• Memorial Day weekend will have 3 days of racing
• I-25 Speedway will have a 2 race weekend with the second race starting Sunday morning at 12:01am.

Check out the schedule below on the new cards that will be distributed to fans.

The first night of the 2012 racing season was finally here last Saturday.  After rebuilding the car over the winter, it was great to get to the track and see how much the work helped make us faster. 

The first practice went really well and we turned times in the 19.0’s.  This was faster than at any point last year so that was very encouraging.  We tried a few adjustments and didn’t get any faster so in the end, we just stayed put to see if cooler weather in the evening would help the car.  We are qualifying at CNS this year so we really hoped to do well and have a good starting spot in the heat races.  The car seemed very loose during qualifying so I didn’t expect a great time but it turned out that we qualified 5^th out of 26 cars.  A very good result.  After talking to other drivers, the track conditions had changed and almost everyone was loose during qualifying.

The qualifying race went well and we ran in 6^th place for most of the heat race until Chris Eggleston spun in turn 4 on the last lap.  That allowed us to finish 5^th.  This was out of the fastest cars from qualifying so again, I was happy with the result.

CNS now does a random lineup for the top 10 qualifying cars to keep the racing interesting during the main events.  After this draw, we ended up starting 8^th (outside of row 4).  The car was not fast on the outside so I got shuffled back to 11^th pretty quickly.  Pretty similar to nationals so I was really just thinking I needed to start picking off one car a time.  At about that time, there was a call on the radio for a red flag.  Kevin Kurtz and Ryan Jones made contract came out of turn 2 and Kevin ended up flipping end over end at least two times.  There was a long delay but everyone ended up being OK.  The race started again, traffic spread out pretty quickly and I started trying to pass the first car, #3 Wayne Barlock.  I was able to get underneath Wayne several times but he was fast in the outside lane.  We race like that for more than 15 laps before I was able to make that pass.  From here, I worked on one more car but was not able to pass the 77 at the finish line.  The first week was an 8^th place finish.  Not as good as I hoped, especially after qualifying 8^th but in the end, there was no damage to the car so we can just work on making it faster. 

Our next race is on May 5^th.  Hopefully we will see you at the track.

We have been back from the US Legends Asphalt Nationals for a few weeks now and I am finally getting to send out an update to everyone.  Sorry it has taken so long.  I will just go through the whole weekend.

Rich Oliver and my brother Eric all drove out together in our RV pulling the race trailer.  We decided to leave on Tuesday night to try and beat the snow storm that was on the way.  Unfortunately, we didn’t beat it.  It was a pretty rough drive over the mountains in the snow and took almost an hour and a half to get down from the summit at Vail Pass.  After getting to Grand Junction though, the roads were dry and the trip went much smoother.  We arrived in Las Vegas around 2pm and went straight to the track to get our pit passes before the lines got long the next day.  Clay also flew out and met us at the hotel. 

We got to the track early on Thursday morning for a full day of practice.  We also had to go through pre-race tech which ended up taking quite a while.   The first on the track there was a little strange.  I had no idea what spots I was trying to hit or what the gas and brake pick up points where.  Our lap times this first session were terrible.  They were bad enough that Clay wouldn’t even tell me what they were.  At this point, I thought it would be a good idea to go watch some of the drivers from Las Vegas and see what spots they were hitting.  We missed a practice while we did this but it ended up helping a lot.  The car started off very loose and unstable on entry and we worked on fixing this most of the day with pretty good success and were comfortable enough by the end of the day that we started heat cycling new tires.  At this point though, we were still only middle of the pack on lap times.

We had to be at the track pretty early on Friday for a drivers’ meeting and then for practice before qualifying.  Practice went well and we were ready for qualifying.  It was a little different at this track.  They sent 8 cars or so out together and then timed everyone off of their transponders.  They goal is to spread the cars out and put the faster cars in front so everyone can run their fastest laps without being slowed down by a car in front of them.  This didn’t always work.  Each group got 3 laps to shoot for their best time.  We caught the car in front of us and our best lap ended up being the first lap.  Not a great qualifying run though.  Again, middle of the pack. 

Qualifying put us in the third heat.  Points awarded for qualifying position and heat race finishing position would determine first, if you got into the A-main and then your starting position in the main.  Not knowing how the points were weighted, I was still worried about not making the A-main.  The car was fast in this race.  Faster than it had been most of the weekend and I needed to pass a few cars to finish well.  Unfortunately, I was stuck behind a #90 from Canada who was driving with his mirrors.  If I tried to pass him low, he would drive me down into the infield.  If I went high, he would suddenly drive clear up to the wall.  After a few laps of this, I hit him with my bumper a few times but short of spinning him out, he was going to drive the race like that.  I ended up just saving the car and finished 5th.   After this was all over, we were listed as starting the main in 15th position on Saturday night (inside of row 8).  We had to wait quite awhile for our heat race to start because both heat races before ours had pretty big accidents.  Eric too some pretty good pictures of the biggest wreck where at least one car was upside down and on fire.  Pretty scary.

One of the reasons we were excited about going was that we won the masters points championship for Colorado this year.  This means we qualified for an extra race on Friday night called the Race of Champions.  We started on the outside of Row 1 for this race.  We were still middle of the road on lap times so I was a little nervous about starting up front.  No one was really able to get their cars to work on the outside so we weren’t going to be able to stay there long.  After getting the green flag and going into turn 1, the driver inside of row two went into the corner too hard and wash up into us, hitting the left rear and spinning us out in front of the whole field.  With a very big break, we didn’t get hit by anyone and the race was restarted with the original lineup.  The race was clean after this restart and after working on passing a couple of drivers to pass, we ended up finishing fifth out of twelve cars that started this race.  The most important thing about this race was that I got a lot more practice on how and where to pass other cars.  What worked for us is to enter the corner very high.  This allowed us to exit the corner very low and under the other car.  Once underneath the other car, they were not able to make their car run in the high groove and the pass was complete.  This info would really pay off well in the main.

All of the A-mains started a little late.  They ran them in the order of Young Lions, Semi-Pros, Masters and then Pros.  A 150 lap Late Model race was schedule after the mains were done.  Each main was scheduled for 40 laps to run in about 40 minutes.  The Young Lions and Semi-Pros had a rough time getting these races going.  A lot of wrecks and blown motors.  A lot of very aggressive driving in both mains and not giving other drivers a place to race so some big wreck followed.  The Masters drivers got strapped into the car and we were already to go when the Semi-Pro race was running.  Near the end of their race, officials announced over the radio that they were changing the schedule.  The Pros would run and then the late model race would run before the Masters main.  This was pretty frustrating.  We watched the Pro race, which also had a ton of wrecks, and then I went to lay down for awhile since the late model race would take a long time to run.

The Masters race was finally ready to start at around 11:30.  Definitely late and we were all pretty tired after being at the track for 3 days.  Starting in row 8 with the aggressiveness of the drivers and some super fast guys starting behind me, I was setting my goals at not dropping back from my starting position.  I was actually pretty nervous about the race at this point after watching so many cars get wrecked and also wanting to do well.  Jon Krizman walked by about that time and told me, “You are a lot faster than a lot of these guys starting in front of you so go get ‘em”.  That made an instant difference in how I felt about the start of the race and I was ready to go.

It took several restarts to get the race going, we ran almost half of the race before the first yellow.  We had worked up to 11th before this yellow, at around lap 20.  It was about this point in the race that I felt the car was getting better.  I could close in on cars pretty quickly and could generally pass them within a half lap or so.  Even the #90 that caused me so much trouble in the heat race was no trouble at this point.  With each caution, I would count the cars ahead of me and on the last caution with about 4 laps left, I counted only 3 cars in front of me.  I was shocked.  I couldn’t believe we were running that high and was suddenly more worried about messing it up.  I think in the end, this was a mistake.  Our car was fast but I started driving to not mess up instead of catch and pass more cars.  I was able to hold onto 4th pretty easily and also actually got inside of the car in 3rd place coming out of the last corner and raced him to the finish line.  He beat us for 3rd by less than a foot. 

At this point, everyone got to come down and meet me in victory circle along with the other drivers that finished in the top 5.  This was definitely a highlight of the weekend.  Having everyone that worked on the car and hang out be down there to share in the fun of the 4th place finish was amazing.  They gave us champagne, which mostly sprayed, and the biggest trophy I have ever won.  It was an amazing experience. 

The whole weekend was definitely my best memory of racing up to this point and will definitely go again when it is in this region.  Hopefully we get even more Colorado cars next time.

We were back at CNS again this week.  It was a crazy week because there was a big 150 lap race with K&N Touring Late Models so they cut out one of our practice sessions this week.  That meant we were going to get one less practice session than normal so we just left the same setup on the car as the week before.  We were fast the week before so this seemed like a good idea.  We were also getting to the track pretty late because Lauren had a ice skating competition the same day.  My Dad and Clay took the car to the track and got it all set up while I was at Lauren’s competition.  I rushed to the track and got in the car for practice just as it started.  We cut it pretty close but were able to get the practice in.  The car and setup was still pretty good, like the week before.

We started in the middle of our heat race and it was still pretty early so the track was still hot.  The car doesn’t handle near as good when it is hot but it still felt pretty good in the heat race.  We finished third in this heat race which was pretty good since there was some fast cars in the race.  The car was still a little loose in the heat race so we decided we would tighten it up just a little bit with tire pressure changes only.

CNS inverts the top 3 from each heat race pretty regularly and they did that again this week.  That meant that we started on the pole.  This has been a tough spot for me this year.  Even though you are supposed to set the pace before the green flag drops, I still seem to get started late.  The start was much better this time though.  I was able to jump out to a early lead and actually lead a couple of laps.  There were some super fast cars in this race though and a couple passed me to drop me to third.  I ran in third for quite a while but the car started to get unstable.  It would feel loose going into the corner but tight coming out.  Eventually, I drove it too far into turn 3 and got it really sideways in the middle of the corner.  I dropped to 4^th at this point.  With about 5 laps left, Chris Cooper ran up next to me to make a past but I worked hard at staying up with him.  We raced side by side for the last 4 or 5 laps.  It was some of the closest and most fun racing of the year for me.  Chris would pull ahead about a half car going into the corner but then I would pull a half car ahead in the straights.  At the finish line, Chris was ahead by .017 seconds.  It was a great finish and a ton of fun.  We have raced close with Chris a lot over the last two years and it has always been clean and fun.

We ended up with a 5^th place finish which was good points.  We are still in second in RMLRA points and third in CNS points.

Our next race isn’t until 8/27 so we have lots of time to get the car ready for the next race.



Hopefully we see you at the track then.

The track was really dirty from the super-modifieds dumping oil on the track right before we went out.  They seem to do that every week.  It takes the track forever to clean it up and we have to sit in our cars waiting, in the sun, while they do it.  Not much fun when it is 90+ degrees out and you have all of your fire gear on.  The car was really unstable when we got on the track but it was hard to tell if would stay that way or was it just the dirty track or really hot weather.  A cool track is definitely more stable than a hot track.  We decided to leave the set up alone and see if the track came to us.  I’m not real good at doing that.  I always want to adjust to make it better but sometimes you can make it worse by messing with it.

There were 28 cars there this week so it was a great turnout.  I think it is much more fun when there are more cars on the track.  30 is the most that CNS will normally run in a main so the club was really close to a scenario where you had to race into the main event through the qualifying races.  I really hope we get to that point as a club again.  Because there were so many cars, we actually ran three qualifying races.  I was in the third heat starting on the inside of row two.  We had a good start and were in second place behind Chris Eggleston just a few laps into the race.  I tried to stay as close to him as I could but never really thought I could pass him.  I need to get a lot faster before I start worrying about that.  He is very fast.  I stayed in second for the rest of this heat race so it was a good finish.  It put me on the outside of row 3 for the main.  I also had improved the lap times from the 19.4 in the practice to a few 19.1’s in the heat race.  The track did actually come to us so doing nothing ended up being a good thing. 

As a top 5 in the heat race, we had to go through tech.  They said we were right on the edge of the upper limit for wheel base  so we decided to move the rear axle forward a little bit before the main, just to be safe.  This is pretty risky though because if you move one side more than the other, the rear end won’t be square anymore and the car will handle much differently.  After turning the 19.1’s in the heat race, I was really worried about making the car worse. We were really careful though and got it all done right before the start of the main. 

We seemed to have a hard time getting the main started.  We had several yellows early in the race and had several restarts because of this.  Those are always the most nerve wracking parts of the race since everyone is packed in so close together.  But being towards the front is definitely better in those situations because the drivers up there don’t make many mistakes.  I was actually able to hold on to the leaders and ran 5^th for most of the race.  As it has in the last couple of weeks, the car started to go loose as the race went on and I dropped to 6^th.  There was a caution with a few laps left and when we restarted after that, the car we even looser.  I still had 6^th going into the last corner when I was hit but the 7^th place driver.  I almost spun but held onto it.  Unfortunately, I lost my momentum and was passed by the guy that hit me and by the Jon Krizman  who was behind him.  Dropping to 8^th in the last corner was disappointing but it was still a decent finish considering the quality of the field this week.  All of the fast guys from this area were there this week plus the #1 and #2 drivers in national points made the trip from New Mexico to race with us.  It was really a fun night.

We are now 1 point out of the lead in RMRLA points and 2 points out of 2^nd place in CNS points.  A little disappointed in losing those spots in the last corner because I would have moved up a spot in both standings if I would have finished 6^th.  We actually ran a few laps in the 19.0s during the main and quite a few in the 19.1s so we were much faster in the main.  It keeps it fun if you feel like you are improving.  The car was faster so that was a good sign that we moved the rear end correctly.  That was a relief.

Next week is at CNS again.  Hopefully we will see you at the track.

We were back at CNS this week after a rain-out last week.  We didn’t have a lot to do on the car this week since we had an off week last week so, we decided we would set up a second set of shocks for a more extreme / out of the box setup.  We kept our previous week’s setup on the other set so we could go back to it quickly if this new setup just wouldn’t work.  We went into the first practice and I was amazed at how good the setup was.  The car rotated in the middle of the corner than it has since before the Legends tire change.  I didn’t realize how much I was fighting the car to keep it down in the corner until we tried this setup this week.  The car would almost turn itself in the middle of the corner.  This will be a setup that we stick with for a few weeks and see if we can tune it in to be even better.

We were fifth fastest in practice and hadn’t really figured out the setup yet so it was pretty encouraging.  We started in the back of our heat race though so it was going to be an interesting race.  The car would turn so well, I was able to get through traffic and finished 4th out of 11.  We were also turning the third fastest times in the race.  A car was disqualified in tech so we actually got moved up to a third place finish.  This turned out to be really good since they invert the first three rows. We ended up starting the main on the pole.  It was a fast race from the start and we ran in fifth place for the first half of the race.  The car started to go loose as the race went on and we dropped back to sixth.  This was interesting because the new tires have always gone tight as the race goes on but this new set up ended up going the other way.  This was good news though because that is more how the old tires worked.  We ran most of the rest of the race in sixth place until two cars in front spun coming out of turn 2.  They got going right away so no yellow flag was thrown but we were able to move up the 4th in the process.  This is where we finished and it was our best finish to date at CNS.  Pretty good day.

Erick Anderson and Jason Brenner, friends from high school, also came out to hang out with us at the races this week and it was great to see them.  It was nice to get a good finish while they were here.

We are off this weekend and will be back at CNS on 7/30.  Hopefully we will see you at the track soon.

We went to Pueblo with essentially the same setup as the last time we were there and finished third.  This turned out to be a bad setup for that day.  The car reacted to the track completely different than the last time we were there.  It had an extremely bad push.  Probably the worst we have had in this car.  We tried several things to free the car up including different rear springs, cross weight changes and even adding rear-stear into the car.  We did qualify for the trophy dash.  Finally for the dash, it was freed up but, then it was very loose and we finished fifth out of six.  At least that gave us something to work with.  We tightened it up for the main and felt pretty good about the set up.  They inverted the start of the main so we started in the back of the main.  I needed to finished ahead of several other drivers and one of those was starting on the pole for the main.  That meant I needed to go through the field of 15 cars to pass him.  I didn’t make it though.  I passed 9 cars and finished sixth but Mike, the other driver, finished fourth and took the first national qualifying spot of the weekend. 

I was a little worried about not qualifying at this point.  There would be more cars at CNS and there are some really fast cars at that track.  Because we had done so many things to the car to get it to run at Pueblo, we needed to get the car back to a good setup starting point before getting to CNS.  We got back from Pueblo around midnight and unloaded everything back into the garage.  I stayed up until after 2am getting the car torn down and then my Dad came over about 7:30am to work on the setup.  We did a complete setup and it took a total of almost 5 hours.  This made it a pretty long weekend.  We felt pretty good about getting to CNS after that though.

We went out for the first practice at CNS and the car was extremely loose.  We really didn’t expect that from the setup so we were back to thrashing on the car.  This time though, we were able to get the car close with just cross weight and tire pressure changes.  We felt pretty good about going into the heat race because the car was back to being stable and we drew a number that had us starting on the pole.  We lead a couple of laps and ended up finishing third.  Because of way they invert the start of the main event, we also ended up starting the main on the pole.  We ran in the top five for quite awhile and was the top runner in the master class.  About then, Jon Krizman starting really gaining on us.  He has been the fastest Masters driver in the Legends for quite awhile.  I figured I was in trouble at this point but with 4 laps left, he ended up spinning and hitting the wall coming out of turn 2.  After this, we ended up winning the masters division and qualifying for Nationals.  We will get a trophy for qualifying later this year and we are also leading the Colorado Masters points.  This would put us in a bonus race called the Race of Champions during the nationals weekend.  The year is going well so far.  Now we just have to stay consistent.

We will be at CNS again this weekend so it will be an easier setup week.  Hopefully we will see you all at the track soon.

Brian came out to the track with me after his camp was over so that was really fun.  We got there about a half hour before our heat race so we had time to get everything ready.  Again, I didn’t have a great starting spot.  Our pill draws at this track have been bad all year for some reason.  I was able to pass a few cars in the heat race though for a 5 place finish.  This put us on the outside of row 5 for the start of the main.  The cars in front of me were all fast on the outside lane so I thought we could get a good start.  I was right, the outside lane took off and we worked up to 8^th place pretty quickly.  This set us up behind Dave Hondel.  Dave is fast and a very clean racer so the racing was fun.  We caught up with lapped traffic and then things got really interesting.  Dave went inside and I went outside of a car in the back stretch.  Unfortunately for me, the lapped car drifted up and almost trapped me against the wall.  This would have been a pretty bad wreck but I was able to back out before he pinned me up there.  I was able to catch back up to Dave but could not make a pass stick.  With one lap left, Dave drove outside of a lapped car going into turn 3.  The lapped car drifted up and trapped Dave this time and I was able to drive underneath them both to finish 7^th. 

It was a fun race and a good finish considering there were some really fast out of town cars there getting ready for this weekend’s national qualifiers.  This should be a fun weekend. We are planning on going to Nationals in Las Vegas this year but we need to qualify this weekend.  Hopefully everything goes well.

I also took the kids out on Sunday to drive their cars.  I added a couple of pictures to this note of the kids in their cars.

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Larrel 'Scotty' Scott
Phone: 303-618-1513

Email: scottl@lariatsp.com
15400 West 64th Avenue #163 | Arvada, Colorado 80007
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