The Fonz Returns.

 

Another two weeks, ok maybe closer to three have blasted past since our last blog but still faster than Hannagan qualifying a lap around Eldora but things here have been pretty quiet. Since our last bathroom banter we raced at Cedar Lake in the Olsen’s #34 car out of Stillwater over the father’s day weekend. On night one we timed in slower than we had hoped but were not unhappy as Ron had never run this motor before and it was an older dash 12 motor which we knew would be a touch off and we had no fuel spec sheets so we were flying blind. The sad part for me was that my brother in law the great JR jr set fast time which meant that Sundays fathers day lunch would be painful for me if I didn't step up the pace. See, Amy thinks her brother is the closest thing to perfection that god created in the male form. Plus I thinks he’s still a little upset about me telling everyone that he thinks he’s Fonzy with his comb in his back pocket.

 

We won our heat which put us in the dash draw inversion but ole Fonz drew the inversion which put him out of six and us out off 10th. We moved into third reasonably early even though our front wing broke and collapsed within the first five laps. Scott winters had carved through traffic and had put 5 or 6 lapped cars between him and the rest of us by the first caution but what was worse than the lapped cars and a collapsed wing was that Jerry was running second and that is almost as much motivation to step on it than following Hannagan down the highway in the motor home. After the restart Jerry and I had a good race swapping positions a couple of times before I said enough is enough. Now since Jerry doesn’t read this as it only has one picture per blog I can say that after I passed him the last time I made sure I took the wind off his nose as  I cut down on him to make sure he didn’t repass me. We set of after Winters and reeled him in but ran out off laps. All in all a decent night as we had made improvements on the motor.

 

Our original plans was to run the 34 car Friday then the 11au car at Knoxville on Saturday  but our motor was still at Wesmar’s. I had made a statement  that Ron’s 360 motor that we raced at Jackson was almost as good as the 410 if the track went slick and joked that I would run it on the Saturday night show as Ron had made a promise to his new driver Brad Barickman that he could race the 410 as I had other commitments. From a joke this turned into Ron and Marg losing there mind and running two cars and Brad offered to run the 360 so could stay in the 410 as he has little 410 experience. I have to admit it was cool to turn up on an open trailer as I had my retro Bell Helmet bag (the original Bell bags that the drivers in the ‘70s had) in hand and even though I like having all the spares and the bling bling I get a kick out of racing out of an open trailer with no bling just some surface rust. Plus, as Hannagan stats I'm a high maintenance bitch that used to spend almost as much money on hair color, foils and haircuts as my dad, George “My hair is as important to me as Rod Stewarts” Tatnell. Now since we have had a slow year and not raced much haircuts, foils and streaks are a thing of the past and I now settle for just straight grey so the open trailer was fitting.

 

With no TT we ran second in the heat and started third in the main and as you will soon see didn’t have a great run as I sum this race up in only a couple of sentences. We moved into second and then got a flat left rear early in the race, went to the rear and got back up to 9th even though it got rubber down before the heavens opened up and the sirens went off. As we all know tornado’s are not something to joke about especially when they came as close to us as the Hugo disaster but watching David Crack I mean Craft watch the weather channel to see how close it is to us was amusing considering he has no idea what county we live in plus he wasn’t even sure how to get into our basement.

 

Fathers day was great even though it was tough reflecting on my dad and how much I miss him but I know that he’s laughing his skinny butt off every time Emma tells her daddy no or picks up a hammer in the garage near the racecar or the glass windows. He would be proud of his grand daughter as he is of all his grand children.

 

With the 11au car still without a motor the following weekend we ran just at Husets on Sunday night in Loren Barstads car. I knew Loren’s motor was an older dash 12 but I never realized just how old or it’s past until Jay Eckly the engine builder stated that this motor won four straight World of Outlaw races plus  many more when it was new. He also laughed that the motor was older than my team mate Robbie Wolfgang and that it was originally built by John Singer for Doug in 1989 which showed me just how good Singers motors were back then to consider that it‘s still running half decent on short tracks. We started 10th  or 11th  in the main & ran up to 4th which I was at least pleased with as we are starting to get a handle on what I like in the car.

 

At this point I must congratulate the “chicken leg flurry” for having a great week during Ohio speed week. He proved this week that even a blind squirrel can find a nut occasionally in a Hurricane. So this should also mean that he can give Mason some more allowance this week as that little turd is going to need every dollar he has if he ever thinks he’s taking Emma out on a date when she is finally allowed out of the basement and allowed to date when she turns 32. You may think I’m joking about being locked up till she’s 32 but seriously what would you do with your own daughter if you had a Hannigan knocking on your door? They tell me I‘m not allowed to fire a gun in the direction of any guy that turns up at our back door with roses. Seriously the best advice I can give Mason is to change his last name because he doesn't want to be tarred, feathered or cursed with that name for the rest of his life. Boy, just that name raises my blood pressure and gets me into a rant.

 

This weekend we took up the offer to run Ron and Marg’s car for the three outlaw dates starting at  Grand Forks were Ron was originally from. Ron stepped up his engine program this week with the help of Don Ott and his bank manager so we could be more competitive against the outlaws. We time in 10th but were very average in the heat as Amy proceeded to tell me and remind me that I we looked like a dumb sum bitch.  Daryn and Mandy Pittman are good friend so I feel I can say this but I really think that Mandy and Amy would make great crew chiefs   as they don't even blink when they tell us were stupid and ask what we were thinking. The said part is both Daryn and I have commented that there usually pretty close to being on the money. The feature we started 12th and were running about 10th until I got loose up high and lost about five spots but got back to 12th.

 

Fargo rained out so we headed home early. Sunday night we returned to Cedar Lake which is were we won the outlaw show for Rush Racing and have always been pretty good there. I also have to thank Brent Bostrom and his family from Boss Pumping  as they came on board for Cedar Lake and bought us two new rear tires which we truly appreciated. I also think we surprised a few people when we timed in third quick including Ron and Marg. The heat race we started 4th and felt good but we had a smoke screen out of the oil tank that looked like the last bar-b-que I went to at Hannigans place which was enough smoke to kill all the mosquitoes in the Minnesota. I actually was waiting for the race to be red flagged and stopped so they could send the ambulance to the grandstand to jump start my car owners as I could see them having a heart attack once they saw the smoke thinking this dumb Aussie is going to blow up our motor. We finished 4th which lined us up 9th in the dash in which we finished 8th. We finished the feature in 7th spot after a couple of fun slid jobs back and forth with Haud who is a guy as I always have a blast racing with him as I feel he’s a guy you can trust to race clean with.

 

This weekend we are back with the 11AU at Knoxville after picking up our motor from Wesmar Racing Engines. This is the motor that we struggled with prior to Knoxville but I have faith that after a cam change and Bob freshening the motor we should be on the pace straight away