JeffKnight.com » My blog

Photo By Ryan Brien

WOW!!  What a great feeling for myself, my family (that’s our nephew Jason)  and our whole team.  After winning the 2nd race of my career on the June 19 we took a week off to preach for a great friend in Martinsburg, West Virginia. We then came back to the Big track at Evergreen Speedway and got another win!  Way to go team.

Practice.

It’s always a blast to practice on the 5/8′s.  It’s fast and the corner’s are huge, so the momentum carried is really fun.  The car was really good in practice.  In fact, it was phenomenal, but the tires were weird.  The practice set scuffed at 23.5′s, but the race did not feel as good on the car.  It’s strange to me how tires can feel different in the track, but they do.

Qualifying.

We loosened the car up after the scuff session because the race tires were tight, then got it ready for qualifying by loosening it up a tick more.  We over shot just a bit and the car was pretty free for qualifying, really free.  I qualified 3rd.

Trophy Dash.

We had a 5-lap dash, starting straight up.  The car was good in the dash, but we ran out of laps.  I finished second.

Main.

I started outside pole in the main.  The track was dirty on the high groove, so by lap 2 I ended up in 4th.  The car was settling in, but I was a little concerned.  We just didn’t have the corner speed we needed to run for the win.  After some laps we took over 3rd place, then second, but really couldn’t catch the #12.  He was riding pretty smooth and we were driving the wheels off trying to get to his bumper.  A caution came out and we were able to get a great restart, but still couldn’t get the position.  Tom was stronger than we were on the North end of the track, but we were about the same in 1 and 2.

I had ridden it out a far as I could, but it looked like I was going to be second, until Tom slowed coming off of turn 2.  We took the lead.  The caution came out as he stopped in turn 4, a lap later.  We had a few ensuing restarts where I had to hold position and be smooth, but the night belonged to the Snohomish Pie Company!

This is racing.  Truth is, I’ve been the fastest car and not won the race many times.  Tonight we weren’t the fastest car, but racing is about capitalizing on the circumstances you are given.  We were in position and we took the win.  We have a couple weeks off and then the Washington 500.  It’s going to be a great weekend.

June 19th, Father’s Day weekend, nearly two years to the day since my last victory, and it happened. We led a lot of laps and put the car up front to take the checkers in first. I was pumped as it was a perfect day. We qualified 1st, won the heat race and the main, and closed up the points chase for the championship.

As I stood on the stage with Melinda getting some photos I said to her, “I don’t know if I am excited or relieved.” Being candid, it’s been a long time since putting the car in the winners circle, and with the awful breaks I’ve had over the past two years of racing I felt like the monkey was finally off my back!

Winning legitimizes the efforts of the entire team. This win was not only great for me, but our whole team as well. The crew work so hard to give me an awesome car, and this year it seems I can drive a 5th place car to 2nd, but the winning car to 2nd also, LOL! I was so pumped to get them a win, the first for a couple of them.

Well, now we set sail for the remainder of the season. I will miss today’s race as I made some very important plans back in March, the first miss in 48 or so races. The promoters changed the program a bit this year allowing us Late Model drivers to throw out our two lowest point weekends. This will be one of my throwaways.

Have a great week and we’ll see ya on the 5/8′s July 3rd. We are one adjustment away from putting the #70 in the winners circle on the big track!