The crew works on making the car handle better during practice

Practice started and Jeremy got onto the track right away.  He made numerous practice runs and called for adjustments on the car improving its tight condition as the day went on.  He was registered 33rd quickest with a lap time of 17.402 seconds.  After 90 minutes of practice, Jeremy decided it was time to get rid of his old tires and make a mock qualifying run on a new set of stickers.  The crew made one last adjustment and put on the new tires.  Then Jeremy's luck seemingly ran out.  He started the car and the motor suddenly sounded bad.  He ran through the pits and onto the back stretch to find that he was severely down on power.  Quickly and carefully Jeremy returned the car to the pits to find out what was going on.

Jeremy practices at Mansfield Motorsports Speedway as Robby Marhefka rolls through pit road

Jeremy and crew went to work and eventually found the bad news.  A pushrod had been completely lost in the motor.  Trying to no avail to find the piece, Jeremy finally removed the intake to find the pushrod.  Again, luck played a huge roll as the piece was not broken or bent.  The team of Robby Marhefka greatly helped as they provided the necessary parts to get the motor back in shape.  With little time to spare, the #18 was pushed through qualifying tech inspection.  However, time was being pushed to its limits. 

While Jeremy got the car through tech in time, he was unable to get ready for pre-qualifying "scuff laps".  He was late getting onto the track and USAR officials penalized him by cutting qualifying to only one lap.  He was only able to log the 38th quickest time at 17.837 seconds.  This time was well off his practice runs and would not qualify for the race.  With the team not sure how things were going to work out, the word finally came through that Jeremy would start at the tail of the field using a provisional.  "This isn't the way to make a
race, " Jeremy commented, "but at least we're in."

Jeremy calls for changes to the car during the warm-up laps of the Mansfield 250

Starting at the rear of the field, Jeremy pulled in for a quick change to the chassis before starting the race.  He had fought being tight all day and was trying to fix that condition further before 250 laps of racing.  Jeremy ran as well as he could in the race, but really didn't like the car's handling.  Nearly halfway through the race, the pit crew was getting ready to fuel the car when Jeremy called in saying something was wrong.  He thought a tire was going down.  Jeremy held out as long as he could while the rear of the car was moving all over.  Finally, more good luck appeared as a caution came out.  The crew changed the right side tires without problem and Jeremy was on his way again.  Reminiscent of the dirt stock car days, he did have a right rear tire going down.  It only had 9.5 lbs. of pressure left in it.

The crew later fueled the car so Jeremy was ready to race to the end.  As many cars fell out of the race, more bad luck popped into the picture.  The car was overheating badly during caution laps.  Jeremy was able to keep an eye on the water temperature and make it all the way to the checkered flag finishing in the 18th position.  After the day was done, everyone could be proud to have made it through to the checkered flag.  There was a very high attrition rate throughout the day and evening.  It was quite an accomplishment to have made it through the entire day having experienced such problems.

Jeremy on track with Tim Bainey, Jr.

"It turned out the lower radiator hose had not been clamped completely back on, " Jeremy said.  "It was leaking water out onto the right front tire."  That definitely wasn't helping the car as it was pushing through the corners.  "We were fortunate to get through all this and we really have to thank Robby Marhefka for giving us the parts we needed to fix the motor.  We will just look forward to improving things next time."

Jeremy would like to give special thanks to Kay Weidner for her help this weekend.  Also, the whole crew did a great job.

Jeremy will be skipping the next Northern Division race at Lake Erie Speedway in Pennsylvania.  Plans are to next race at Kil-Kare Speedway in Xenia, OH on Friday, July 1st.