03/22/10 - Lanier Surprise

I signed on to the 8pm Legends Cup race tonight and I thought this was my chance to surpass the 3.0 mark and allowing me to choose another class. After a great qualifying run I chose the race session and I was ready to go. When I got loaded into the race I immediately realized that this was not South Boston, the track I had been running for the past few days and had just qualified so well on. It was Lanier Speedway. I had never run a lap on this track but here I was about to race. I ran as much of the warm up as I could and was ready to go. I was starting the race in 10th spot. My strategy was to not wreck and hopefully stay on the lead lap. After a few laps I was enjoying the width of the racing surface and just biding my time. One by one cars wrecked in front of me and I was thus far unscathed. I made my way all the way up to 5th position and I held it strong. With about 10 to go I realized 6th place was catching me. 5 laps to go and he caught me, I let him go, he made a mistake, I got past him again. We took the white flag nose to tail going into turn one. He drove in deep but didn't touch me as I guarded the bottom. Coming off the corner we caught a lapped car and I made a mistake and didn't give him enough room and my right front hit his right rear sending us both spinning down the back stretch. I finished the race 7th. Felt like an idiot. Lost points and am now down to a 2.88 ranking. Not to mention I probably made that lapped car pretty mad. Bad night.