April 30th, 2012
Bay Park Midgets

We’ve ended our NZ 2011-12 racing season on a pretty good note. I can’t say enough about how well the Ron Kendall midget team quickly adjusted their car to fit my driving. In only our second event together their car seemed to fit my driving like a glove.

There were, I think, 28 midgets entered for the Bay Of Plenty Champs event held at Bay Park on the 28th. Some of the tracks down here put all the cars together in two heat races reversing your starting position in the second heat race from your starting position in the first heat race. Bay Park is one of those tracks.

We started 14th in the first heat and won it. We then started 12th in the 2nd heat and won it also making us the high point car. The format for this particular event positioned the high point car after the heat races starting last in the feature, then that car chose the car that would start next to him, then he chooses the next car ect….. Here in NZ they call this format a “self-handicapping” starting grid. Since we were the high point car after the heats, that put us starting last, which was 20th because a few cars fell out after the heat races. I was a bit concerned about getting tangled up in an accident while trying to work our way to the front of the field over the 30 lap event. We got a pretty good start and passed a few cars right away, but I was not driving over aggressively and was being a bit cautious as we picked our way through the field. I got held up a bit for a couple of laps and a car that we had already passed went back around us and almost instantly built up a little gap between the two of us. I picked up my pace not wanting to let him get too far ahead of us, but the next several laps the traffic just seemed to go his way and I continued to struggle a little to get an open track. The race ended up going green to checker without any cautions and we ended up finishing 2nd, which wasn’t too bad coming from 20th, but the car that won came from 19th. What frustrates me a little is the fact that at the first of the race I passed him and had a couple of cars between us, but the difference was I went into careful mode for a few laps and he maintained “I’m going to win” mode the whole race, which helped him deservingly cross the checkers first.

Over the last two weeks though, we did win the first annual "Midget Top Half Series" points title, something we'll have to try to defend next season!

I’ll be heading back to the USA soon for a few weeks and hopefully we’ll get in at least a couple of races for Doc Probst before heading back to NZ again to help maintain the distribution of Lucas Oil Products across New Zealand.

Thanks,
Ricky Logan