Trailer loaded and ready to hit the road to Tulare. If you've never been to Tulare, have faith, it isn't a place that you would mark as " a must place to visit."
Unless you love the smell of cattle grazing in the fields, the only thing stellar about Tulare, is Thunderbowl Speedway,
For 2 weekends in a row, the "normal" Moose Crew was reduced to Jake, Chris, Tom & Laurie, or so it was thought. A last minute surprise by Mallory and Jake's girlfirend Jessica rounded out the group to witness Friday night's action packed events. Saturday night, Dan, from Freeway Auto decided that he couldn't stand being away and he made the trip up too.
21 USAC 360 were on the menu with the ever popular World Of Outlaws. 21 360's and 36 Winged cars would put their wheels to the dirt track for the 2 nights. The 360 show is run quite a bit different then the 410 series that Team Moose is accustomed too. There are pills drawn and then depending on how many cars are present, those cars are divided into groups, no one by one qualifying, the cars actually go out in groups. Pulling a 60 pill, would see Jake in the last group of 4 to race againest the clock. Prior to Jake's pack, the 3rd lot of drivers had produced the fastest time, a 15.224set by Austin Liggett. When the transponder flashed Jake's time, it was kinda mouth dropping, not only Fast Time, the only car in the 14 seconds, at 14.984, but also setting A NEW TRACK RECORD!!! Amazing run!!!
Heat race time -- again, this is a bit different, depending on how many heat races are run, determines how many of them are eligible for the inversion of cars for the Main Event. In Friday nights case, it ws 3 heats, so, the top 3 would be incuded in the invert. Heat 1 - Jake and Ryan would be side by side -- this promised to be a wheel to wheel battle. Tristan Guardino won the heat, with Ryan 2nd and Jake 3rd. Yippie!!!
Now, here's how the Main line up is determined ... The driver that won the last heat race, draws a pill, which in this case would be 0, or 9. Qualifying times don't come into play, it's all based on how the heat races where finished. Gotta admit, don't really have this format down pat... the innwer of heat 3 was Danny Faria, with the inversion pill drawn, he was ecstatic when it would place him on the pole. Jake would start the 25 lapper in 7th,.... The green flap drops and Jake had the Triple XXX chassis on a rail. Holding the car down on the bottom, which sure isn't the reasiest thing to do, he picked off the 6 front runners one by one, by lap 3 Jake found himself in 3rd. Now running 2nd, and battling for the lead with Ryan Bernal, the 2 of them out on a side by side show for a few laps when lap traffic became a factor and Jake hugging the bottom took the lead and never looked back. Parking the 92 Moosemoble on the front straightaway to collect the winners trophy!!! An amazing evening !!! Focused and on a mission - Great Job, Jake, Chris & Tom!!!!!
FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Jake Swanson, 2. Geoff Ensign, 3. Ryan Bernal, 4. Austin Liggett, 5. Richard Vander Weerd, 6. Cody Majors, 7. Jace Vander Weerd, 8. Koen Shaw, 9. Brandon Wiley, 10. Tristan Guardino, 11. Steve Hix, 12. Jay Ervine, 13. Steven Garris, 14. Danny Faria Jr., 15. Gary Nelson Jr., 16. Tye Mihocko, 17. Shannon McQueen, 18. Ryan Stolz, 19. Jim Richardson, 20. Jeff Sibley, 21. Ryan Timmons. NT
Not much time for celebration as there was still night 2 to contend with!!!!