The Singularity Collective

Today I got an email in my yahoo email account that, well, frankly made me laugh till it brought tears to my eyes.

It was from someone named “Robert S. Mueller, III“… and the subject line was “Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division“. The message the spammer used as his / her masking email address was “washington.fields@ic.fbi.gov“.

When I saw the email… and after I picked myself up off the floor and wiped tears from my eyes so I could see again… I saved it, because I knew this one was going to be good. First, there is no “Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division” in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All Anti-Terrorist activity is now handled, after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, by the Office of Homeland Security. Furthermore, even prior to that date, domestic terrorist activity was a completely separate division from financial criminal investigation. All international illegal activities involving terrorist activity were handled (or were supposed to be handled) by the Central Intelligence Agency.

My email client has a virus scanner so I wasn’t concerned about getting infected with a virus by opening the message to view it. Since I’d had a similar message in the past that was long, involved, and actually rather creative that attempted to convince me that the FBI had been “tracking” me for months and that several million dollars were about to be deposited into my bank account – so for the sake of cooperation and to avoid prison time I could provide my bank information to “assist” in apprehending said criminals, I was curious about what exactly this one would say.

So I open the message… and the body of the message – in it’s entirety – was :

OPEN THE FILE FROM THE FBI.

Included was a text file named FBI.txt.

Now – the stupidity, ignorance, and just blatant moronic idiocy of most spammers is mildly amusing at times, since most up to date spam filters intercept a good 95% of it nowadays, but this is just freakin’ hilarious. I never thought I’d see the day when the idiot spammers would simply be too damn lazy to actually try to construct something that even slightly sounded legitimate.

So – to “Robert S. Mueller, III” and the rest of your posse… LOL!! You people are little more than a bunch of stupid idiots.

Well, I had hoped to be able to make a better accounting of myself from last years race at New Hampshire. Last year it was my first race with the League, and I ended up parking the car after two self spins. My setup was just not all that great and I was unable to really control the car in the turns “at speed” – so I was way off pace most of the time until I parked it about halfway through the race.

This year, I practiced and practiced – and just couldn’t come up with a setup that would work. I was already close to being suspended for a race due to a couple of spins in previous races, and I didn’t want to cause myself to get that suspension – so instead of risking it, and risking wrecking a bunch of guys who were much better than my car was – I ran the initial pace lap, then the first green flag lap and then parked the car.

I don’t know what it is about New Hampshire that I can’t seem to wrap my head around. It’s a flat mile track, and for some reason no matter how I drive the car, if I try to really push the car into the turns, I lose it – every single time – in turn 3. I get just past the “cut” and begin to let off the brakes and the rear end will snap around like it’s being shot out of a cannon. I’ve made change after change after change on my setup(s) to try to fix the lose entry condition and nothing seems to work. From small, incremental changes all the way up to massive overhauls of the left rear and right front weight and spring settings.

I’m sure it’s completely possible that my line, and how I’m driving the car, is a good part of the issue, but I’ve tried different lines into and out of the turns, and it hasn’t really changed anything.

I guess we all have “that one track” that bites us in the ass – and mine, apparently, is New Hampshire.

Well… I haven’t posted here for a while, lots of things going on at home, work… the usual mid-life responsibilities.

I started getting heavily into EVE Online for a while with some guys I knew at work. It was kind of fun, the new updates they have done over the years have really livened up the game and graphically enhanced it immensely. But after a couple months of play – it was back to the same old thing again… mining desperately for profit. I even finally got one of my characters skilled up enough to utilize Exploration skills and run in a Covert Ops cloaked ship… and even that didn’t make it any more interesting after a while.

Still play World of Warcraft, and likely won’t ever stop. I enjoy it primarily because it’s low key and easy to play and doesn’t require a huge learning curve… and I find that the older I get the less I crave games that really have a steep curve (this is in exception to racing and flight sims however).

I’m working on getting back into wargaming again. I contacted a guy on the forums at BoardgameGeek.Com who wants to give the old Victory Games shelf game Pacific War a shot. We both have it, and we’ve both had it for years and years and never played it. So we’ll be playing a “Play by EMail” game of it (or, “PBeM” as it’s called) using the VASSAL wargame engine where we can play turns, save them as “log” files and send them via email. Then the other player loads the log file and “steps” through it until the log file is over, then records their turn and sends it back… and so on.

Other than that, I’ve gotten rather heavily back into online NASCAR Racing. I started with the ASCORS League, and have run a few races there on Saturday’s with the GNS League they have running. I secured a contract with Triad Motorsports to drive the #49 Dodge Autozone car full time, and my first start in that car was last week at Kentucky Motor Speedway. I finished on the lead lap, no wrecks or spins. Tomorrow we run New Hampshire – I’m hoping I can give a better accounting of myself than I did last year.

I also joined up with a great bunch of guys at the Late Night Racing League (or “LNR” as it’s referred to). Right now I’m running on Wednesday nights in their Truck series, and Thursday nights in their SuperSpeedway series. I’ve really enjoyed the short amount of time I’ve spent with them so far – they seem like a good bunch and like to help each other out. Despite the competition, they are much more easy going and mild mannered than most of the guys at ASCORS… who, in my own opinion, take it just a little too seriously at times.

Later on, after I get my new trucks and car painted for the LNR 2009b schedule, I’ll put up renders of them here.

That’s about it for now.

Well, my personal sentiments about Kyle “KY” Busch have finally been summed up perfectly – and by his own loud, obnoxious mouth no less.

Kyle Busch’s post race Bristol comments

I don’t really think anything else needs to be said – except that obviously little boy Kyle has a major inferiority complex with Dale Jr. if he’s taking so much time to bash him. Trouble is, while Jr. may not be winning races lately, the primary reason he’s so popular is because of four things Kyle Busch does not, and if the past is any indication, will not ever have :

Honesty, Integrity, Character, and Respect.

I’d say more, but KY isn’t worth another 2 seconds of my time.

Ok, I’m venting a bit here.

I’d hoped that, now that the new season was upon us, that the Kyle Busch (better known to me and others I know who hate him as much as I do as either “little boy Kyle” or “KY”) faboy club in NASCAR – most notably, the announcers (Mike Joy, Darrel Waltrip, etc.) would tone down a bit. That, finally, we wouldn’t have to hear the constant slobbering and wiping of chins as they sing the praises of KY.

And then, here we go again with his win today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

They all cheer like little schoolboys when he makes a pass. They all shout for joy when he passes Clint Boyer for the lead late in the race (which, in classic Busch form, he “bumped” his way past him rather than make a clean pass). They piss all over themselves when he wins the race, crossing the checkered flag.

There’s no other driver in the entire sport that NASCAR pisses all over themselves like that. No other driver gets them all excited like a pimple faced teenager on his Prom night.

It’s damned sickening really. Pathetic. Here we go again with another round of BuschCAR. And to think I was even rooting for Jeff Gordon to win – just so KY wouldn’t. I turned the race off just before he won simply because I couldn’t stomach watching him win.

Now, the vast majority of the KY fans out there all sit on their soap boxes and shout platitudes to one another about why we all hate Busch – and they all try to say it’s because he’s winning when our favorite driver isn’t. While that may be true with some of us, for me and most of the rest of the fans I know who hate him winning races has nothing to do with it.

It’s his attitude.

He’s a little punk, snot nosed kid with a chip on his shoulder so big it leaves room for no one else. He drives like a damned maniac, he bumps, bashes, and slams other drivers out of the way if he can’t make a clean pass (notice that whenever he causes incidents they never show his in-car or top-car camera views… odd coincidence, huh). He has absolutely no respect for anybody on the track or off the track, and no respect for long time drivers and veterans out there – either by the way he drives, his attitude, or his mouth. He’s everything we didn’t need in the sport – regardless of what NASCAR says, and what his fans say.

And when you consider that 90% of his fans are “new” NASCAR fans with severe cases of “the winingest driver syndrome”, all it does is feed the beast. Like putting a fire out with kerosene.

His brother Kurt Busch was voted the year before he won the Cup Championship as being one of the top three most hated athletes in sports – and this was a poll that included all sports, not just NASCAR. Here we have his punk-ass brother, who’s even worse than he was.

There’s other guys out there starting their careers who are genuinely good guys. Good drivers with great attitudes, and who give respect where it’s been earned. They own up when they make mistakes. They genuinely feel badly when something they do causes problems for others. They race hard but give when it’s time to give, or wait for the right move rather that forcing the issue. These are guys like A.J. Allmendinger, Joey Logano, David Ragan.

Busch does none of these things.

All I can hope is that he’ll do something so stupid that the fire will go out and we’ll have NASCAR back again. Or that he tries to tangle his horns with someone like Tony Stewart. Or that he likes F1 racing so much that he leaves NASCAR for it.

Well, I haven’t really posted anything on here in quite a long while. I sometimes wonder why I waste my time writing on this when hardly anyone reads it – but then I remember that I really don’t care if anyone reads it because it provides me some practice for writing in general.

I’ve been mostly just working and spending time with the family lately. My daughter is growing fast – she’ll be three years old here in a couple months. My wife and I have had to start being extremely careful with what we say because my daughter picks up on everything. We’ve caught her saying some things that make us both burst out laughing and trying not to let her see us laughing, but it’s difficult when she says some of the things she does.

As far as gaming goes, I’ve gotten back into EVE Online. I actually play now with some guys I know from work, which makes things a helluva lot easier than they have been in the past – I mostly went solo every other time I played. We’ve decided to join a large and well funded Corporation in the hopes that us helping them will assist us with our goals as well.

I still play World of Warcraft, and won’t stop playing that any time soon. That’s mainly my primary MMORPG still.

With that, I’ll just close by saying that finally the NASCAR season is starting – this weekend is the Bud Shootout. It’s going to be a great season, and despite my favorite driver being Dale Earnhardt, Jr., I think Carl Edwards is going to give the entire field a real run for their money this year.

Well, not really… but he’s finally 50th level.

Kelanthir finally got there last night. It’s been quite a long time, and now that he’s at 50th (almost 51st really) I can see the light – I’ll be able to actually see (and enter) the Dark Portal at last in only 4 levels worth of play – most likely in just the next week or so.

I’m kind of a perfectionist player and one of my favorite things to do in the game is experience new places, so I’ve refrained from even looking at screenshots (even the one’s on the WoWWiki page linked above) of the Dark Portal until I can see it for myself in game. I’ll finally be able to visit Shattrath City, and see all the cool stuff introduced into the Burning Crusade that I’ve yet to see.

A bit late I know… but better late than never.

One other cool thing however is the fact that, after I reach 55th level, I’ll be able to create a Death Knight as well. From the reports I’ve heard from players I know they are a lot of fun to play.

At any rate, that’s it for now on the game front…

Well, I finally had enough.

I’ve had frequent issues over the last year and a half or so after the release of the Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, I’ve had to deal with logon ques for the server upon which most of my toons are located – Doomhammer. The unfortunately reality is that Doomhammer seems to be one of three servers that US players automatically get “assigned” to when they allow the system to assign them to a server. As a result, the Doomhammer server is severely overcrowded – and during peak play time hours it frequently gets past it’s maximum player limit and forces you to have to wait to logon to the server to play.

I purchased the latest expansion for World of Warcraft last week a day after it was released : Wrath of the Lich King. I installed it and tried to log on – and the que for Doomhammer was so huge I was 1400th in line with a wait time of more than 3 hours.

This was ridiculous!

All throughout the entire weekend I was unable to get on – wait times were in excess of 2 hours at almost all times unless you wanted to play after midnight. I finally figured enough was enough.

Blizzard finally began authorizing free character moves to less populated – and eventually brand new – servers in an attempt to alleviate the population problem on Doomhammer and other servers with massive wait times. I decided that I wanted off Doomhammer permanently, and when they offered transfers to a brand new server called Dawnbringer, I took the opportunity and moved all my toons except for Elroshaer over to the new server. Most of the people I play with regularly did as well.

Finally, no more wait times… and what’s even better, no more huge lag in Ironforge, Orgrimmar, or Stormwind due to the huge amount of players in view. Whoohoo!

We also decided to take the opportunity to create a guild of our own – which we decided to name Doomhammer Refugees (an aptly appropriate name my friend Chris came up with). After my toons were moved, I logged on and played Kelanthir, bought a Guild Charter and basically bribed people to sign the 9 slots so I could register the guild.

So, I can finally play my toons without any sort of wait time to log on with the new expansion. Sucks that we had to move – but it was better than having to sit there and wait for hours just to play.

I haven’t written anything on this blog since August. Been busy, and frankly just haven’t had much of a desire to add to it during that time with everything that’s been going on. Finally got my wife and baby down here in Mississippi with me in a house, so we’re together at last and getting used to being down here as a family.

As for gaming, I’ve kinda popped back and forth from this to that – I got the Wrath of the Lich King World of Warcraft expansion the other day and have been playing WoW a lot since. Other than that, I recently got back into FSEconomy and have created a new company I named Klondike Aviation that covers the Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Alaska with five Fixed Based Operations (FBO’s). The signature link I created is this :

I haven’t created any sort of branding or “livery” for my planes as yet, but I’ll work on that soon.

Other than that… things have been quiet. I’ll try to keep up on this thing again as the time goes by.

Last weekend’s race at Bristol was interesting to say the least.  The drivers had the first Bristol race to run the new Car of Tomorrow on the new track surface, so we were certain to have a more competitive run by all the drivers this go around.  Once the green flag dropped, it was apparent fairly quickly that the new surface and earlier season run had given the whole field all they needed, as passes were made all over the track – high, low, and even through the middle.

As so often seems to be the case unfortunately for those of us who really dislike Kyle Busch (which are becoming an increasing majority), he managed to squeak his way by into the lead – and once again we had to put up with NASCAR praising their fanboy all throughout the run until finaly Edwards took the lead.  Or rather, “bump and ran” his way to the lead.  Little boy Kyle (whom, due to the tickertape standings throughout both the Nationwide and Cup races was referred to as “KY Busch” – which pretty  much is my new nickname for the guy) obviously didn’t care much for that, and said so by slamming Carl once the run was over.  In beautiful form, Carl wasn’t gonna put up with that, and spun KY around before he took the checkered for his victory lap.

KY’s comments after the race were typical of the little boy.

The real irony here is that Kyle, for once, got a taste of his own medicine.  And, like the whiney, pissy little punk that he is, he couldn’t handle it – proving that he’s just as bad (and, as far as I’m concerned, even worse) than his older brother Kurt, and that like any punk he can sure dish it out but can’t take it at all.  He’s bumped and bashed his way into the point leader from the beginning of the season, and finally Carl Edwards gave it back to him – in perfect form.

Carl’s post race comments summed it up perfectly -

“… I just had to ask myself, would he do that to me?  And he has before!”

Half the drivers on the circuit can say exactly the same thing.

Furthermore, the constant praise NASCAR continues to give the guy is flatly beginning to get insulting.  He’s suddenly become their “poster boy”, and despite many time where’s he’s deliberately (obviously) hit people to get them out of his way, he never gets docked penalty points or incurs any sort of track penalty whatsoever.  NASCAR’s so blind to the “brilliance” of little KY that they even gave the little punk the “Best Move of the Race” award for avoiding Dave Blaney’s wreck as he careened down towards the pit wall… when anyone who watched the race could clearly see that Paul Menard made the better move to avoid the wreck, scraping by with inches to spare.  That’s just absolute crap, and clear proof that NASCAR’s obsession with KY is getting sickening.  I’m half tempted to start referring to the sanction as BuschCAR.

At any rate, here’s to you Carl.  And if the so called rivalry ensues, you’ve got my vote my man… bash the little punk into the turn 4 wall every chance you get.

Well, I’ve not run any races since I moved with ASCORS. Part of the reason is the fact that the move itself kept me from doing it, but also due to the fact that the races up to that point were road races – and I had to work one of those weekends due to a software upgrade.

However, last weekend was the race at Michigan International Speedway.

I was actually looking forward to racing at Michigan. Michigan is a fun track… it’s fast, the track itself is almost twice as wide as most other speedway tracks on the circuit, and it has multiple grooves – one can race just about anywhere on the track surface there… up high, down low, in the middle, etc.

What I didn’t count on was the changes to the track.ini file that ASCORS usually always messes with… in some sort of weird effort to make the racing “more realistic”.

I’ve always done very well at Michigan. I love the track, I have a few setups that really enable me to run fast and clean. The changes to the track.ini file that were made pretty much made every single setup I had for Michigan a waste of time. The track surface was so slick I spun the car exiting the pits – while feathering the throttle. This is supposed to be realistic? No matter what setup I tried, or what change to any setup I made, no matter how drastic that change was, nothing helped. I lost the car almost every time I entered a turn “at speed”.

I finally just simply gave up. It wasn’t worth wasting my entire week practicing on the track and not getting anywhere… ala New Hampshire (see below). I told my team owner that I’d run the race and he promised to send me a couple of setups like he usually does. But the more I thought about it the more I realized it would just be a waste of my time. Rich’s setups are always WAY loose, way more loose than I can drive… and on a track surface that was already like driving on solid ice with a film of water over it, that was going to be a recipe for disaster.

This was a further disappointment to me because I had planned on running some truck races too. However, they also change the track.ini file there as well. The practice laps I ran at last weeks’ track were just as ridiculous.

I don’t know how these guys are setting up their cars to run these races. I have been hoping I could get some assistance in setting up cars to run the tracks there… but that’s a complete waste of time in and of itself, because it’s unfortunately painfully obvious that the “incumbents” there have no desire to assist anyone if you are not part of the clique, or one of the “buds”. The real fun of it is that the entire community is largely made up of some of the most immature, mud-slinging adolescent adults I’ve ever seen. Every single race degenerates after it’s over into a mud-slinging contest of “who bashed who”, complete with name calling, whining, the works. It’s absolutely pathetic… and frankly, I’m sick of it and I’ve never really even been a target of it for the most part.

And so this has me thinking whether I even want to stay with ASCORS… I’m probably going to leave and find somewhere else to run. With my time zone change from the move, that opens up a lot of doors that were closed otherwise, so maybe I can find a place to run that doesn’t screw up the track.ini files… or at least if they do, are actually willing to assist drivers new to the Series how to adjust their setups to compensate for the lack of tire grip.

I picked up a copy of Colin McRae’s DiRT last week when I went to visit the mall where I live now in Mississippi. The game was only $15 bucks so I couldn’t resist… I’ve been looking for a more serious racing simulation that’s not F1, CART, or Indy car to offset my NASCAR racing for a while now, and DiRT seemed like a viable alternative after I played the demo on a Playstation 3 a few months ago.

It’s a bit arcadish still, but it has a lot of realism options to offset most of the arcadish stuff. Plus it has a very robust peripheral input system that allowed me to set up my racing wheel almost perfectly… the only thing it didn’t recognize was my shifter – but then, since each car in the sim has different gears it would have been a moot point anyway.

So far it’s been a lot of fun. Driving on dirt, especially down the Rally races up and down mountainsides, is a real challenge if you plan on being competitive – kinda like driving on ice almost. Several tracks include both asphalt and dirt surfaces, which really throws one for a loop until you get the hang of how the car handles when it leaves one surface for the other.

The races I enjoy the most are the cross country and desert running truck races. Those are definitely the most challenging and fun at the same time for me at this point. I haven’t reached the part in the Career mode as yet where I get to race the buggy that’s in the demo of the game… that’s one I’m really looking forward to as well. In all, it’s a nice change of pace from NASCAR racing.

I haven’t done much with the ASCORS League in the last three weeks due to my move and having to work last weekend. Despite this coming week’s run at Watkins Glen (I’m not too good at road races) I’m planning on running this Saturday barring any unforseen things popping up. I’m also planning on preparing to run a few Truck races on Thursday nights starting soon to get myself more track time… so I’ll be doing lots of practice in the upcoming days.

At last.

I’ve been negotiating a job offer from a company for the last couple of months now, and it finally came through last Friday.  The offer was pretty much what I expected, just a few minor details to iron out.

The joy came this morning when I broke the news that I was resigning and giving my two week notice.  I’ve not been this excited about something in a very long time, and it was pretty difficult to not smile rather hugely when discussing the situation with my manager and giving my two week notice.  I am rip raring and ready to go, and this next couple of weeks I’m sure are going to drag by slowly.

The only issue at all is the drive… it’s pretty much a three day trip if one breaks it down into 8 hour days, which I plan on doing.  I’m not a 22 year old kid anymore, and couldn’t drive that distance in one shot now.  So, I’ll be staying at a friend of my wife’s house the first night, and most likely getting a motel room the second night.  Should be in good ol’ MS by Sunday the 27th at the latest.

I can’t wait to get started.

Last week I was fairly excited for the race on Saturday.  Being that it was at Daytona, I knew that not only would there be even more drivers there than normal, but that for once I’d be a contender, as I always run well at that track… and I’d also found and modified a racing setup that was top notch.  In race testing I was running pretty quick laps with it, and the only changes I needed to make was a slight camber adjustment and the wheel ratio turned down several notches as it was much too sensative for me.

Saturday came, and I logged onto the race server about an hour before the driver’s meeting to get some practice time with some of the other guys I’d be racing with, and to see where I stood in relation to hotlaps.  My setup was as good as I’d hoped… I was able to get good runs on people in the draft and make passes as a result in the pack.  The setup ran really good in the middle and high lines, but tended to drift low onto the apron at the apex and exit of the turns in the low line, so I had to compensate with slight opposite wheel to keep the car above the yellow line.

After the driver’s meeting, we ended up having a 34 car field.  My team mate sent me a fast, but relatively unstable Qualifying setup, which I used the Practice session to work with.  I was able to get control of the setup well enough to Qualify with a 21st position… I would have gotten a better position than that, but I was still not used to the Qualify setup and I slipped a couple times in the turn entry shaving off a couple thousandths of a second on my lap times (since lap Qualify times are usually only thousandth’s of a second apart at Daytona, only a couple can make a huge difference).

During Happy Hour, I ran good solid laps and was able to put my car anywhere I wanted it in the pack for drafting and passes.  In an effort to get into the pack quickly, I made a bonehead move at one point, merging onto the track directly in front of an oncoming pack that I didn’t see until I was already crossing to the high line… I tried to get high up close to the wall to avoid them but to no avail and caused a big wreck.  I finished off Happy Hour drafting and practicing merging off the track onto the apron for entry into the pits.

So.  The Race session started.  I sat in my seat on the pit lineup, waiting for the rest of the drivers to get into their cars on the track… excited to get to racing, and knowing that I’d do well.  The old familiar call to start our engines came, and after revving the engines we all drove out onto the track for the pace lap.  A few minutes later, the green flag waved and we were off.  My strategy was to simply bide my time and run clean until about halfway through the race, when I’d start really racing.  This was in the hopes that I’d avoid any wrecks.

The front stretch and turns 1 and 2 went smooth, everyone was running clean I kept about a car’s length of distance between myself and the car ahead of me.  We screamed down the back stretch and into turn 3.  Up ahead, just entering turn 4, I saw one of the top 10 cars drop low on the apron, and start to merge back high.  I immediately thought “uh oh…”.  Almost instantly after he merged, smoke, smoke, and more smoke.  I couldn’t tell how many cars were involved, but I was close enough to the wreck that I couldn’t slow down to a stop.  So I kept my foot on the gas and followed another car low… it looked like there was a wide opening between the single car still sliding up high against the wall and several cars bunched up right on the apron.  The car ahead of me flashed through… I thought I was clear when suddenly there was a pop and my rear end spun around.  Next thing I know my front end is mashed into the wall… the hood crumpled rather severely.  I didn’t even bother to try to correct the car, I just let it finish sliding against the wall and back down to the apron of the track.

My engine wasn’t dead… but it was surely going to die.  It was smoking heavily, the car was severely damaged, and even if I could get back out on the track I wasn’t really going anywahre.  To say I was completely disgusted was an understatement.  I drove the car back to the pits, and sure enough, the crew chief said the engine was toast.  That was it… I “climbed out of the car” and that was the end of my day.  I finished 31st out of 34 drivers.

Well… that’s Daytona.

On to Chicagoland Speeway for next week, a 1.5 mile speedway track that I haven’t had much practice on… but speedways and superspeedways I’ve always been good at running.  So hopefully I’ll get a better run there.

This last weekend was my second run for Darkhorse Motorsports in the #34 Carhartt car in the American Stock Car Online Racing Series (ASCORS).  The venue this time was at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a 1 mile flat oval track.  The race started with a lineup of 29 drivers.

After running in practice all week long, I had again come up with a setup that would do me in decent stead, but was not competative in any way.  I guess I’m just not that savvy with flat short oval tracks… despite trying out several setups I just couldn’t get into the corners fast enough to run at pace speed without losing the car in the entry of the turn.  I fiddled with wedge, front weight, shocks, and the rear track bar in an effort to get a setup that would allow me to run with the pack, but to no avail.  The best I was able to come up with was a car that could run a flat speed of 30.6XX average… which, once the race started, was almost a full second off the pace.

I decided at this point to simply take a provisional start in the Qualifing run to ensure I was at the back of the pack when the lineup was set.  I wanted to run the race, but at the same time I didn’t want to get in the way of the contenders.

There were a lot of caution flags, and that actually allowed me to maintain my position in the lead lap up until roughly lap 110 or so.  I ran clean, and only self spun once on lap 127 when I came in too hot and too high into turn 3 when the top 10 cars were coming up behind me… I was trying to enter the turn high in order to allow them all to pass low (this incident actually started some shit with one of the drivers who was in the pack after the race… which I ignored) – this unfortunately brought out a caution.  I did actually spin another time a couple laps later under the yellow… but this was due to a weird glitch with my wheel that suddenly turned my tires to the left and flipped the car around (which has me concerned… it had better not do that during a green flag run).

While I wasn’t a contender, I did manage to finish the race only one lap down with a 22nd finishing position up from a 29th starting position.  I ran clean in traffic, allowing faster cars to pass high on restarts and low during green flag runs with no contact, and finished the race running.

Next week’s race is at Daytona International Speedway, and I’m sure that the majority of the drivers on the Buttkicker Live! Roster will show up to run it, which means that, because my car is not in the top 25 on the standings list (or otherwise, “locked in”), I’ll have to qualify to try to get one of the remaining 10 positions in the lineup.  So, I’ll be running qualify lap testing all week to try to get a good solid qualifying setup to ensure I get into the race.