9/17/2022: Riverhead Raceway - Eddie Partridge 256, 9/24/2022: Riverhead Raceway - Championship Night, 11/12/2022: Riverhead Raceway - Islip 300

After getting into the pits, and getting set up, there wasn't too much down time before we jumped straight into practice. With the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour being in town for the Eddie Partridge 256, we had limited time, in order to make sure their event goes off without a hitch. Our first session, we were solid, got held up by a couple of slower cars, and there was a mid practice spin, which disrupted Ed's rhythm. We kept it clean, and once back in the pits Ed made a few adjustments to try to optimize the feel of the car. The second round of practice was about the same in regards to laptimes, but Ed mentioned that the car felt better. After the practice for the local divisions, the Tour Mods got an hour long practice before it was time for us to start qualifying.

Like the last few weeks, we will be starting on the pole in the first heat race. The track was awful after the tour mods laid down a ton of rubber, so all the times were much slower. And since everyone was loose and sliding all over the place, we actually managed to lead a lap! However that didn't last long as we had 3 championship contenders in our heat, and quickly fell back. We ended outside the top 6,  so it's back to the consi for us. We started 5th in the consi, with our (my) main goal being to bring it home in one piece. 

The consi went alright, with us finishing in a solid 3rd place, but that brought our race night to an end. After watching the feature, which included multiple multi-car wrecks and finished with only 17 out of 26 cars left on the track, I'm not too upset about missing the main event. All the drivers involved in the wrecks walked away with no serious injuries, but it was a very expensive night for a lot of people. The main event of the night, the Eddie Partridge 256 was awesome to watch especially with the addition of a "live" pit road in the infield of the track.

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Well guys, gals and non-binary pals, we did it! We made it to the final race of our very first full season. First off, I want to thank everyone who has kept up with us and cheered us on along the way. Another huge thanks to all our sponsors (link in the outro notes) for helping us get to where we needed to be, and to my mom, Ed's wife, Flo, who put up with us taking over the garage and part of the driveway for our "race shop" (it's a work in progress, but that's the end goal 😅). It's been a crazy season, and we've been lucky thus far to not have been involved in any major on track incidents. Let's keep that streak alive and bring the #92 home in 1 piece for the last time this season!

For our practice sessions, our plan was to play a little "musical tires" to see what combination of used tires works the best for now. Both practice sessions were solid runs, and we settled on putting an older tire back on the right front since it seemed to be the most stable for Ed. We're scheduled to start on the pole in the first heat once again, so we will see how that goes. There are only 30 cars here tonight so that means there are only three heats instead of of the usual 4, and each heat is going to have 10 cars instead of the usual 8-9. 

The took the top 8 cars from each heat, and we finished in 7th, after a phenomenal side by side battle with the #47 Ray Stulz. Like something out of a fairy tale, we finished the season like we started, in the feature! We are starting in 20th for the main event, and this time we made sure our gas tank is full! 🤣

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One last part to this triple threat post: the Islip 300! One final race before we're done for the year and it's a big one. With almost 50 legends cars alone, it's going to be a crazy day. The weather started out not so great, with the tail end of a rainstorm blowing past, but once that passes and the track dries out, we'll be ready to go racing. We made a pretty big change for today, by switching the gear in our car, so we're definitely interested to see how that impacts the car. We also are welcoming our newest sponsor, Lasting Impressions Landscaping!

This will be the first race with the new handicapping rules released by Riverhead so that will bring another new element to today's racing. I honestly don't expect to make the feature today, based solely on the car count, but that's fine since we at least get to come out here and race. The weather did clear up around 10am, and track drying was well underway by that point, which thankfully led to only minimal delays. On a completely random side note, we got to meet Matthew Dillner, which was pretty freaking awesome.

The open practice was solid, with no significant lap time loss. We were able to get out onto the track 3 times, but the first time out was definitely our best. We managed a 14.095s lap on only our 2nd lap out, but the rest of our laps were consistent with how we've been running. After our practice was done, the Tour Mods and Crate Mods had their practices before the Vintage All Star Mods took to the track for an expo.

With the new handicapping system in place, qualifying order will be based on the points earned in the heats, and with the grand total of 45 legends cars here today, there will be 5 heats, and 2 consis. Top 24 in points will move to the feature, and then the winners of each consi will transfer.

Apparently with the weather delay, the qualifying format was switched around to make sure we'd be able to fit everything in, and as a result, the top 5 cars from each heat race transferred, with the winner of the 20 car consi race joining them. Let me just restated that, 20. Car. Consi. Most tracks don't even draw 20 cars for their legends division total, and we had that in our B-Main. That is just absolutely mind-blowing! We ended up finishing 7th in our heat race, and we unsurprisingly did not win the consi, but the car was still in one piece and able to drive back up on the trailer at the end of it all. Huge shoutout and congratulations to Mike V. (#3V) for his first race win, coming out of that insane consi race! He is always has a positive vibe and it's always a good time with him in the pit area!

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone in the pit area who helped us figure everything out throughout our very first season, Riverhead Raceway for giving us a place to race and all the officials who kept things running as smooth as possible all season long, and of course all our sponsors. Ed and I had an amazing time and we hope to have just as much fun next year! With our racing done for this year, there won't be as many posts like this (and I'll be more on top of these race recaps next year, promise!), but I will keep y'all updated on our off-season projects.

 As always, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok for updates, clips, and random auto related stuff! A huge thank you too all our sponsors for helping to make this all possible!

~Sam (I can be found at KazulStudios on all social media)