July 20.24 - Speed is Forever
The weekend started out great. We started a new marketing partnership and are happy to have Connell’s Construction, from Peterborough, on board for the remainder of the 2024 season. Will be fun having Kurtis with us!
We were running on older tires this week and weren’t sure how qualifying would go, but surprisingly, we were still able to pull off the 5th quickest time and then started 4th in the feature.
Unfortunately the outside line would fall back in the opening laps and I would drop back to 6th or 7th early. Over the first 27 laps, I would make my way back up to 5th, battle with a couple people and fall back to 7th when the caution came out for the spinning 71 car. The 71 and 8 would go to the back for being involved cars. The 31, 71, 8 and 39 had been battling for a number of laps, 3 and 4 wide at times and eventually the caution came out.
I would restart in 5th. I battled with the 23 for a number of laps before dropping back to 6th. The 8 car would pass me next putting me back to 7th.
With 8 laps to go, the 71 dove inside and my left rear tire and his right front tire locked, it shredded my tire, but we did manage to get separated. I’m honestly not sure how the next events unfolded but after slowing down and becoming disconnected the 71 ended up flying up and over the left front fender, as shown in the great photos captured by Ashley McCubbin. Our car was towed off and we were expecting a lot of damage, but it looked good, the front end was taped up and we changed the tire and went back on track to finish the race 10th.
The driver of the 71 was injured, suffering a broken back, and will be out for the rest of the season. Cory is a great competitor and friend and we hope he has a speedy recovery and is back at the track soon. He also supports short track racing over so many divisions and it will be a bummer to lose him for the remainder of the season, however he’s made plans for his OSS car to have a substitute driver for the remainder of the year- hopefully he’s able to do that for the late model as well!
Coming up is the 172 lap JR Hanley Classic this coming weekend. It should be a huge show with tons of great racing! Really looking forward to having the car back together and hopefully even quicker than it’s been the last few weeks!
Thanks again to everyone who asked if I was okay and to the teams that helped in the pits!
The weekend started out great. We started a new marketing partnership and are happy to have Connell’s Construction, from Peterborough, on board for the remainder of the 2024 season. Will be fun having Kurtis with us!
We were running on older tires this week and weren’t sure how qualifying would go, but surprisingly, we were still able to pull off the 5th quickest time and then started 4th in the feature.
Unfortunately the outside line would fall back in the opening laps and I would drop back to 6th or 7th early. Over the first 27 laps, I would make my way back up to 5th, battle with a couple people and fall back to 7th when the caution came out for the spinning 71 car. The 71 and 8 would go to the back for being involved cars. The 31, 71, 8 and 39 had been battling for a number of laps, 3 and 4 wide at times and eventually the caution came out.
I would restart in 5th. I battled with the 23 for a number of laps before dropping back to 6th. The 8 car would pass me next putting me back to 7th.
With 8 laps to go, the 71 dove inside and my left rear tire and his right front tire locked, it shredded my tire, but we did manage to get separated. I’m honestly not sure how the next events unfolded but after slowing down and becoming disconnected the 71 ended up flying up and over the left front fender, as shown in the great photos captured by Ashley McCubbin. Our car was towed off and we were expecting a lot of damage, but it looked good, the front end was taped up and we changed the tire and went back on track to finish the race 10th.
The driver of the 71 was injured, suffering a broken back, and will be out for the rest of the season. Cory is a great competitor and friend and we hope he has a speedy recovery and is back at the track soon. He also supports short track racing over so many divisions and it will be a bummer to lose him for the remainder of the season, however he’s made plans for his OSS car to have a substitute driver for the remainder of the year- hopefully he’s able to do that for the late model as well!
Coming up is the 172 lap JR Hanley Classic this coming weekend. It should be a huge show with tons of great racing! Really looking forward to having the car back together and hopefully even quicker than it’s been the last few weeks!
Thanks again to everyone who asked if I was okay and to the teams that helped in the pits!
July 6/24 - Fight under the Lights
W
Well, this was officially our 3rd race and it went pretty well! Having 3 rain outs this year and not finishing the APC race means we haven’t really raced that much!
Practice went decent but I really wasn’t sure what changes to make on the car as it was one of those days where nothing helped. I was fighting a loose in and tight middle race car.
This was a 50 lap event where we qualified 3rd out of 15 cars which we were very happy with, then during the feature we ran the second fastest lap of the race, the only faster lap than us was put down by the winner so that’s also an accomplishment for our books!
When it came down to the feature my start was off, so I fell back about a car length immediately and fell to fourth. Over the next few laps I would get passed by 2 more cars, the 46 and 10. Here I would run for the remainder of the race about 6 car lengths back from those 2 cars battling! As the race progressed caution free the two drivers ahead of me fighting really hard for the fourth spot I gained on them lap after lap until I was racing right with them.
About 7 to go is when I started battling with them and crossed the line barely in sixth after a clean race side by side with the 10. I’ll call that a successful night for our team!
We’re back July 20 for another 50 lap event! Hope to see you there.
W
Well, this was officially our 3rd race and it went pretty well! Having 3 rain outs this year and not finishing the APC race means we haven’t really raced that much!
Practice went decent but I really wasn’t sure what changes to make on the car as it was one of those days where nothing helped. I was fighting a loose in and tight middle race car.
This was a 50 lap event where we qualified 3rd out of 15 cars which we were very happy with, then during the feature we ran the second fastest lap of the race, the only faster lap than us was put down by the winner so that’s also an accomplishment for our books!
When it came down to the feature my start was off, so I fell back about a car length immediately and fell to fourth. Over the next few laps I would get passed by 2 more cars, the 46 and 10. Here I would run for the remainder of the race about 6 car lengths back from those 2 cars battling! As the race progressed caution free the two drivers ahead of me fighting really hard for the fourth spot I gained on them lap after lap until I was racing right with them.
About 7 to go is when I started battling with them and crossed the line barely in sixth after a clean race side by side with the 10. I’ll call that a successful night for our team!
We’re back July 20 for another 50 lap event! Hope to see you there.
May 18, 2024 - APC Debut - Spring Velocity - Dayco 100
It’s been quite a month for us as May was super busy with racing, work and family - so here is the update from our APC United Racing Series debut on the May long weekend at Sunset Speedway.
The event was a big change from what we were used to, with the pre-practice and qualifying tech, body templates and such we were busy all day! The event also had 1 long practice session which I enjoyed so we could try a lot of different things and tweak the car slightly to get it where we wanted to.
After practice we were really happy with the car and headed out to qualify, which as to be expected with the APC Series, was tight!
We ended up qualifying 15th out of 19 cars and at first I wasn't too happy with our qualifying attempt, but after taking a closer look and noticing we were less than 2 tenths of a second off the pole and less than half a tenth out of the top ten… there wasn't much more we could expect. Especially because I felt like we did have a really great car!
Heading into the feature, it was definitely more rough than a normal Saturday night, but it wasn't malicious, just 20 people wanting the same spot on the race track! It was a really fun and exciting 40 laps before I had to pull off due to a loss of power. After diagnosing our car at the track post race we deemed it to be both the battery and the alternator that were having issues - those 2 things together unfortunately ended our APC debut. I feel confident in saying that we had a great long run car as the car was only handling better as the laps ticked away.
Congratulations to JR Farrelly on his first APC win, it was an epic battle to the end of the Dayco 100 so if I was out of the car for half the race, at least this was a great race to watch!
We’re looking forward to heading back to Sunset on June 22nd for our next event, as May 25th was rained out for us as well.
If you are a fan of my Pro Late Model racing, I'm sure you will continue to follow the APC United Racing Series - so if you aren't able to make the events live keep following us as Kendra Adams Motorsports will be giving away a link to one follower each week in order to watch the APC event FREE on Racing America
Season Opener - Steve Slaughter Classic - May 4/24
This weekend was the season opener for Sunset Speedway, and I have to say the Steve Slaughter classic was a shock for our team, in the best way possible, I couldn't have hoped for a better run than we had!
In qualifying we were the first team to roll out and stayed within the top five until the last session, ending with a 6th place qualifying run - watching all the groups of cars roll out and seeing our team stay near the top of the leader board until the very last lap of the last session was not on my list of expected things to happen opening night. Prior to qualifying I stood at the edge of my trailer and said to my dad - "There isn't one car I can see right now who I would feel confident saying i'm going to beat them tonight." Wow, did qualifying ever shake that feeling up for me!!
The feature started straight up, so we rolled off 6th outside of Kyle Steckly. On lap 12 there was a caution brought out by a spin of the 71 car, here i would make my first mistake.
Every car ahead of me and myself chose our running order for position when it came to the choose cone, so i would be outside the 22 again. Coming to the start finish line to take the green flag, the caution lights flashed instead of going straight to green, so I slowed up. Unfortunately this allowed 2 cars to pass me on the inside lane and I would fall back to the 8th position.
About halfway through the race Jason Hathaway would make quick work passing us, knocking us back to the 9th spot, and shortly after that Gord Shepherd would do the same.
With 30 to go there would be some door to door contact between the 16 and I, and a lap or so later heavy contact with him and my rear bumper, I gathered the car after being sideways out of turn 4 and would run in the 11th position for the remainder of the race.
With only 1 caution early on most of the field was single file and spread out, i would get lapped by the top 2 with 20 laps to go. My second mistake of the night would be getting into turn 1 a little too hard and making contact with the 8 of Howse while he was lapping me. Thanks for accepting my apology!!
I was exhausted after a long green flag run and quickly realized, wow, these pro late models are a lot harder to drive as the race goes on, compared to the limited late model. The fall off on the tires (due to so much more power) was insane, and made the handling much different.
Finishing just outside the top 10 in our first event which had 23 cars in attendance far exceeded my expectations. I'm extremely excited to head back to Sunset Speedway this weekend for a regular Saturday night show, 50 laps coming up this weekend May 11th, 2024. We have a few notes that should help us in the next event, and we're excited to do it again!
If you read this weekends blog post - Like the post of this link and send me a DM on Kendra Adams Motorsports Facebook! We're going to be giving away some Mobil 1 swag to a random lucky reader!
If you missed the race, you can watch the video on youtube. You can find a link to the video, shared by StrawnC077 on the race video page HERE.
Pre-Race Season
We are excited for the 2024 Season!! It's going to be an amazing year with the new car, it's Mobil 1's 50th anniversary and it is my 10th anniversary with Mobil 1 as my sponsor.
With the quick sale of my limited late model and a whole lot of sponsorship help, we were able to buy a new to us McColl pro late model!
We are really looking forward to driving this car, by far the nicest car I've ever owned. It will be a learning curve in the beginning as it is different than what I am used to, but we'll figure it out.
We have sponsorship to get us halfway through the season and are therefore currently looking for some new Marketing Partners to help take us to the end of the season. If you are interested, or know anyone that would like to be a part of our team, please do not hesitate to contact us.
2024 is the 50th anniversary for Mobil 1, and I am excited to announce that Mobil 1 is back in 2024 as my primary sponsor, making this our 10th anniversary together as well. Its a big year for us, together!
Mobil 1 sponsorship is a big part of why we were able to upgrade our car this year to a Pro Late Model. They have been so supportive over the years, so easy to work with, and the cliche statement, they have become family to me. I walk into 2024 hoping to provide Mobil 1 and all my sponsors with a great year. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to continue this journey. We’ll have some fun things planned to celebrate this year with these two anniversaries.
Mobil 1 sponsorship is a big part of why we were able to upgrade our car this year to a Pro Late Model. They have been so supportive over the years, so easy to work with, and the cliche statement, they have become family to me. I walk into 2024 hoping to provide Mobil 1 and all my sponsors with a great year. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to continue this journey. We’ll have some fun things planned to celebrate this year with these two anniversaries.