HayWire Racing’s BLOG

Wow, that was a fun night.

We started our race day with a very hot and slick track in early practice. Donny was doing ok though. He continues to get better each week. After a little practice and a few adjustments, we stuck Tommy in the #29 car to get some more feedback. Tommy had the car runnign pretty good, he wasn’t really nay faster than Donny, but he felt the car as more “race-able”. After putting Donny back in it we learned that he likes the car a bit different than Tommy and we had to undo a few things for him to be more comfortable in it. So we learned something there.

Donny started his heat race from the pole and was doing a right fine job of running away with it, when all of a sudden, right after the half way point, the throttle linkage fell off. Donny showed some quick thinking and pulled out of the way before causing any issues, but the race way taken from him rather quickly.

The main event saw Donny starting last. After thinking about the setup, the track conditions and so on, we made some adjustments to the car that ultimately proved to be way off. The track did not change the way we thought it would, in fact, I think it may have gone the other way. In the end, we sent Donny out with a car that was way too loose to drive. In the end, he could not keep it pointed the right way and his night was ended early. Not one of our better calls, but even Jeter misses a fast ball every now and then.

So after a long, hot night, we headed home a bit deflated. But there’s always another race.

Man, this crazy busy work schedule has really thrown me off. But let’s get back to the updates. . .

Last weekend the guys did an awesome job fixing up the #29 Street Stock. It looks as good as new. Bob did some seriously good body work on the door and rocker panel while Tommy did an amazing job patching up the nose piece. Those guys are really good at fixing up body work, maybe they’ve had too much practice! Anyway, huge props to them for the work they did there, the car looks great again!

Dad and I started getting the #68 Limited put back together. We did not finish it up yet though so there is still a lot to do there. I had to devote a little attention to a list of things that I had been ignoring for a while, but I think we will get back after it soon.

This coming weekend Donny will be racing the #29 Street Stock again. Hopefully we can continue that string of top-10 finishes he ahs built and keep improving on them. Not sure what Sunday will bring, maybe Dad and I can finish up the #68 Limited then. The following race we return to the track with it.

Well, it’s that time again, another weekend is upon us. As always, lots to do and not enough time already.

I think the main focus will be fixing the #29 Street Stock after Donny’s little soirée. There was some damage to the driver’s door, the quarter panel and the nose. but hey, Street Stocks are all about body damage. We’ll get it all fixed up tomorrow. Even through all the troubles, Donny managed to rally back to a top-10 finish after the wreck found him in last place on the restart. We continue to be very pleased with his progress and his finishes. Things are getting better and better with Donny and the #29 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Somewhere in there we need to find time to finish putting the #68 Limited back together. It’s been a pretty dismal year for our Limited program. But we are looking forward to returning to the track on the 31st of July. The car has showed a lot of promise but keeps failing to hold together. Rear end problems have been the big issue this season and we hopefully have that all worked out now. To say we are learning by the “trial by fire” method is an understatement. But I have faith that my guys will get on top of it before too long. So keep cheering for us, we aren’t done yet.

The #92 Late Model has been on hold for a while now, thus the lack of news regarding it and Tommy. The big thing is that Tommy has been dedicating his resources toward building a shop big enough to house the entire HayWire Motorsports operation. I want to take a moment to point out his selflessness and his dedication to the team. His commitment to build a shop where we can house everything we have in one location has put his entire season on hold and for that we owe him a huge thank you.

Till next time, stay tuned for more news and updates. . .

It was a very long weekend for me, and from what I understand the guys didn’t fare much better.

I spent my weekend working on the track crew for the NHRA Northwest Nationals, something my wife and her side of the family does every year so this time I joined them. I’ll get to that a bit later since what you really came here for was to find out how the race went, right?

I got some updates from Dad as I checked in all day. Sounds like Donny was looking pretty good in practice and the track was very hot a slick. Our typical thought is to go into a waiting stance and use the heat race to get it dialed in since the track will change a lot and chasing a hot track is of no use when it won’t be hot come race time. The heat race found Donny making a pass for the lead, something I love to hear about, when the leader decided better of it and for what ever reason the end result was Donny going around. Not what we were looking for, but what do can you do? The Main Event saw Donny start on the pole, have some early trouble that put him in the back after a pit stop to modify some damaged body panels and then racing his way back to 10th place for the finish. A top-10 is always good so we’ll hang our hats on that and look to the next race. It sounds like there will be some body work to fix before then but the car and driver seem to be getting better every time.

As for my weekend at the drag races, it was an up and down deal. I spent some time at the end of the track rolling up parachutes and pushing cars, kind of fun, but also tiring when it’s in the 95+ degree heat on a track surface that was pushing 140 degrees at times. I also got to spend some time handing out E.T. Slips after the runs. A lot more fun and less work but the guys who lose can be a bit pissy at times and they tend to direct it at you for some reason. I got to watch some awesome racing from some vantage points I’ve never seen before and I saw some things I never want to see again. There are times when things happen at the track that make you realize what we do is flirt with death on a regular basis. Racing is a dangerous sport. But so is driving to work in the morning. Make sure you spend your days doing what you love. You never know what tomorrow brings.

With that, I think I’ll sign off. Thanks for reading our blog, thanks for cheering for us and thanks for your support. Chat with you all in a day or two.

After a very good weekend, I’m happy to report some decent progress. Dad and I spent Monday working on the #68 Toyota Camry since we both had the day off.

We were able to make repairs to the chassis where needed and get the rear end housing mounted back in the car. This leaves us waiting on parts again before we can put the differential in, then axles, then hubs and so on. Things went pretty good over the weekend, I’m pretty happy with the progress we made. I wish we had more parts, but we needed to get it apart so we knew what we needed to order. Now the waiting game begins. I think we are looking pretty good right now. I’m looking forward to getting Humpty-Dumpty put back together again.

It looks like the end result was bearing failure in the pinion shaft caused by the rear end lube getting into the axle tube and starving the bearings of lube. Not sure how that happened, we’ve never had that problem before. But we will be taking steps to prevent it from happening again.

Stay tuned for mroe news and updates. . .