The Night Of Two 3's
Story by
Brad Edwards
Another week down, and another top-5 finish for Hale Racing. Make that two more top-5 finishes. Michael Hale and the entire team had a great night of racing last Saturday; taking home two 3rd place finishes, and moving up to 2nd in the season points standings. Although it was another great week for Hale Racing, the team still knows that there are many races left in the season, and even more hard work to be done in order to finish the season successfully.
Qualifying went well yet again for the team on Saturday afternoon. Michael qualified 4th for the first main event with a run of 16.199 on his first lap, and qualified 6th for the second main with a 16.238 second-lap time. As most of us know, qualifying is extremely important to earning points during the nights events. With the faster cars starting in the back, passing points are a key part to winning a championship. With qualifying in the books, the team was focused on having the best car possible for the opening main event of the evening.
The field was packed again, this time with 23 cars starting the opening
main. Because of his 4th place qualifying
position, Michael
started in 17th. After a lap of being caught in traffic, he was
passed by two cars, and then made his journey towards the front.
From laps 2 through 14, Michael had gained 9 spots, and moved his way
into 10th. By this time the race wasn't even half over, and there
was still work to be done on the track. Michael slowly worked his
way up through more traffic, using the high line numerous times, and
almost making it look easy at some points. "The car
was a little
bit tight, but the high line was working pretty well, it was just a
really good night for the entire team," said Michael after the night was
all said and done. By lap 27, Michael had moved his way into 4th.
At this point, he began battle with the #50 car of Roger Wilson.
Both drivers held their ground, and Michael used a dive into turn 1, and
some great driving out of turn 2 to make a low-side pass on the #50 car.
At the next caution, the 50 car would give appreciation for a good
battle by giving Michael a thumbs-up for the clean pass he was able to
make. After the caution was cleaned up, Michael returned to
competition, and did his best for the
final few laps to try and work pass the #11 car, however, he was unable to do so. It
was some "Edge Of Your Seat" racing at it's best. Unfortunately,
the night was only half over, and the team knew there was still work to
be done as yet another main event was still to be run. A few more
minor changes were made to the racecar and the team was ready to go for
main event #2.
The same 23 cars all made it out for round two of the night's event.
Michael started 12th for this main event due to his 6th place qualifying
position, and took very little time to start working his way through the
field. Thanks in part to a caution concerning two of the cars at
the head of the field, Michael moved up a few spots in the early going,
and by lap 10 he had already moved himself into 4th place. Just a
few laps later, Michael followed the #48 car of Rob Davis under the #50
car of Roger Wilson, and moved himself into 3rd. A caution came
out, and immediately after things went back to 
green Michael tried making a pass on the restart
out of turn 4, down the front-stretch and into turn 1. He raced
side by side with the #48 car, but was unable to make the pass after a
few laps of battle. Less than 10 laps later, another caution came
out, and Michael tried the same pass on the green flag restart.
Once again, he came up just a little short. "It was a fun race, we
were both clean, Rob gave me room, I gave him his, and we both fought
hard for position without interfering with one another's line, I like
that type of racing," said Michael of his race with the #48 car. "I
think that's the type of r
acing everyone loves." After Michael was
unable to get by Davis, he focused on running his race and finishing
where he was. An incident that had taken place earlier in the race
involved Michael having to check up on the gas and hit the brakes.
This caused
the #84 car to bump into the left side of Michael's rear bumper.
When Michael was
incidentally bumped, the quarter panel was bent up, and in doing so, caused the
left rear tire to rub up against it. By lap 25 you could see a small
amount of smoke coming from the left rear tire of Michael's racecar.
By lap 35, it looked as if Michael was doing one-tire burnouts down the
front stretch of the race track. It was clear that the tire was
going away, but somehow it was able to hold on until the ;)
end of the
race. As Michael was considering doing a cool-down lap, the left
rear finally blew out, and the name "Lucky Lap 40" was given to the
tire. "I knew it was smoking, and going away, I was just like 'Oh
well, I'm going until it blows.' Luckily it didn't go until the
race was over," said Michael as he laughed about the lucky occurrence.
Michael ran in 3rd from lap 13 all the way until the finish at lap 40.
"It was a great night for the whole team, that's all I can really say
about it, we all worked hard and it was nice to see it pay off," said
car owner Red Hale after Saturday night. The team now has 2 weeks
off to look over the car and make sure all is well and ready to go for
yet another double main night of racing on Saturday, June 26th.
We hope you will all come out and support the team on the 26th as we hope to be competitive yet again. We'd like to thank all of our great fans that came out to watch us on Saturday night, and every other Saturday night that you come to watch and cheer us on. We had another great turn-out of supporters on Saturday, and the pits were busy with fans most of the night. For that we thank you! It definitely helps us as a team to know that our fans appreciate our hard work at making this season work towards a successful one. As always, we'd like to give a huge thanks to our sponsors as well. We greatly appreciate you guys sticking with us throughout the season, and we hope you'll continue to do so each and every upcoming week during rest of the year. We know as a team that without our fans and sponsors we wouldn't be able to do what we do. So thanks again for all your support and all your positive comments. Thank you for sticking with us, even through the nights where we may not do so well. You have no idea how much it means to our team. We'll see you all in two weeks!
Story by
Brad Edwards
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