It was a beautiful day at Ona Raceway today for racing as the heavens granted us a day without rain... finally. The stands were packed full to the brims and were actually overflowing with people actually having to be sent to the pit area due to lack of room in the grandstand area. The crowd attendance was outstanding but the car count was not as high as we all would have liked. Hopefully throughout the next few weeks more cars will begin to show as they learn that that the place is being run different from the past.
Jake started the day off with television interviews and meeting old friends from onas past. Jake was excited to be back as he told cameras and just hoped for the best with three seperate Jake Keaton Racing cars running in the nights events. Jake ran decent during practice but smoke poured from the back of the Keatons Collision Center Monte Carlo just like the practice before on Friday night. At first it was thought to perhaps be the same problem as before but was soon found to be that a valve cover had cracked some and was causing the leak which was repaired as well as it could be for the race. After that it was racetime for Jake. He started on the outside pole and quickly jumped in behind the leader. For the next 15 lpas Jake trailed the leader and was all over his tail just waiting for a mistake. The fans cheered as the top 3 ran nose to tail in an exciting race. But on lap 16 the leaer got loose coming out of turn 2 and Jake rocketed by on the outside. It was later found that the leaders trailing arm broke causing him to have to pull out of the race. Jake, fighting a tight race car, knew that he would have to keep it on the bottom to win, and he did just that narrowly holding off friend Alan Rohrig for his first feature victory. Congratulations to Jake on a job very well done.
Going into his first race today Kris wanted to just take it easy and finish the race to gain experience. Kris started 5th and quickly got to the bottom after the start where he fought a tight car all night but stayed with the lead group through most of the race when a mandatory caution stuck him restarting on the outside. He lost 5th with 4 laps to go when he almost lost it off of turn 4 but did an amazing job of hanging on to it and captured a 6th place finish in his very first race. Great job to Kris for hanging on to it and finishing his first race ever.
Dustin's day started off with a miss, literally aftter problems arose in practice. The car had a miss which obviously was detrimental to horsepower and straightaway speed. After further observation it was found that a rocker arm had broken. Charlie and the crew worked diligently to replace the arm hoping to get all fixed before the feature event came. They finally finished in a show of amazing know how with time to spare before the big race. Dustin started on the pole in the Classic event but was shot past before the green flag and rode in 2nd till the very end. Honest to say he didn't think that was start was fair and will just hope to get them next week at Ona Raceway.
Finish: 1st