BIG BEAR CITY, California --The Conklin Brothers Racing Team did well Saturday night (July 16) in the California Speed Jams 2011 series at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino, Calif., with Cliff Conklin getting a third in the Super Stock main event and Jim Conklin a fourth in the Late Model feature.
But they couldn’t help wondering what might have been if they hadn’t run into a couple of immoveable objects.
In Cliff’s case the object was the car driven by Steve Smith, who Cliff harassed but couldn’t pass while Kyle Meyer was building an insurmountable lead in the 35-lap Super Stock race.
For Jim, it was the car driven by Stan Chatwood, who had spun and stalled in Turn 4 and wasn’t visible to Jim until he moved high on the track to avoid another spinning car. At that point, Jim said, “there wasn’t anything I could do about it.”
The force of the head-on collision 12 laps into the 40-lap race damaged the front end of Jim’s MyIrishPride.com/Alpine Slide Chevrolet Monte Carlo. But he was able to work his way from eighth on the restart to fourth at the checkered flag despite a transmission stuck in high gear the final few laps.
“It’s pretty well bent and I’ve got to replace everything from the radiator forward, but it could have been worse,” Jim said. “I was pleased with the car. It was working good considering it’s the only real (leaf spring) Late Model out there. We keep getting a little better every week.”
The fourth-place finish left Jim fifth in the Late Model standings, 2 points out of fourth and 38 behind leader Brandon Loverock with five of 11 races remaining. Cliff’s third left him fourth in the Super Stock division, 4 points out third and 22 behind leader Smith with five of nine races left.
“Kyle got around Johnny (Russo) early enough to get a big lead and there was no way to catch him,” Cliff said. “I managed to get by Johnny, but I couldn’t manage to get around Stevie no matter what. I think Stevie and I were both faster than Kyle, we just didn’t have enough time to run him down.”
Cliff also was hampered slightly by the overheating problem that forced him out of the previous race. The temperature didn’t hit 270 degrees, as it had then, but when it got to 238 Cliff opted for discretion instead of risking engine damage.
“I wasn’t about to let anything else happen because I already had a couple of bad finishes,” he said. “We made a couple of improvements to the car and it showed up, but we’ve got some stuff we need to do for the next time out. We can improve the handling and we need to gain some more speed.
“I’ve got three plans. One I can do right away and the others take a little more money. We’ll just try to make it a little faster and get them next time.”
Team Conklin will return to Orange Show Speedway August 6 for the next round of the California Speed Jams series.
Conklin Racing is sponsored by MyIrishPride.com, Alpine Slide, Timberline Spas, Conklin Hot Rods, Azteca Grill and Restaurant, Conklin Paints, Domino’s Pizza, VoMar Starfire, Mark Dolan Realty Executives and SND Construction.
For more information, visit www.conklinracing.com or contact Jim Conklin at 909-866-5747.
