PRESS RELEASE:
TOPEKA, KANSAS
Green Bay, Wisconsin (July 10, 2005)
With another short two weeks between races, Josh and crew had some issues to address, first off getting a new set of headers built and the proper way to permanently mount the ignition box out of the heat of the headers. “I made a shroud the fit around the ignition coil which oddly enough looks like an aardvark, hey it may not be aesthetically pleasing but it will do what we need it to do.” Josh and limited crew arrived in Topeka on Thursday afternoon for the Friday and Saturday night races under the lights. “It was said in the drivers meeting that nobody could run headlights, but what I was running was KC Hilights, a little loop hole that I want to exploit, they said it screws up the Television cameras.” Josh wired up the lights on top of his truck for their debut at night.
FRIDAY’S RACE, ROUND #7;
SPUN OUT – CLAY ISSUES!
The weekend was normally hot as it was last year down in Kansas on a common July Night. “talk about hot,” says Josh looking at Steve Federico’s models over at his pits…”oh I mean the weather, yeah that’s it!” Josh started in the 7th row on the inside lane of the2x2 start. “as the green flag fell I had a great launch and made my way up to about 9th or 10th when on the back section I was mid air when I saw everybody stacking up in front of me.” Hintz referring to Chad Hord’s truck Stalled in the race line. “All I could do is try to stop mid air, which I couldn’t as I finally got slowed down enough I ended up getting hit from behind, I thought I was going to roll it, but fortunately I didn’t. The truck stalled out and finally I got it re-fired.” Josh was the last one running on the lead lap. “I knew I needed to make up time on this small track so I tried to air out the truck going out off of turn one, once you land you have to get slowed down for a 180 degree left hand turn. As I flew the farthest off of the jump, I landed which bottomed out the truck, when I went to push the brake pedal and clutch, it felt like I couldn’t push the pedals, like they didn’t even move.” When the truck bottomed out the skid plate that runs under the bottom of the truck opened up and a giant chunk of Good ole Topeka Clay wedged itself behind the Clutch and Brake pedals. “So for about 3 laps I was shifting without a clutch or a brake, finally I fished out a chunk of clay so that I had the pedals again, but unfortunately the piece kept bouncing around and hitting my legs, not to mention rolling up and hitting the back of my feet when I was on the brakes.” Josh ended up finishing a respectable 12th place that night. “I’m wondering to myself is this luck ever going to change for me?” In all the years of racing even SPEED said they have never heard of such an event happening to a driver before. “Well if SPEED wants to see some fluke issues have them follow me around, it seems like I have the worse luck of anybody this year.” Said Josh.
Starting on the inside of row number 7 again Josh had a great start and was making it 4 wide when Javier Sacio, “the crazy Mexican” was assisted into a full spin by Don Ponder, off of the first jump. “I know I was close to Javier, but I don’t think I hit him, my spotter got on the radio and told me that I had received a black flag for spinning out the #35 (Javier). I told them it wasn’t me!” Said Josh. In CORR if you don’t take your black flag penalty they quit scoring you after the 3rd lap. So Josh reluctantly gave up his 8th place run to adhere to a black flag penalty. “as I came out of the penalty box I followed the leader, Kyle LeDuc for about 4-5 laps before Kincaid was on my heals and I didn’t want to interfere with the front runners and got out of their way. I was so mad that on the last lap I turned on my lights as a protest to the call of which got the entire crowds attention.” Not only did he get the crowds attention but also a photo on OFFROAD.COM. Josh finished in 13th position. After the race was completed Josh asked for a review of the black flag. “Terry Severson came up to me as we were packing up the stacker trailer, and informed me that CORR did make a wrong decision and gave me two points for what they feel as though I would have gained if I wouldn’t have came in for the black flag. I just wish that these guys would watch what they are doing a little bit closer instead of making a bad call. I know that its hard sometimes and the officials are stressed as it is, at least I got a little something out of it, but who knows I could have been even further up in the finishing order if I wouldn’t have taken the black flag. Kind of a catch twenty two, Oh well this is a little bit of a hard pill for me to swallow, I know I have a truck that is just as fast as the front runners I proved that by staying behind Kyle for that long, just some rotten luck and bad calls can change a lot on the outcome of a season.”
The 2005 CORR Lucas Oil Series will head to Bark River, Michigan on August 13-14 in what will be rounds 9 and 10 of the 2005 CORR Lucas Oil Pro Series.