The 2nd race of the season at Ona Raceway took place today with cool and cloudy weather. It felt like rain the entire night but mother nature held off.
Jake was pretty excited with the car from Thursday and was hoping for it to still handle somewhat as well even though rain earlier had washed most of the rubber off the track. Jake went out for practice and ran some pretty good lap times but the fluttering had come back from the previous week. Jake also said the car was still tight and he just couldn't keep it on the bottom. We made a few changes to try and fix the fluttering and tightness before the feature event. For the feature event Jake would have to start on the tail from where he won last weeks race. Jake quickly moved his way up to 3rd where he ran behind the car that he passed last week for the win. When the mandatory caution came out with 5 laps to go Jake found himself restarting on the outside and was able to hold his position and begin to edge his way into second when the car underneath him got loose in turn 3 and spun. He clipped Jake in the process spinning Jake into the turn 4 wall backwards. The rear decklid and bumper along with some of the left quarter panel was torn off and we'll have to replace all the braces that were in the back. Jake ran the rest of the race and wound up 4th at the end. Needless to say that even though the car is a little torn up we were all happy with how fast Jake was.
Kris had an awesome run Saturday night also. He started 3rd and fell to 5th on the start. After a few laps in Kris decided it was time to go so he began taking the car high and moved his way up to 2nd by passing 3 cars on the outside. We were all loving it as well as the crowd and then coming out of 4 he got together with Tom Bailey and they spun down the frontstretch. Kris got it goin again and started on the tail. He quickly took to the high side right after the green and passed one car but then lost it coming out of turn 2. Once again he was at the tail for the restart. He passes a couple cars and got in behind his teammate Dustin Beckelheimer. Dustin went to pass Tom Bailey but was run into the grass causing a spin that sent Bailey sideways across the track leaving Kris with nowhere to go. Kris T-boned Bailey and shoved the front bumper through the radiator. Kris had t sit out the rest of the race. We were all excited to see how fast Kris's car was though and hope that we can make it better for him next week.
Dustin started 5th right behind Kris and just took his time the whole race and stayed out of trouble. Dustin was in 3rd when he went to pass Tom Bailey and was run into the grass. Tom spun out but Dustin's car had the toe knocked way out on it and in turn was not able to continue racing at race pace. It was a rough night for all three Jake Keaton Racing machines but there was still hope in the air from all the great performances everyone put on. We'll see you next week at Ona Raceway.
Finish: 4th