Irwindale Speedway provided fans with a full night of outstanding action on Saturday, August 21st. The evening began with LeAnn Rimes singing the national anthem, which readied the audience for the great American experience of watching motorsports racing. Irwindale Speedway didn't disappoint them - a 50 lap speed truck race and American Racing League mid-engine carts race contained lots of excitement, and preceeded the main event, the Winston West Snap-On 250.
Jerry Cain and his team continued their streak of qualifying in the top ten, and started in 8th position. The team has proven over and over that they can give Jerry a fast car, and the Snap-On 250 was no exception. As the race began, Jerry stayed within the top ten cars jockeying for position. In the 12th lap, he avoided an accident and moved by it into 6th. "I look for openings when things happen, and this one worked really well for us," he commented later. In the 14th lap, he took one more spot, moving to 5th. Staying with the leaders was "fairly easy," as Jerry put it later. "The team once again gave me a great car. I was holding back a bit."
A caution occurred during the 21st - 26th laps, and when the racing began again, the pack of cars was four wide in the turns, with everyone eyeing the next spot ahead. To dodge a 3-car mishap in the 29th lap, Jerry dipped into the inside line, but tapped a car ahead of him as they tried to avoid debris. Jerry eased the car out of the fray, and zipped around turn one toward the straight-away in 4th place. Fans in the grandstands cheered, then noticed slight damage to the nose of the car. Jerry explained, "I thought I had lucked out and passed by the accident without a problem, but apparently I made contact with something. We found later that whatever it was put a small hole in the radiator." The next 12 laps proceeded under caution. Jerry's car seemed to be okay under the slow speed, although it was running a little hot.
When the race began in the 41st lap, the car began to change further. Some blue smoke was seen as the car went into the corners. By the 52nd lap, Jerry had dropped back to 6th place. He brought the car into the pits to be checked, and took on tires. Jerry went back out and completed a few more laps, but by now, the car wasn't the same and Jerry dropped back to 10th by lap 56. One more pit stop failed to fix the problem in the 61st lap and the team put down their tools, coming in 22nd place. When the 250 lap race was done, Austin Cameron came in 1st, with Kevin Richards behind him in 2nd.
"We just need to get a little luck," commented one of the crew on Monday morning. "We were running fourth in Portland, too, before we had trouble there, so it's been pretty frustrating lately."
As the saying goes - "there's going to be another race." The next race occurs on Monday, September 5th, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the Rocky Mountain Raceway. Information will be available on Jerry Cain's website, www.jerrycain.com, and at Rocky Mountain Raceway's website at www.rmrracing.com/
