A
Strong Victory Backed Up With Another Top-10
Story by
Brad Edwards
On a night of highs and lows, the final day of July ended rather happily for Hale Racing. After last weekend's strong top-5 finish, the team was confident they could back it up this Saturday. And back it up they did. Michael's class had to run two main events on Saturday due to the cancellation of the race earlier this month. It appeared to be no problem for the team, as they worked hard and got themselves two strong finishes in each race. "This was definitely a team effort tonight, things looked sour in practice earlier today, but we came together and got the car working the way we wanted it too, overall I'm pretty happy about our performance," said driver, Michael Hale, after Saturday's event. Like Michael said, the day started out a little rough in practice, but the team was determined to come out and compete the way they knew they were capable of competing. Michael was able to qualify in the 8th spot with a lap time of 16.212 seconds, and his response: "Considering how the car was at the end of our practice sessions, we weren't too upset with a 16.2... but we knew we were better than that, so we made a few adjustments and they seemed to work pretty well."
Michael began the race in 11th place on the inside of row 6. It
wasn't long before he was able to earn a few spots when he used the low
line and drove past the #77 and #10 cars to move himself up to 9th on
just the 2nd lap. However, a lap later, after getting stuck behind
a slightly slower car, he would lose a spot to the #84 car, and fall
back to 10th. Michael quickly moved behind the 84 car of Mark Ith,
Jr. and followed him passed the slower car of #15.
Michael
would follow Ith for quite a few laps, and on lap 8, the two of them
used the lower line to then drive by the #99 car of Steve Weger.
This pass would put Michael back up to the 8th position. At this
point, the "Patient Game" would begin. From lap 8 to nearly the
end of lap 14, Michael continued to patiently follow Ith. Suddenly
out of turn-4 on lap 14, Ith gets loose and slides up high.
Michael take advantage of this, and drives under him to take over the
7th place spot and then turns his focus onto the #2 car of Jim Cooksey.
Once again, Michael shows great patience, as he follows Cooksey for 7
laps before he and the #7 car of Bryan Wordelman get together and
spin... causing a caution. This forces both Cooksey and Wordelman
to be sent to the back, and gives Michael two more positions. Thus
moving him into 5th. Fresh off the restart on lap 22, Michael
would use the low line once more to move himself passed the #74 car of
Kurt Lindeman, at which point Michael would begin work on the #14 of
Rick Ellison for 3rd. Michael would stay patient yet again, and
for the next 7 laps he followed Ellison closely... waiting for an
opportunity to move by him. The opportunity would come on lap 28
when Michael comes up out of turn 4 and moves his car under Ellison's.
The two raced down the front stretch, into turns 1 and 2, then down the
backstretch and in to turn 3. Out of turn 4, Michael would take
the spot away and move himself into 3rd. Then on lap 30, Michael
would use the low line once again, as it appeared the #18 car of Johnny
Luttmer got loose in the exact same spot as the
84
car had done so earlier in the race, and slid up. This allowed
Michael to move by Luttmer and into the 2nd position. On the very
next lap, a caution would come out that would put Michael right up
behind the leader of the race. Two laps after the restart, Michael
makes another awesome move to the low side of the racetrack.
It looked almost as if Michael had set him up the way you'd only see in
a NASCAR event. Michael floated the car up high as if he was going
to try a pass on the second groove of the track, and then out of turn 4
he dove his car to the low side, pulling hard down the front
straightaway and moving his car ahead of Wilson's. By the time
they were exiting turn 2, Michael had made his move to the lead.
"After I made that pass, I knew I just had to run my line and I'd be
alright, so that's just what I did," said Michael after his main event
win. Michael would do just that to finish it out... running
consistent lap times of 16.0's and 16.1's all the way 'till the
checkered flag. When asked if they would make any changes to the
car, Michael simply said "We'll probably just loosen it up for the
weather change, but other than that, probably not."
Michael's second main event of the evening proved to be a little less exciting, but successful none-the-less. Michael would start 11th again for this main, but it wasn't long before an unfortunate occurrence took place and he fell to the back of the pack. On lap 2, Michael moved down out of turn 4 and got together with Jim Cooksey... this forced Michael to spin into the infield. Fortunately, Michael made a pretty good save, and continued the race. "I just moved down and he was there, it wasn't his fault," said Michael when asked what had happened. After this incident, Michael fell to 20th, but was determined to get back into the race. On lap 12 he caught the #8 car of Kelly Van Cleave and moved by him. Still charging hard, Michael was able to catch the 15 car of Michael Morrissey on lap 17 and move up to the 17th spot. On lap 20, Michael moved by the 23 of Mike Sargent. Lap 23 he moves by the 45 of Shawn Price. 5 more laps go by before a caution comes out involving team mates in the #84 and #48 cars. This gives Michael two more spots and puts him up to 13th. Fresh off the restart, Michael moves his racecar down to the low side yet again and moves by the #7 car of Bryan Wordelman. On lap 31, the 10 car gets loose up high and Michael follows the #80 car passed him for the 10th spot. Once more Michael would drive patiently, as he followed the 80 car for 3 laps... and believe me, at the end of a race that you've spun out at the beginning of, 3 laps seems like an eternity. On lap 36, Michael made yet another low side move and went by the 80 car to move himself up to 9th. It seemed as if Michael was some sort of professional low side passer. It looked as if he could have wrote a book on how to pass on the bottom of a racetrack, Saturday night. On the very next lap, lap 37, Michael did it again by moving his car to the low end of the track out of turn 2 and made another great pass.. this time under the #77 car of Todd Beach. This moved Michael into 8th, and that's where he would finish. "With a little more time, I think we could have earned a few more spots, but considering how the race started, we can't be too upset with the finish. We wanted a top-5, but a top-10 isn't too bad either," said Michael after his second 40 lap main event.
Michael showed great patience throughout the night and it proved to be key in taking home his 3rd win of the season, and another top-10 to back it up. The entire team would like to thank all of our great fans for coming out to cheer for us on Saturday. We had a great showing of support this week, and hopefully that will continue throughout the rest of the season. As always, we would also like to thank our great sponsors for their support this week and every week that they continue to stick by us, and help, in what has been an extremely successful season. We could never be competing as well as we have been without the support of you guys, so we greatly appreciate it. To our fans, you don't know how much we appreciate you coming out to watch and support us every week. Even on the bad nights, a pat on the back and the smile from a fan's face can help change the mood of the evening... so thanks for that! Next Saturday, August the 7th, Hale Racing has the week off, but we return to the track on August the 14th for another exciting night of racing. We hope that you'll be there to watch as the season continues to wind down. Thanks for visiting the site and we hope to see you all in two weeks.
Story by
Brad Edwards
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