officials the thumbs up, but when they went back to green it was obvious the track was far too slick.

Anyway, it was a decent night of racing. I had forgotten what an awesome track Woodhull is. The track was about perfect aside from one rut in turn one. Nearly zero dust too. The T3 All Star race was a bit of a problem, with it taking over an hour to finish 30 laps, but I still got to see some great battles and some insane driving in the Woodhull bowl, so it was $12 well spent.