Let me begin by saying I am a race fan, not a big fan like my friends Sparky and summer but I am a fan of all types of racing.  I want to tell everyone I know how fantastic the Bucyrus 200 nationwide race at Road America was one of the best events I have seen in many, many years!

The fans were fantastic, I will say I believe their were more fans at this event then any Indy event or other major event I have seen their.  Again Fantastic.  The weather, fantastic!

So the race, aggressive from the start.  The bets around the media lounges were how many folks would go into the gravel in turn 1 & 5 on the 1^st lap?  Well we all lost as they all made it through unscathed. The drivers seemed to tip toe through the 1^st 20 laps until their was “the incident” 9 drivers thought they could make it through corner 7 all at one time.  Mistake!  Major Mistake, Road America was not designed to fit these massive stock cars through corners like that hence a red flag and a 31:31 race stoppage.

 This was another issue when speaking with fans that we had a concern about would there be too many full course yellows or even a red flagged race and we got it. To the benefit to the drivers and the NASCAR officials the major delay was around the oil in the middle of the turn where the drivers dive into the corner aggressively.

 20 laps into the race and the aggressive driving begins, Paul Menard gets knocked around and goes from 3^rd into 11^th, Carl Edwards and Jacques Villeneuve both were in the top 10 actually 6^th & 7^th with 10 laps to go and Jacques makes a power move into the corner going 3 wide at times on the straights to get his position on the field.

 Edwards as well was being aggressive, having lead most of the race by large margins (7 seconds at times) unfortunately for him the aggressive driving in the last 20 was causing full course yellows and kept bringing the field back to his rear bumper.

 With Edwards and Jacques jocking for the lead ended when Jacques engine gave way with 2 laps to go to end his day in the pack while Carl had Brendan Gaughan on his tale for the runners up role on this day.

Carl takes home the 40-pound marble trophy designed by Harley Davidson and a brand new Harley Davidson, which he announced he was going to auction off for charity after the race.

Carl stated fellow racer Boris Said helped him with the course giving him pointers last night in Sonoma, CA.   “At end the transmission was grinding in 3^rd gear, I was not sure if I should skip 3rd and go to 4^th I was just praying it would hold up.  And it did!

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment