Thursday - February 4th, 2010

Today was just a practice day. In the first practice we were pretty quick, but the car was lacking front grip coming out of the corners. We made a huge suspension adjustment, just to see if it would help the car any. It worked great and we picked up about 3 tenths of a second. At this point we were dang close to being the fastest car here. For the third and final round of practice, we made some small adjustments and slowed down a little. Hopefully we'll start off fast tomorrow and qualify up front. -AK

Friday - February 5th, 2010

(11:00) First practice went well. The car was a little bit tight (the front didn't want to turn). We made an adjustment and it made the handling condition worse...but it was faster. We will make some more adjustments and get back at it. -AK

(2:00) For the second practice we made a rearend adjustment to try to make it turn better. The car felt tighter, but it went even faster. It doesnt really make sense. With 100 lap old tires, we are one of the, if not THE fastest car. Oh well, the stop watch doesn't lie. We scuffed our qualifying set of tires and will probably make some more adjustments to compensate for the new tires.

(4:00) Well, its raining now. All the rubber will get washed off the track and it might handle totally different. Great. -AK

Saturday - February 6th, 2010

(12:30) First practice is in the books. We went pretty fast, and were on old tires. We made a few sway-bar adjustments and it seemed to help. When we bolt on some new tires for qualifying, I think we'll have a good shot at the pole. -AK

(7:00) Just got done with qualifying. Qualified pole with a ridiculously fast time of 17.83. BUT, my car magically grew five hundred, one thousandths of an inch and I failed post qual tech. So, I will be starting 27th. 25 laps, 27 cars.... pass one car a lap and I should get a top 3. It’s so easy a cave man could do it. -AK

(10:00) Well starting 27th means that not only are you gonna have to pass a lot of cars, but your also gonna have to avoid a bunch of wrecks. I thought that there was a good chance that my car was going to get brought back to the pits on a wrecker. Well fortunately I ran the whole race without touching a single thing and I was able to work my way all the way up to 9th. In a 25 lap race that went caution-less, passing 18 cars is pretty dang impressive. We were faster than the leaders. Hopefully we can get some luck here and get a W. We are off tomorrow, so we will go home, rest up, and get ready for the final 5 nights. -AK

Monday - February 8th, 2010

(12:30) Finally back to the race track after a full 24 hours away from racing. I can't take this anymore. Anyways, the first practice is in the books. We were running our race tires from Saturday night, so they are relatively new. 5 super late models got disqualified last night for having tires that were too soft. So, are main goal for this practice was to get a nice 25 lap run, pull in the pits, and make sure our tires were gonna be fine. We went pretty fast, but the car was a little loose in the center of the turn. Our tires were close, but they were legal. -AK

(1:30) For the second practice, we made a stagger adjustment and it tightened the car up a little too much. I think of the problem also is that the track got hotter. A few cars bolted on brand new tires and went some very quick laps, then backed back up. We seem to be able to run pretty consistently, so I think we will be fine. We also found a radiator problem that we'll have to fix by racetime. -AK

(2:30) This just in, race winner Stephen Nasse pulled a 9 invert last night, so I will be starting pole.

Race: To make a long, sad story short... I won the race in spectacular fashion, I got wrecked after the race was over, and the wreck caused a part of my car to be illegal. So I got disqualified and finished 27th place. -AK

Tuesday - February 9th, 2010

(2:00) Today got rained out

Wednesday - February 10th, 2010

(12:00) This is the first time the car has been on the track since the wreck. It seems like the crew did a good job repairing it, because it handled fine in this practice. Also, my crew chief, Dave Pletcher let me practice his super late model (which is basically the same kind of car I race, but with 200 more horse power). That was a lot of fun, but the carburetor had a hiccup in it. -AK

(2:00) In the second round of practice the car was a little bit too tight for my likings. We found out later that the stagger (difference in circumference of the left and right side tires) wasn't as much as we wanted, which would make it tight. Dave let me run his car again with a different carburetor. It was FAST. I enjoy running super late models. -AK

(10:00) The race went decent. I started last (again) and was able to move my way up to 12th the first caution. On the restart, there was a big check-up and I drove into the back of the car in front of me. This caused some front end damage and I was able to limp the car home with a 13th place. I guess we will have to rebuild the front of this car for the second time this week.. -AK

Thursday - February 11th, 2010

(12:00) The car was pretty fast in the first practice. We loosened it up because it was too tight and the laptimes picked up. I also started running on the bottom groove of the track instead of the top groove, and it seemed like there was a lot of grip down there.

(2:00) Since there is a 100% chance of rain tomorrow, it has been announced that the 50 lap race will be held tonight instead of tomorrow. -AK

(6:00) Unfortunately, we drew a 1 for qualifying meaning we were the first car to go out. This is a bad thing because the more people that go out, the more rubber that gets laid down on the racing surface which = faster lap times. So I went out first and put down a 17.896, which was almost as fast as my pole run earlier in the week. It took about half way through qualifying before someone beat us. We ended up 3rd fastest out of 26. The guy who got pole drew a 5 invert, meaning I would be starting...3rd. -AK

(12:30) The race went very good. On the start, I fell back to 4th. Under green flag, I passed both 3rd place and 2nd place and started to pull away. The leader had run out to about a straight away lead, and he pretty much had us covered. At about halfway there was a caution and the leader let me line up on the outside of him for the restart. When the green flag flew, I drove around him and took the lead. I held off the 2nd place guy for about 5 laps and then my car started to push up in the center of the corner. He drove around me on the inside, then the third place car and I had a nice battle for 2nd until the checkered flag flew. I was pretty happy with the 2nd place finish considering we had to rebuild the front of the car twice during the week. -AK

Closing thoughts

Well, as this year's speedweeks comes to a close, I can't help but feel optimistic. Even though we had the worst luck ever, we showed that we were bad fast; fast enough to win every night. I qualified pole the first day, which got taken away and I got my first win, which got taken away. Had I not gotten thrown out in tech on the day I won, I would've won the whole points championship. So we know we are good enough to run with the best, we just have to have to have a few things go our way. The crew did a great job keeping the car raceable, and Dave did a great job making good adjustments so that the car was fast. I feel I got a lot better as I driver this week, as I got to experience leading races and I got a lot of practice passing cars. We are definitely a force to be reckoned with, as we were able to beat some really stout competition from all over the North America. I would like to thank my dad, Carol and Dave Pletcher, Ronnie Enfinger, Ryan Blair, Tyler Smith, and my sponsors: Sonny's BBQ, M&S Bank, and Spruce Creek Real Estate. Without their help, speedweeks 2010 wouldn't have been a possibility. In closing, if anybody can help me find some 4 leaf clovers, it would be appreciated. -AK

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