HayWire Racing’s BLOG

Blogging on the go again, this time I’m rolling down I-5 with the wife.

Well, we unloaded the car today. That was about as far as we got though. The guys were hauling scrap to the recycle center. We did formulate a plan to fix the #68 car so I’m kind of excited about that. Now that we have a plan we can start ordering parts and getting it put back together.

Now, back to my quality time with the wife.

Well, not much of a preview this time. We will be missing the race date due to mechanical problems. We still haven’t had time to fix the car after our last outing. I’m still worried about money to fix it anyway. Once we get it apart we will know the extent of the damage. Tomorrow morning we will unload it and get it apart. Where we go from there is yet to be seen.

As for me, I’m blogging from work, it’s been a long week and now I’m out’ta here! Peace!

A belated Happy Father’s Day to all of you out there, especially mine.

I spent my Father’s Day displaying the #68 KMB design / Hargis Engineers / Print-NW / Ringers Gloves / Cornwell Tools  Toyota Camry at the Imagine Children’s Museum in Everett, Washington. A bit of a drive for us but well worth the trip. It was a typical day in the Northwest, a light misty rain falling all day. It was just enough to keep the crowd to a minimum, but it is always fun to meet some race fans and some future racers and even more fun to meet the kids as they are out with their Dad for the day. A lot of photo taking, autograph signing and general discussions about race cars, rules and all that goes into it. The kids all love to sit in the car and the parents are always happy when you tell them the kids can climb in. I also got to meet a few fellow racers I have only talked to on the internet, so that was a bonus too.

In the end it was a long day after a very long drive home in some really crappy traffic, but I am very happy I participated in this great event. I’m already looking forward to next year and hoping for better weather.

As for the car, we will get it unloaded soon and start looking into what happened in that rear end and then start planning on how we are putting it back together. Hopefully it isn’t too bad, but I think it isn’t too good either. We’ll keep you posted. In the mean time, there’s always Donny and the #29 Oldsmobile Cutlass to cheer for. If we can ever get this rain to stop. I thought it was summer now. . . .

Wow, can’t believe I didn’t blog all week. Kinda got busy doing some other stuff there. Anyway, back at it. . .

To review our last week out for those who didn’t follow us on Twitter or Facebook, we struggled early in practice but eventually got pretty good and then ultimately broke again. Early practice was beginning to look like an exercise in futility. I think I actually keyed the radio and said “I give up” at one point. We must have made over a dozen changes to the car, everything from different springs to wedge to panhard bar, and none of it seemed to do anything at all. Finally we hit on something that made a lot of difference, so from that point on we just did a lot more of that until we finally had a car I could race.

Qualifying found us right around the middle of the pack for the first Main Event, 7th out of 16. Not too bad. The car was already faster than our old car so that was good, but I could tell that there was a lot left in it. The engine wasn’t running right and it still wasn’t quite where I wanted the setup to be. But mid-pack, that’s a good place to start out.

We started the Main Event inside of row 4 and I quickly found myself in trouble as a fellow competitor was passing me on the outside. He wasn’t quite clear as we came off the turn and he cut lower than I expected. The end result was that he went around, a nice clean dump, and I was sent to the back of the longest line for the ensuing restart. Not what I wanted, but that’s racing. After the green I went back to work to try and make up some ground. Somewhere around lap 10 the rear end came apart. I knew when I set it in the turn something wasn’t right. I heard some strange noise coming from it and felt a vibration I hadn’t felt before. I remember thinking to myself “That ain’t right” and then when I got on the gas coming off the turn it let go pretty big, ending our day.

We got to sit and watch the second Main Event. I know I speak for my entire crew when I say that we are tired of watching the races.

As for this coming weekend, lots going on. Donny will return to Southsound Speedway for another Street Stock race and hopefully continue his string of top-10 finishes. He has been slowly getting better every week and we look forward to that trend continuing.

Along with the weekend racing action, we will be displaying the #68 Toyota Camry at the Imagine Children’s Museum ‘Racin Rally’ car show – June 20th, 10am to 4pm – Come see local drivers and their winning rides – Special appearances by Tow-Mater and Lighting McQueen – Imagine Children’s Museum, 1501 Wall Street, Everett, Washington  98201 – http://www.imaginecm.org/. We hope to see some of you there. Be sure to stop by and say hi.

Here we go again! It’s raceday here in the pacific northwest!

Finally, we have some great weather, the sun is  shining, it’s nice and warm. It’s about time! Today we head back to Southsound Speedway, the track that has pretty much kicked me in the teeth all season.  So I head back there looking for a little redemption. Donny has been doing very good over his last two races, so I’m hoping that maybe some of that will carry over into my car. The car seems like it will be great, once we get past all of it’s little quirks. It’s a little temperamental, but aren’t they all? The driver seems to need a little work still. But we will get there.

Today is also a Twin Main Event day. Having had the season I’ve had so far, I’m just looking to get through the night in one piece. Two races is even harder. So keep your fingers crossed. I need to have a decent night, my team deserves so much better than the results I’ve posted so far.

See you all at the track!