Green
Bay, Wisconsin (June 14th, 2004)
SATURDAY’S
RACE, ROUND #1; HOT SEAT!
One of the rules that CORR has set in place is that all rookies have to
start in the back for the first round of racing.
So Josh never got to try his luck of the draw for the first race.
Being that this is Josh’s first professional race, he felt that it was
wise to start in the back until he feels more comfortable with the truck.
During the race Josh would come into certain corners and shifting the
truck like the buggy would snub out the motor, which in turn cut off the power
steering which Josh says, "It is a bear to drive, plus you have to be
almost HeMan to muscle the truck and turn it."
After the third time of snubbing out Josh mistakenly pumped the gas pedal
while trying to refire the engine, which in turn at the same instance backfired
into the air filter that ended up catching on fire.
Josh decided to bail out and pull his Halon fire extinguishing system.
Not the cheapest thing on earth, not to mention nobody really carries any
extra bottles in the pits with them.
"This isn’t what I expected for the first time out, hopefully this
was just a fluke and it won’t happen again." says Josh "Right now
I’m more concerned about how I should drive the truck and finding a
suppression system for the next two races on Sunday."
Fortunately for Josh his brother M.J. also races and happened to have a
spare bottle of which their parents picked up in DePere, Wisconsin that night
and brought it up on Sunday morning.
SUNDAY’S
FIRST RACE ROUND #3; FIRE IN THE HOLE!
Due to more rain, the track was shortened, and the "back forty"
was all but beachfront property. With
nearly one half hour before the race is to start Josh’s parents brought up the
much needed Halon fire bottle to the track.
Thanks to the pit crew they successfully mounted up the bottle as quick
as possible to get Josh out and racing. "Hopefully
we don’t need that today." Unfortunately
they may have well cursed themselves by saying that.
The truck seemed to run alright up to the staging area, but when Josh
went to refire the engine before the race, it backfired again which in turn
started yet another fire, but at least Josh learned what type of fire it was, so
he wisely decided to use his secondary fire extinguishing bottle and put out the
small fire. "This is very
frustrating, I should be out there racing right now, I know that we will figure
out the problem and get back on track, there still is a long season ahead of us,
its just unfortunate for my sponsors."
Unfortunately Josh had to Scratch that race.
SUNDAY’S
SECOND RACE ROUND #4; IGNITION! IGNITION! IGNITION!
With the second race still to
come Josh needed an answer and quickly found out from former owner, friend, and
competitor Chad Hord and Engine builder Jeff Probst, that the newer style of
Electromotive ignition box "might be losing count"
and that either advances or retards the spark to the spark plugs.
So by simply borrowing "until needed back," Chad graciously
lent Josh his spare ignition pack. Once
installed, the truck started right up without even having to turn over once,
which wasn’t the case prior to that. "It
always seemed to wanna turn on, but I had to give it a little bit of gas to get
it going, now with this ignition pack, I feel confident that I won’t have
anymore problems with spark to the engine.
I guess in this situation, the newer model wasn’t the better way to
go." Once again Josh elected
to start in the back of the field. With
the start of the drop of the green flag Josh did his best snubbing out once in
the tight turn then eventually got lapped by Art Schmitt of which he followed
learning the proper line to drive and knocked a clear 8 seconds off his lap
time, just by following a well known veteran in the class.
We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their support...
Dedicated Systems, Inc., Dedicated Repair, Inc., BF Goodrich tires, Halron
Oil Co., Inc., Quaker State, Powermist racing fuels, Engine Ice
hi-performance coolant, Sir Speedy of Green Bay, Captain Steve's
www.beercanchickenroaster.com, Jim & Tina Willison Trucking, TOYOTA along
with Josh's friends and family.