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A long awaited Return!

THE 2025 SEASON IS UNDERWAY!!!

Well, Race #1 is in the books! I've got to say it was a great night...and considering we've been on a 5 year hold, it was actually a totally stellar night!
If you didn't know, Merced underwent something of a reconfiguration which added about another 3 feet to the top of the track and definitely made it a different drive from when we were last there in 2019. Anyway, back to the show:

Hotlaps and Qualifying: as soon as the green dropped, we found out the cool new magneto I installed a month ago was garbage - the car sounded like opening day of dove season, and was WAY off on power...as it was, we managed 7th quick, which wasn't bad - but they had us turned around so quickly for qualifying, we didn't have time to swap out the magneto, so we got back in line to shoot more ducks and try to get a decent qualifying time...we ended up 9th quick and about a half-second off quick time (congrats Kyle Rasmussen). As soon as we got into the pit, the hood was off and mag change was underway - the entire team killed it on thr swap and also getting the car prepped for the heat race... Todd Walters , Myrel Sasselli, and Mark Ekberg were 110% all day, and Audra Sasselli was key in preventing a meltdown situation (all day). Magneto change went off perfectly, and as soon as we fired the car, I knew we were back!!

Heat Race: We lined up front row off pole for the heat race, and with the happy magneto in place, we got the lead intoTurn 1 of the opening lap and never looked back -after about a million yellows, we ended Winner-winner of Heat 3!!

Main Event: Our heat race win set us up for front row off pole for the main - and well, the driver just about TOTALLY muffed the start...that's all I can say - although getting backstopped in Turn 1 after the dumb start wasn't so fun, AND then testing out a brand new TJ Forged wheel by smacking the wall setting up for Turn 3 - ALL ON THE OPENING LAP... our Maxim held together and after losing about 10 spots, we got back online and started working forward...the track was pretty slick is 3/4 and there was a little something to work with in 1/2, but it took me waaaay to long to figure it out - our fastest lap of the main was the last lap, so that was good...but it should have been about 20 laps sooner!

Bottom line - we rolled into the trailer with nothing but cosmetic damage, the new RR wheel is a serious brute, our team is fantastic, and we're BACK!! I can't wait until Bako in a couple of weeks! Thank you Chris T for the video and G for Banana-Man! And of course Tamara for the fantastic food and putting up with me during race week (and all the other weeks)

Special thanks to Quick Change Liquid Energy for taking a chance on the California RaceSavers Sprints series, and thank you to Merced Speedway for hosting us.

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