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Team
Seals 2nd Place... With A 3rd Place Finish Well the 2004 season points race came to a close on Monday night. As always, Hale Racing was there and they showed it by capping off the season with a great 3rd place finish... with one of the fastest cars of the event. According to lap times... the 2nd fastest by the night's end, and "I wasn't even able to stretch the cars legs out" said driver, Michael Hale, after the night's event. The statement couldn't have been more true, he was never really "by himself" during the event, so he never was able to see what sort of time the car could produce. "It felt really good during the main, probably could have ran a little bit faster if I could have gotten out by myself," said Michael. The team was able to run a high 15.8 second lap-time during practice, and backed it up nicely with a 15.969 second qualifying time around the high banked .3/8 mile oval. This was good enough for 3rd place, something they needed to do in order to take home 2nd place overall for the season. The modified field was loaded this weekend, with 23 cars qualified for the main event, it was sure to be an exciting night. Michael's heat race was the last of the 3, and the car he was trying to hold off for 2nd place had already won one of the earlier heats. "We just wanted to finish somewhere close, I mean we had a bit of a cushion going into the event, so we knew if we just finished close we'd be able to save 2nd." The team did more than that. Michael came out and used 9 laps to take over the lead and finish 1st in his heat race... thus not losing a single point to the #30 car of Nick Parker. The night was still young though, and the all important main event was still to come. Michael started the event in 18th place due to his 3rd place qualifying time and the inverted start rule. He fell back early due to some slower traffic, and things seemed slightly dim. But things changed quickly. Using the low side of the racetrack looked like a walk in the park on Monday night for Michael. By lap 14, he had moved himself up to the 13th position, and the journey just continued from there. By lap 17, he was up to 11th. Michael then followed the #84 car of Mark Ith, Jr. past the #29 modified to move himself up to 10th with just over 20 laps remaining. Michael would follow Ith for almost 6 laps before making an awesome "high-low" move to earn himself the 9th spot. The next 5 laps, Michael would use to run down his old car, the #7 of Bryan Wordelman. On lap 28, Michael used his "high-low" move once again to slingshot by Wordelman, and move up to 8th. This put Michael behind the #4 car of Lynn Hardy... and like we saw a few weeks ago, the two veterans worked the low line of the racetrack to move through the field and into the top 3. "I think we had a good enough car to win tonight, but we couldn't be more happy about our finish. It's another top-5 and it seals 2nd place, that's what our goal for the night was, to take home 2nd for the season," said Michael after his 3rd place finish in the Main. Car and team owner, Red Hale, couldn't have agreed more, "We knew after we won the heat race that we just needed to finish well in the Main and Nick wouldn't be able to catch us. It worked out, and we had a good car, I couldn't be more proud of this team." The 2004 season proved to be a very very consistent one for Hale Racing. Michael and the team earned 3 wins during the 2004 campaign. Including 12 top-5 finishes, and an amazing 17 top-10's in 18 starts. That's just one finish outside of the top-10. "We're really happy about the season, we wish we could have earned a championship, but we will take this second place and work towards a championship next season," said Michael. "We'll keep the car pretty much exactly the way it is for the 100-lapper in two weeks, it's just too fast right now to change anything." Michael's words couldn't be more true. Their lap times have proved it recently. Michael has found himself in the 15.9 second range throughout the last 4 races, with numerous 15.8 second elapsed times as well. Although the points race is over, as Michael stated about, there still remains one more event for the Modifieds this season. That being the 100 lap event coming up on September the 18th. Hale Racing invites all of you to come watch as we try to bring home the win and earn some money for next year's campaign. We'd like to give a huge thanks to all of our sponsors for this season's great success. You guys helped us out more than you could imagine, and you are a huge part of this team, we greatly appreciate it! As for our fans, what else can we say other than, "Thank You!" You gave us reason to come out and compete and your motivation after each event really helps. We were amazed at the turn out of fans this year, and hope that it continues into next season and every season after that. We thank you so much for your support and we hope to see you again on the 18th of September. Wear some red & some yellow and show your support for Hale Racing! We'll see you all in a few weeks. Thanks for coming by!
Story by
Brad Edwards |