7/11/2012
Eric Schulz
Full Weekend
Hello race fans! The past weekend for Ricochet and the crew was a full one. On Friday night, the team rolled into Rock Rapids to run with the HRA non-wing sprints along side of the ASCS National tour! On Saturday the team traveled over to Jackson MN to run in the 360 wing car owned by Dick Veekners, and Sunday was spent at Husets Speedway in Eric Schulz’ own 410 Outlaw Sprint!
Friday’s heat races started off with some bad luck for others that turned out to be good luck for Eric as he was to start on the inside third row, but the two cars in front of him were un-able to make the call for the green flag, starting Eric on the pole position! After some close battling Eric was able to take away with the lead and win that heat! The feature for the night saw Eric starting outside third row on a very fast track. Eric worked his way up to fifth, paced the front runners. With some tight racing going in front of him, Eric was able to take advantage of some mishaps and came home third. “It was a fast track and some real strong racers out there; we didn’t tear anything up and had a blast, so I’m going to call it a successful night!” exclaimed Eric after the races.
On Saturday in Jackson MN the night started off bad right away. As the motor was warming up for the evening the crew could hear a slight tick in the motor and started checking over the valve train. Finding one lose rocker arm, they tightened and re-fired the motor and checked things over again. With things looking ok, Eric went out for his heat race and within two laps the motor developed a strong miss forcing Eric to pull the #4 car back into the pits with a broken lifter ending the night for the Windom MN based team.
Sunday night brought on the best in the mid-west at Husets Speedway in the 410 Outlaw class, and another fast and racy track! Eric timed 18th fast out of a 22 car field which put him on the pole position in the third and final heat. Eric found himself racing in third place very soon after the green flag dropped but then settled into a very fast paced rhythm that maintained 3rd for the rest of the heat with a little excitement coming to the checkers. Eric caught the berm coming out of turn four for the final time and lifted the front of the car of the ground, just grazing the wall with the right rear tire. As the car drove up the wall, Eric kept a cool head and fought the car back to the ground, and after going through the chassis with a fine tooth comb, found nothing damaged! “It is mostly luck, and a strong set of Keizer Aluminum Wheels, that nothing got destroyed, but I knew that I couldn’t lift the throttle, or it would have wound up on its head.” After the crew checked everything out on the Papik Motors #4X Outlaw, Eric lined up 16th for the 25 lap, $5000 to win A main. You could see that right away the car was a little tight and Eric was being cautious but quickly found a grove up on top of the track that suited the car. After a lot of good hard racing, moving up a few spots, then losing them back and regaining some back, Eric finished the race where he started it in 16th! Eric said afterwards, “I can’t thank my crew and sponsors enough for this opportunity! Jason works his butt off all week in the shop and at the track to keep my two cars running; my parents and girlfriend come out every weekend and help out in the pits as well as in the shop! It’s because of these people that I can do this week in and week out and I cannot thank them enough!!!”
