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1st Race - 2nd Place Well the 2008 race season has finally kicked off, and Hale Racing is already off to a terrific start. The first event of the season came on April 26th, and Michael Hale was able to earn himself a 4th place finish in the feature race, and a 3rd place overall finish. Race 2 of the 2008 season was scheduled for May 3rd, and all was well until approximately 10 laps into the feature race when a power failure at Rocky Mountain Raceways caused the event to be cancelled. Well that feature race was rescheduled for May 10th, and Hale Racing made a very strong showing on the year's first "Double Main" Saturday night. Video footage will be posted this week for the first Main Event of Saturday, but unfortunately my video camera did not cooperate with me and 2nd race footage is unavailable. I apologize for the inconvenience. Michael kicked off the evening by qualifying a respective 9th place for the 1st Main Event, and 10th place for the 2nd Main Event. This is easily the tightest Modified field ever to be ran at Rocky Mountain Raceways, and could probably be considered one of the tightest fields in the entire United States. When you separate the top 10 qualifiers by less than 2 tenths of a second, you know the competition is incredible... and the racing proves it. Qualifying isn't easy! Main Event number one wasn't quite as exciting as number two, but it was definitely something to be happy about. Michael started the event in 11th. This put him on the inside of row 6. In the early going, it was back and forth... racing was ultra tight and nobody had anywhere to go. A caution would come out before long and set the field into single file order, and then Michael began to make his move. By lap 11, Michael found his way into the top 5. I should have video footage up this week so you can watch this race for yourself, as there really isn't much to say about it. Lap 20 is when Michael would move into 2nd, and the rest of the race is history. Michael and the leader, Nick Parker had the event's two fastest lap times, and Parker had pulled away after Michael's tires got a little too hot. Although Michael was being run down by 3rd place driver, Jason Aposhian, he held the bottom groove and hung onto the 2nd place finish. It was the 2nd main event that really had Hale Racing fans on the edge of their seats. Boy I wish my camera wasn't having issues during this race. I think it got close to lap 10 before it finally croaked on me. Stupid thing. Anyways, Main Event number two was one to remember. According to MyLaps.com, Michael started 11th for this race as well, but I believe he actually started 10th. Either way, the team was ready to go and Michael made it happen as within 10 laps, he had already worked his 01 Modified into the top 3. At lap 12, 2nd; lap 21, 1st. Lap 50... 1st. It's what happened between those 29 laps that had myself, this entire team, and all the fans in the stands gritting our teeth, clapping our hands, pumping our fists, and screaming for joy when it all came to an end. It was clear that the 2007 track champion, Lynn Hardy was on a roll. Lynn started 17th, and by lap 23, he had worked his way into 2nd. He was on the move and everybody knew it. By lap 30, he was all over the rear bumper of Michael. All we could do as fans was watch and hope, knowing that Michael was telling himself the same thing we were... "Stay on the bottom!" Michael did just that. Lap after lap, Michael kept his Lefthander Modified pinned to the bottom of the race track in each corner. Lynn would try desperately to get his nose under Michael, but could never make it happen. Michael was diamonding the corners perfectly... getting a great run out of each corner and never giving Lynn the opportunity to drive under him and get a run down the front or back straight-aways. Cautions would fly and Michael would get excellent restarts when the green flag waved and the action resumed. Michael would pull 3 to 4 car lengths and use 2 to 3 laps of space before Lynn would run him back down and go back to battle. The same thing would happen though, time after time, Michael kept his car glued to that bottom groove and was never passed. Caution, lap 43, problems for the number 4 car of Lynn Hardy. Ignition failure sent Lynn to the pits and ended his evening. A sigh of relief for Michael, Hale Racing, and the fans? I don't think so. The car that was in 3rd place was only 2 time champion, Gary Madsen, current points leader, #1 qualifier for the event, and the night's fastest car. Could he maneuver past Michael? He had 6 laps to try. The race went back to green and Michael used his great restart to jump out to a 3 car-length lead. 2 laps later, Gary Madsen was all over him... just as Lynn Hardy was. Gary had the car to beat, starting 19th and moving up to 2nd is quite a feat... he wanted 1st as badly as anybody, but this race belonged to Hale Racing. Michael did the same thing he'd been doing for the last 25 laps, and with 4 laps to go, racing was as tight as it could get. Michael kept his car pinned to the bottom in each corner once again, and Gary was never able to get by. Madsen was very patient and being a respective driver; never tried pushing the issue or risked spinning either himself or Michael. If he was going to pass, he was going to do it cleanly. The checkered flag waved and Michael took home his first win of the season. Michael finished 2nd overall for the night, and now sits in 2nd place for the 2008 points championship. When being told "Good Job, Red" on the work done by team owner and crew chief, Red Hale, he simply replied "Michael did it, not me." It was definitely an awesome race, and Michael did a great job of running his line, doing it clean, and doing it sharp. Any other way and chances are he would have been passed. Michael was happy about the finish, but still disappointed in the way qualifying shaped up. "We didn't have the best car tonight, but it was good enough to win. I knew if I could keep it on the bottom in the corners, it would have been a challenge for anybody to pass me. That's what I did, and we'll take the win. We just need to work on qualifying better." Well, when you don't qualify quite the way you want, your opportunity to win by starting closer to the front is a lot higher. Michael did what he had to do in order to keep pace in the points race and was able to earn a 2nd place finish in the 1st main, and a 1st place finish in the 2nd main. Like I said, video footage of the 1st main event will be available sometime this week. It's only Tuesday and I wanted to get this article up as soon as possible. As we always like to do, Hale Racing would like to thank all of it's great sponsors and fans that support us each and every week. Although I was unable to record the 2nd main event, I was able to get footage of Michael's post race interview where he personally thanks all of his sponsors in front of the event's crowd. I'll make this video available as well this week. Our sponsors and fans are what make this sport possible for Hale Racing, and we want nothing more than to bring you success as a team and show our appreciation every week by being as competitive as possible. Hopefully Saturday's post race interview wasn't the last, and your names can be shared in Victory Circle once again throughout the season. Thanks to everyone for stopping by. We'll see you May 17th. Short article written by Brad Edwards
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