Tuesday July 24 - Fayette County Raceway - West Union, IA

Chris, Sonny and Todd headed north to run the Indee Open event in West Union. We had made extensive repairs to our race car after Quincy and Davenport 2 weeks ago, and we wanted to shake the car down before the USRA event at Bloomfield this Friday.

Chris went out in hotlaps, and the car had a severe vibration. Chris went to the trailer and he and the guys worked feverishly to change the transmission. Chris was scheduled to run the 2nd late model heat, but just missed the call. Chris went out for the 3rd heat and started on the tail of the field and blew past them all on the bottom and stormed away to a full straightaway lead in taking the win.

It did not qualify him for the A-main however, as he had missed his original heat. In the B-main, Chris started 11th (last) and raced his way to 2nd in the 6 lap event.

He suffered heavy right side sheet metal damage when Jeremy Grady got sideways above him and shot down in to the side of the car in the B-main, so Chris and Todd worked like crazy along with help from Martin Games to get the car repaired for the A-main. Sonny got the tires ready, and we headed out just in time to line up.

Chris started 14th in the A and had worked his way to 9th in the first 4 laps when he had to check up to avoid hitting Kurt Kile who had gotten out of shape. This jammed up the inside lane and caused a spin behind Chris. On the caution, the officials directed Chris to the rear of the field. Chris stopped to get an explanation and was told that it was determined that he checked up and caused the caution. Chris did not argue the call and went to the tail.

Chris was racing to the front and narrowly avoided a bad crash in front of him that brought out the red flag.

When the officials relined the field, for some reason they gave Jeremy Grady and one other car their spots back in front of Chris, and both were involved in the caution and the contact.

Chris did not argue the call and had raced his way back to 6th and was racing with Terry Neal. Chris tried several times to race under Neal, with Neal blocking the moves. Chris went to the outside of Neal in 3 and 4 and then raced down the front straight. Neal moved up into Chris's lane and turned the car sideways to enter the corner. Chris had already committed to this lane and tried to check up but made contact with Neal's left rear fender. Neal could not maintain control and spun around.

You've probably already guessed it, but again Chris was ruled as the cause of the caution and put to the rear of the field. Again Chris did not stop to hold up the show by arguing the call. He went back to the rear and raced his way all the way back to 5th at the checkers.

Now, we have been racing for a long time and we have raced all over the midwest, but it has been a long time since we have been treated the way we were in the A-main.

We were very disappointed with the track officials extremely poor attempts to make judgement calls as to who caused each caution in the race. Everywhere else we race, the cause of the caution is ruled to be the car or cars who stop on the track, and they go to the rear of the field. In the case of blatant rough driving, the car who took out the stopped car may also be sent to the rear.

Chris did not stop in either caution that he was ruled to have caused. Both incidents were very clearly "racing" incidents.

It would be impossible to determine exactly who or what was the precise cause of either one. It was just a result of hard racing. We find it very difficult to understand how an official watching a race can determine when the field gets jammed up that a car in the middle of the jam up causes the incident, and we also find it very difficult to understand how when two cars are racing hard for position and they make contact that the car which doesn't stop gets sent to the rear while the car who spins out gets his spot back.

We feel as though we were treated very unfairly last night, especially after we traveled over 4 and a half hours to be there to support their race.

We made it very clear to the officials our position on the matter and did our best to remain professional about it.

Needless to say, we will not be going back to an Indee Open event any time soon.