HayWire Racing’s BLOG

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.