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Lid Lifter at Lowes ... | More >> | 2004 Recap Archive | 2003 Race Archive

Start - 10th | Competitors - 21| High - 3rd | Low - 15th | Finish - 11th | analyzer report

The Lowes spring race has the unique characteristic of being the longest race of the season. 160 laps of an online game is a long race and for the AMSOIL Chevy the race got even longer with 115 laps in the books. Like each race this season the ECI Express found itself mid pack after a decent qualifying run. The last couple of races has not been well attended and a large field over twenty showed up to take the green.

Factor in hot conditions, a setup that's a bit on the loose side, and twenty hungry drivers and you have the mix for a caution laden event. True to form this race had eight cautions but the first seventy laps went mean and green. What followed was a race that muddled on with cautions interspersed about every fifteen laps or so.

The AMSOIL Chevy was competitive and actually finished the race with the fastest lap on record. However while challenging for eighth position Kevin broke loose on the bottom slid across the groove and tried to gather the car together. Meanwhile, behind him teammate Dan Bailey checked up to allow Kevin to recover and was clipped by Tim Wortman. Tim and Dan piled into the second turn wall and both Inglin and Bailey got airborne with Inglin sliding almost half the distance of the backstretch on his roof.

Limping along, the car actually resembled Dale Earnhardts' Goodwrench Chevy from Daytona several years back. There wasn't a straight panel on the car but it ran and Kevin finished the race only one lap down in eleventh.

Kevin Inglin, the pilot of the AMSOIL Chevy had this to say after the run:

One doesn't wish to offend Humpy Wheeler and I know it's sacrilegious to down the Lowes Motor speedway but you could close the doors tomorrow and I wouldn't complain.

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Lid Lifter at Lowes... | << back | 2004 Race Archive | 2003 Race Archive

To me the track is like a parking lot. Maybe it's just the game but Lowes has no character. You arc the car in and plant the throttle. The only challenge is not arcing the car wrong and hitting the fence on exit. Other than that, it kinda boring if you ask me.

We weren't having a stellar run when we got on our lid. I was riding in eighth and trying to stay with the lead back. I charged under Glen Brown and clipped the apron. It unsettled the car terribly but I was in the outside groove and would have collected the car. Next thing I knew everyone was piling in and I was on my roof sliding down the backstretch. I had a lucky rabbit's foot taped to the dash and found it in the collar of my suit when the car righted itself on the wheels. For a minute there I thought they were going to have to turn me back over. I was shocked when the car fired up and I brought it back to the pits and our AMSOIL Aces patched it up and sent me on my way.

One can only guess where we would have landed had we not slipped up. I don't think I was fast and the connection was pretty spotty tonight so I was giving as much room as I could. Again it cost me as I probably wouldn't have clipped the apron if I didn't have to squeeze so low. This coming week they're going to give me two-way cable modem and maybe, just maybe we won't have to comment about how awful our connection is any more.

We go to Dover next week. I've had some good runs there and I have some bad ones. We'll have to take what's given to us and go with it. We've been having a decent year over in the trucks so take a moment to go check out our stats.

Until next week... "