CARNAHAN RACES THE IWK 250
The hard work from the entire Irving Oil #55 Impala
slugged away had for the solid days and crew staying up for over 36 hrs
to get Carnahan to Riverside Speedway. As they pulled in exhausted from
rebuilding the car from the Scotia Speedworld wreck they did not
realize that the work was not quite finished. The very first practice
lap Jason reported a clutch slippage problem coming off each corner as
the car would not hook up. Tired as they were on absolutely no sleep
for at least 2 days, the car was back on the track within 30 minutes.
Practice ran well and the car appeared to be better than any time this
year. A stroke of bad luck during qualifying ,caused by a carburetor
float adjustment, ruined the qualifying time. Once that was repaired it
was on to the strongest heat racing to qualify that Jason has ever ran.
" When we jumped into third on the restart in the qualifying race
I was sure we could hold on to lock ourselves into the show. The
car was tight but stable enough to stay in the top 5 for the reminder
of the race" Coming out of turn 2 ,a drive just as hungry as
Jason, got into the left rear of him and turned him around.
"being sent to the back was not in our agenda
but we we had to deal with it. I knew we were to tight to make our way
back up to the top 6 after that" said Jason. The track
manager Paul Maclean had noticed the exhausting efforts from the Irving
Oil crew and Jason's aggressive improvement to drive the wheels off
the car to try to get in the show of 32 starting cars. The #55
was chosen by the race track as the provisional for the day. "Not
the way we want to be in the show, but I guess it is what we need
today. The great people at Irving Oil will be pleased for the
exposure", said Jason. On lap 35 hard luck strikes again
with the exhaust coming loose from a previous altercation filling the
cockpit with fumes and forcing Jason to come down pit road. After
Jason's 70th completed lap, an electrical fire had left Jason no choice
to return to pit road to end the day as the damage was to extensive to
repair. "24th is ok for today, but this has been one of the best
confidence boosting weekends in our rookie season, and we will be ready
to get back into our testing program for Speedway 660 next
weekend." Said Jason.
