On January 21st, Evergreen Speedway held their awards banquet for the 2011 season. Our team attended to accept our awards for finishing third in points in the Super Late Model division. When you’re in the top three, you’re expected to say a couple words while on stage. I tried to keep it short because, let’s face it; people aren’t there to listen to the 3rd place person give a long speech. That’s for the champions. So I’ll take this opportunity to expand.
If you were to tell me a year ago that we would finish the 2011 season 3rd in points with 2 win, I would have been ecstatic. And we are. But more that ecstatic is a huge feeling of pride. By the end of the season, we felt that we could have done better. We raced against some of the best, well funded, teams in the Northwest and showed we could race with the best of them. The pride comes from the fact that we did it ourselves while spending so much less than most of the other guys. We built a new car for the 2011 season and did most of the work ourselves. As the season started, we were very low on money and it became apparent that we didn’t have the money for an engine rebuild or for some high-dollar shocks. And we would have to run well to earn enough money to continue throughout the season.
Just to get to the first race took a lot of effort from many people. Mike, Ronnie and I spent a very cold winter building the car. Jessie Jensen and Big Al built the interior of the car. Sandblasters, Inc. took care of getting the car ready for powder coating. Superior Powdercoating took it from there. Streamline Automotive painted the body while Deyoung, Inc. finished the car off with the decals. Our friends at Mobil 1 Lube Express in Everett helped us out with our lubricant needs. And Central Welding Supply gives us free nitrogen for our race tires. And while at the track, Naima Lang’s crew treated us like family helping out with whatever we needed.
Next season will have a new feel to it. Evergreen Speedway will only run 8 Super Late Model races. But they have cooperated with South Sound Speedway to create the I-5 Challenge Series that includes 7 races at South Sound and 7 races at Evergreen. So there will be plenty of opportunity to race in 2012. Right now, we can only afford to race the 8 races at Evergreen. Although, we are always looking for marketing partners to bring exposure to a business while expanding our opportunities to get our car in front of more fans.