All that the #35 Allenracing.com crew with driver Tyler Allen had to do was to start the final race at South Sound Speedway and they would be guaranteed a 2nd place finish in the Limited Late Model Championship. With #14 of Billy Weber 70 points ahead and no pressure from behind, Allen could have made it a “get in line and ride” race. But fresh back from his trip to North Carolina and his experience driving the 850 horsepower Nascar Sprint cup cars, Allen was in no mood to just ride around “I’ve always liked racing with Weber. Even if he had the championship wrapped up I wasn’t ready to just ride it out. I wanted to get him in qualifying and race him for the win”.
A quiet and simple day almost ended with a wrecked car and a loss of position in the championship when, during the practice session, Allen had a panhard bar mount failure as he started his final practice run. Qualifying was only minutes away requiring the crew to quickly remove and replace the broken bracket. Their quick and calm work put Allen back on the track and with a short safety run Allen was back in the race. “It reminded me of the “Mechanical Feel” Module in the Richard Petty Driver Search competition. I took first place in this module scoring 100%. When I started my practice run and heard a quiet bang. I immediately new something was wrong; a quick tug on the wheel told me it was a broken panhard bar. If this would have happened in the race who knows where I would have ended up”!
With the car fixed, the crew readied the car for its qualifying run. Allen told the crew to tape the radiator and brake ducts a little more aggressively so that he could get every advantage possible. Allen drove his R&C roofing, Pacific Grand Prix Motorsports Park Chevy Impala into the first turn purposely sliding all four tires in an effort to generate as much tire heat as possible, as the cold northwest air had cooled the track significantly. Allen muscled the car around the track pulling out a 14.02 top qualifier position beating out Weber’s 14.18. Allen had sent the message to Weber that he was here to race for the win.
The championship race started with Weber and Allen on the front row lining up based on current point standings. The green flag waved with a perfect start by Allen and Weber side by side across the line. Allen pushed hard into the first turn holding Weber onto the bottom trying to slow his momentum, with the cold night time temperatures Allen didn’t have enough heat in the tires to hold the second groove and quickly got shuffled back into third place. Allen worked both high and low lines trying to find a run that could get him back to Weber. 25 laps in Allen was still pushing hard and realized he had used up his brakes and was going to lose them if he didn’t get them cooled off.
“It’s really frustrating when you are working so hard to get by someone, and realize you have to back off to save your stuff. It was pretty much over at that point if we stayed green, I was really hoping for a long caution to get things cooled down and the cars back together side by side”.
Lap 47 and the break Allen was looking for happened. The #24 of Dave Clarke spins on the backstretch bringing out the caution. Now Allen would have a chance, but would have to take some risks to make it happen. The commitment cone comes out and Allen puts excitement back into the race by taking the outside lane, showing Weber he was going to race him right into the last lap. The crowd cheers as they realize that these guys came to race and they were going to be treated to a three lap shootout. Allen and Weber revved their engines and spun their tires taunting each other as they readied for the re-start. “The brakes had a little time to cool down, enough for a 3 lap shootout I think, I could have used a few more caution laps, luckily I caught yet another break.”
The cars were lined up behind the pace car getting ready for the one to go signal. As they prepared for the green flag the drivers started screaming about oil on the track. The #24 had covered the entire track with oil following his spin and the track was a mess. This was definitely going to be a mad and dangerous dash to the finish with three laps to go.
The track was red flagged as speedy dry and track cleanup crews dusted the entire track. Allen was burning the batteries on the radio talking about his strategy. With the lower lane trashed in turns one and two and lane two trashed in three and four both lanes would be slick with speedy dry and oil. The officials cleared the track and the drivers were given a safety run to see if the track was raceable. After a few hot laps and some colorful commentary from Weber and Allen on the radios the officials new more cleanup was required. The cars were stopped in turn 4 and crews were called out to clean the windshields. “After the first few test laps it was clear that the track wasn’t ready. They slowed us down and told us to work the track in some more. I spent my time cleaning up the high groove and Billy stayed on the bottom working in the inside lane. That pretty much told everyone that I intended to race him to the finish on the outside lane”. The way the race had gone it looked like Weber and Allen would drag race for three laps as the other cars had not been able to stay with them the entire night.
The final green flag raised and another side by side restart by Allen and Weber trusting that each of them would hold their lines into the first corner. Allen gets a great run on the outside but Weber decides to drive it hard into the bottom lane. Weber sees that Allen was not going to back off forcing him to keep his speed up through the slick corner, both cars begin to slide out of turn two as the speedy dry clouds the race track. Allen races Weber down the backstretch, holding him down trying to break his momentum. Weber is forced to check up in the middle of turns three and four and is hit hard from behind, getting him sideways as he catches it coming off of turn four. This gives Allen a run down the front stretch . “All I saw was red out my window net and I knew the racing was pretty tight, we were all trying to take it easy considering the track condition but knew no one was going to give an inch” Weber holds the inside as they enter the turn with his nose inside his rear quarter panel forcing Allen to hold the higher lane. Allen gives Weber some room knowing that he could get sideways on the still oily track. As Allen enters turn two his car begins to slide and Allen has the wheels turned all the way to the wall trying to keep it from spinning. And at the last minute the car catches, averting what would have been a nasty crash with the wall. “We both sailed it into one pretty good. The car stuck on the outside lane but just after the middle of the corner I had to chase it most of the way down the back stretch killing my momentum, it made for some great in car video though!”
Allen makes a great save but looses momentum, and the #16 squeezes into second place behind Weber. Allen decides his only chance to win is to stay in the high lane as they enter turn three. The #14 quickly moves down trying to take the bottom lane from Allen, Allen punches the gas coming out of turn four and again goes sideways holding him off for third place as they pass the start finish line for the white flag. “My only shot was to clear Billy out front but I just couldn’t make it happen. I am glad we were able to give the crowd a show and that the drivers all raced clean even with all the sliding around on the speedy dry. Although we had a long run of green flag racing we brought the crowd to its feet and gave them an entertaining race at the end. What a great way to end the 2010 Season! Thanks again to all the fans and everyone the supported the Allen Racing Team”.
