Green
Bay, Wisconsin (June 28th, 2004)
SATURDAY’S
RACE: ROUND#5; BATTERY WOES, TOO HOT TO HANDLE!
It sure was a nice sign to see the sun shining again in good ole
Wisconsin. Finally Summer is here!
After a weekend off, Hintz and his crew found some flaws in the ring and
pinion during a normal maintenance check. Which lead to putting in a new ring
and pinion for the race weekend. "Crandon
is a unique track, with a very interesting start," says Hintz.
He is referring to the Oklahoma land style side by side rush start that
goes nearly a third of a mile to an off camber turn at over 90MPH.
"If you are out front you definitely have an advantage, the rest
have to try and drive blind through the first turn hoping not to hit anybody and
come out clean. My main goal is to
get through the first turn safely and finish the race."
Starting in the 16th position Josh elected to keep his starting spot and
took the green flag. "I had a
half way decent start and decided to file in, but going into the first turn I
was completely blinded, once I got through the dust and mud I was in about 11th
place or so." Josh fought his
way up to 7th position. "That’s
when I noticed my shift light and Tachometer wasn’t working properly, so I had
to shift by sound of the motor. It’s
not the easiest, then I looked at my oil temp. and saw that it was at 240 then a
half lap later it was 260!" Josh
decided with 2 laps to go to pull off, to save the motor.
He finished in 10th place.
"There is a lot of money invested in these motors and I’m going to
try my best to not blow one up." Back
in the pits Josh’s crew discovered that the battery wasn’t holding a charge
resulting in the electric fans failing to remove a proper amount of heat from
the engine. They replaced the
battery and changed the oil of which showed no major signs of damage to the
engine.
SUNDAY’S
RACE ROUND#6; UP IN SMOKE!
With a new battery, there wasn’t a problem with the tachometer during normal start up procedures. The motor ran strong and Josh had high hopes of a good finish. Coming out of the first turn in 11th and working his way up to 9th Josh was on the heels of 8th place twelve minutes into the fifteen minute race. When he was jumping over the Trac-Rite jump there was a sudden loss of power. "It sounded like somebody cut off my exhaust and took a major amount of my power away, then I heard my crew chief Glen Mathews come on the radio shortly after that telling me that he saw smoke coming out of the truck, I realized that the engine had blown and simply pulled off hoping to save some parts in the motor." Josh ended up finishing 15th out of 18 trucks that race. "I’m pretty bummed out right now, I feel like I can’t get this monkey off of my back so to speak. The motor only needed to last another three minutes, and then I had plans of getting it refreshened for the latter part of the year." After pulling off the air filter and seeing parts of the valve seat embedded in the foam of the filter, there was little doubt as to whether the engine head and block were junk.
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.