By Paul Joiner
(5/17/2011 New Braunfels, TX) The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for the Chris Coker Racing team! The team traveled to Dodge City, KA to compete with the USAC Mopar National Midgets. It was a weekend of firsts; neither the team or Chris had ever run with USAC, Chris had never had to qualify on the clock, and the team was testing a motor under the new RPM limits they had never run on anything larger than a 1/4 mile track. The team was quickly aware that they were behind the 8-ball with their engine package.
As Chris put it, “We set our midget program up to run the Chili Bowl and maybe a few 1/4 mile races here and there. We went to the fast 3/8 mile track at Dodge City knowing we might be lacking on the motor, but there was only one way to find out. We hit absolutely everything right in qualifying, and we timed in 14th out 37. It just didn’t have the pull it needed at the RPMs we were limited to. In traffic it was worse because we didn’t have the recovery speed. Saturday we tried different gears and a little different setup which only slowed us down. No disappointed though, like I said, we took a short track car and motor to a big track against the best competition, and it just wasn’t enough. It’s still a great combo for the short tracks, and now we know more about it.”
Following the weekend with USAC, the team jumped back into the ASCS arena at Battleground Speedway only to have engine woes of a different sort. The team then tried to bounce back last weekend. Friday night the team headed to Beaumont for round 8 of the Gulf South tour. After a cowboy up heat and a stall prior to the green, Chris started the B main in 12th place, but quickly charged to 5th transferring to the feature, where he was forced to settle for 16th.Saturday the team headed to Edna, TX for there first experience on the paper clip 3/8 mile. In turn one, Chris took a nasty spill after contact with another car, turning the car over violently. CCR quickly got things back together for the B main with the help from the other teams. “It was really amazing all the help we received, the Sport Clips team even mounted one of their own front wings on the car before helping with the front axle. There must have been people from five different teams all together working on the car. I’m really proud to be apart of the ASCS Gulf South series after that experience.” says Chris. Once returning to business Chris charged from 8th to transfer into the feature, receiving quite the ovation from crowd after the heart stopping heat race crash. Once in the feature Chris continued to move forward, racing from 19th, to 14th.
Chris gave us his thoughts on the weekend, “If that’s a bad weekend, I’ll take it. We’ve had better, but it could have been a lot worse. We still managed to make the feature both nights, and I learned a lot. I think we were probably one of the 6 fastest cars by the end of the feature Saturday, it just took me too long to get going. We’re getting there, now we need another small breakthrough to start getting those top 5’s we’re capable of. As long as we keep getting better, I’m happy.”
Friday morning the team stopped by Love’s Travel Stop in Baytown, TX to promote the wonderful new drink, Doctors Select. For more information on promoting your products, contact us via the website. For more information regarding Doctors Select visit www.doctors-select.com
—