Lady Luck Strikes on Friday the 13th

 And not-so-much on Thursday the 12th.   Lets recap events here in Las Vegas:

Wednesday - started 6th in our Heat Race,  finished second.   Nice.  Thus no need to run the B-Main, going straight to one of the two Main Events that night, where we started 16th (ugh), finished 19th.    It should be noted that only the top TWO finishers of each night's Main gets "a ticket" to the Championship Race on Saturday.

     Thursday - Started 8th in our Heat, finished 9th.  Went on to run one of the FOUR  B-Mains that night.  We made it about 100 yards in that one, when we were crashed out by another car.  Serious damage to the front of the car, somewhat less to other parts.  But bent the main frame rail on the right side.  So by now it's early morning, they decide we really need a frame shop machine to do it right.  A few hours later we load up everything into the hauler and they head the 15 miles or so to a shop in town. On arriving, they are told that they can do the work - "maybe next Wednesday".  Not gonna work, Casey explains, we have to race tonight.  Guy calls his boss, who says they can't pull workers off other jobs.

But he's evidently a former racer, asks Casey if he can do the work himself, and then offers to let them use their equipment.  And it happened.  Took a while to chain down the car and get stuff straight, then back to the track.

Now we have to replace damaged crossmembers, reposition the front of the frame boot, and weld everything back in place, then replace damaged steering pieces.

  Almost immediately on Casey's return to the track, a group of guys shows up to help.  They are metal workers from the Rapid City SD area that are in town to watch the races!  And friends of Casey and Wade!  Handy.  

Went to it, and had things in good shape within a couple hours.  These guys are good.   Really good.  Now there's some luck!

The old guy gets to work on the sheet metal body of the car.

Friday the 13th:  So we have worked all day on the car and fixed all of the damage from Thursday.  I had to check us in earlier in the day while the guys were working at the frame shop.  Also had to do the pill draw, which ended up putting us on the front row.  Now there's some 13th luck.  Casey ran good, jumped to the lead on the first lap and never gave it up.  Great Win!

Started our Main race in the #3 position, jumped right away to second and ran there a while (this would qualify us for the big race Saturday), but we got shuffled back on a couple of re-starts and ultimately finished 4th.  Good run, but not enough to get us to the big dance.

Tonight:  There will be 12 Heat races in the Modified division.  The winner of each of these gets to go to the big race later tonight.  The 2nd and 3rd runners go to a "Last Chance" qualifying race, where the top 6 win a spot in the big Main.     For us to get in, we've gotta get one of those spots.

Some Perspective:  This is a big race.  There are over 500 racers entered in three divisions - Modifieds, Northern Sport Modifieds, and Stock Cars - the number in each group being about 260, 140 and 120 respectively.

For all of the race events we have been to this year (about 50), with typically three race classes, the average nightly number of races is about eighteen to twenty.  Here at the Duel in the Desert they ran 64 races on Wednesday night, and then 56 on Thursday.  

This requires some real organization, and LVMS has it down.  They "pre-stage" the races outside of the track, then always have the next 2 upcoming races staged and ready in the track infield.  As one race ends it's participants immediately exit from turn 2. Simultaneously the next racers enter on the front straight while the next pre-stage group enters the infield from the back straight.  (If a driver fails to follow this precise pattern, he/she is disqualified from that race.  This happened to a guy that had just won, but failed to exit at turn 2.  Costly mistake.) 

This proceeds like clockwork and they don't fool around.  So much so that when we begin racing at 3:30 or 4:00 pm, we are finished with the night's racing by 1:00 or 2:00 the next morning.  Makes for long days and short nights, but it could be a LOT worse.

Hoping for a good outcome tonight.  Will let you know!

D & L   (Oh, by the way.  They're gonna add Late Models to next year's race.  Oh boy.)