#73 Larry Barnett: Recap of Race 1

You would think that these two cousins are talking about racing...I overheard the conversation, however. LB: "Mike, you look great - I can't believe you've lost 73 pounds." Mike: "Thanks, LB. You don't look quite as good after losing 0." ahahahaha

The short story is that LB didn't qualify for the 100-lapper today. He's pretty bummed about that. Now, here's the rest of the story....

LB says, "The fact that we made it there at all...it wasn't easy. When I had to pull an all-nighter just for the car to be painted...it's not easy."

The team showed up Friday to run an alloted one-hour practice session.

"I decided to run the practice session on two-year old SK tires - rather than spend $580 on a set of new practice tires. If we bought them Friday, we never could use them again", LB explains, "We basically ran to get some laps in."

In the three practice sessions LB was able to run on Friday, he got down to about 14.5 seconds and worked to get comfortable driving the car.

In Saturday's practice, he looked even better and posted the 9th fastest time out of 21 cars in the second round. This proved that the car had some speed and that LB could actually turn those times.

Saturday afternoon - time for heats. Twenty-eight cars showed up to qualify for the race, and vMRS had 26 spots available. There would be 3 heats where the top eight drivers would qualify, and two provisionals awarded. LB isn't eligible for a provisional because he's a rookie. There would be no consi.

In the two heats before him, everyone finished the race, no DNF's, no mechanicals...nothing. That meant 16 cars qualified and there were only 8 spots left. LB started seventh in the 3rd heat race in a field of 9 cars. Pretty good odds, right?

Wrong. As LB wrote Saturday night in an FB post, "I started 7th in my heat race, got a firm shove going into turn one. Knocked me up into the marbles, and into 9th position.
The 10x car that gave the shove, then blocked Charlie Pasteryak until two laps to go.
When I had my one chance to make a pass the 10x ran me down into the wet grass. Race over."

The crew and driver are just a little disappointed that they didn't get to qualify. However, when you consider he drew a poor position for the heat (LB pulled number 37 - not exactly an advantage) and had to run nearly the entire heat race behind two guys running side by side, well...we're choosing not to dwell on him not qualifying.

The positives: the car had no mechanical issues and no failures, he posted respectable times (he was within a .10th of a second of two-time series champion Chris Pasteryak), and he got some valuable seat time.

But you still can't help but be disappointed that the team has to wait three more weeks to race.

Now, on to the photo highlights...

The 73 and 0 cars pit next to each other. Much thanks to them for imparting their wisdom to us rookies all weekend long. LB could be heard joking to Mike and Dale, "Now that we just went so fast, are you going to start copying MY adjustments?"