We're Back!

I'm sure you've been kicking back and wondering, "Now why doesn't he write?"

It's been a long, interesting road since I last posted on this here little piece of the interweb. In that time, plans changed and a race season came and went without the racing 99 blazing its way around Evergreen Speedway.

The Good news is, WE"RE BACK and back with a bullet! The Team LaCross #99 is now built and sitting on jack stands in our new shop just waiting to hit the track for the season opener on May 4th. Over the next few days, I'll be posting updates on where we've been, our efforts over the past year and where we are now.

With a new car, new class, new sponsors and new crew, there is lots to share and if you're a follower of us on facebook (www.facebook.com/teamlacross) Thank you! If you aren't yet, what are you waiting for??? :-)

We've missed you all and as always, stay tuned! It's gonna be fun catching up!

Eddie C.

What we are all about...

Good Morning Everyone!

Our teammate and good friend Jeff Knight, who also happens to be one of the lead pastors (along with his wife Melinda, who BTW is a proud sponsor and fan of Team LaCross!!) of The Rock Church, our church, in Monroe Washington, wrote this on his blog post Monday. It really gets to the heart of the vision of our race team as a whole. Please take a moment to give it a read!

 

Monday, March 5, 2012

Racing and Soul Winning

Posted in TRC

I am a pastor. I pastor the greatest church in the Northwest! No doubt about it!!! I am also a wining race car driver. This will be my 5th season getting behind the wheel of a Super Late Model in the Northwest. When my passions blended people started listening to the eternal message about Christ. As a result, many–racers, fans, crew members, officials, promoters–have made a decision for Christ. My race team exists to win souls, it’s what we are about. At the end of the day, when the checkered flags have flown we may not remember the race; instead, we will remember the people who we raced with us. It’s the people who matter most, and I want nothing more than for those people to know Jesus.
Every weekend, live on television, sometimes 2-3 times, an invocation is given asking the Lord to cover the racers, crews, fans and soldiers around the world. Last year, this unique aspect to auto racing was covered heavily in the media when the preacher asked God to bless “his smoking hot wife.” There is no absence of Christianity in auto racing. In 2012, I want to take it to the level where people just don’t ask for God’s protection and blessing, but they give their hearts and lives to him. Friends, it’s a huge mission field. The amount of people who are connected via auto racing is staggering. There is great opportunity to win souls and fulfill the purposes of God through sport. Let’s fulfill the words of Christ, “make disciples.” Great disciples win souls, and great soul winners make disciples.
Prayer points for Race Season 2012:

• The Vision is Souls: As our team expands this year The Rock Church presence at the race track will increase. As a result, I am asking the Lord for lives to be impacted. I don’t just want to win races, I want to win people.
• Drivers: Pray specifically for our TRC drivers: John Zaretzke, Scott LaCross, Myself, Jake Repin, Quentin Boreson and Jason McQuinn.
• Personnel: We are still solidifying our team. John and I are in need of 1 experienced crew chief, and one experienced car chief to work directly with both of our Late Model programs. We are also in need of some PR, Marketing and Social Media help for sponsor support.
• Funding: Sponsorship opportunities exist on Late Models, #70, #12 and #99. They also exist on the Street Stock #4, and on the Super Figure 8′s, #45 and #21. Your passion for racing will never be higher than when your name is on a race car.
• Safety: Racing has a danger component, which makes it exciting. The cars are super safe, and there is always risk. Lot’s of prayer for safety.

As the new season approaches I want to also honor all those who’ve got us to this point. This year will be my 11th, and 5th as a driver. I wouldn’t be here without the help of so many. I honor those like Roger, Mike, Steve, Aaron, Dan, Stevie, James, Scott, Eddie, Tony, Lani, John, and all the crew who got our race car to the track on point and mission. These men, and the women who’ve supported their racing efforts, are major players in the world of soul winning and evangelism, Thank You. I’ll continue to represent your efforts with the passion to win races and souls.
7 Weeks and counting until the first Green Flag! Let’s do this.

We're back!!!

I bet you're all wondering, "Now why doesn't he update this more?" Well, Race season is fast approaching and it's high time for me to start informing you all again about the hijinx at the old 99 shop!

If you follow us on Facebook, you already know that we are going late model racing once again in 2012. We have joined forces with JZ Motorsports and Total Velocity Motorsports to create a 4 car "Super team" that will be competing at Evergreen Speedway this season in the Super Late Model and Super Figure 8 divisions.

I'll be posting some driver profiles for our team soon, so stick around and check back often. We are building new cars, refreshing old ones and hustling along to be ready for the start of the season, so updates may come at odd hours :-)

Thanks for being our fans... it's great to be back on the airwaves providing you with all the info that's fit to print!

Ed

Season by the numbers

One heck of a season... 

As we pause to reflect on the 2011 season, I thought I'd give you a quick look at the numbers that made it up...

1,205 - Point total for the season

289 - Point spread between ourselves and the 2nd place car.

99 - Oh come on, you know this one :-)

80.333 - Our points average per race

18.723 - Our Outlaw Compact Track record (3/8s track)

18.6225 - Our fastest qualifying lap this year (Dale Creager set track record on the same lap at 18.6221)

15 - The number of races this season and our worst finish of the season.

14 - The number of podium finishes we had this season.

13 - Number of weeks spent in the #1 points position

8 - Second place finishes

4 - Wins this season and number of Championships we now have.

2 - Third place finishes

1 - Our final position in the Championship point standings

One Hell of a Career... and Still mountains to climb!

More reflections to come, including a season wrap up, kudos and a little peek into what the future holds for Team LaCross!

Making History

The Team, Lovely Ladies and Superfans...

Championship night...I'd like to tell you that it was an easy day at the racetrack, everything was perfect and we lounged around, having already sewn up the 2011 title the week before, but we all know about the best laid plans....

We arrived at the track fashionably late and missed first practice, but it was all for a good cause... Cause we had to set up the shop for the after party!

Right from the start, we were battling a number of things. The car wasn't particularly fast, the track was very dirty and we only had one practice session to work with. Not knowing exactly how much was car and how much was track, we made a few adjustments based on hunches and went out to qualify.

Qualifying saw us pick up about 2-3 tenths of a second over our practice times, but we were still looking for some speed. We qualified 5th fast, about 2 tenths off the pole sitters time. Scott brought the car back in and we threw a few more adjustments at the car, wiped it down and headed out for the autograph session.

We were in the fast heat race as usual and knew the competition was going to be stiff. Starting inside of the 2nd row, Scott was able to make a move going into turn one, pull away to a lead by the entrance of turn three and never looked back as he easily won the race by 5 car lengths. However, even though the hot rod was good, it wasn't great, so back to the drawing board we went. Another few adjustments later, we were ready to relax for a few and watch our very good friend and Pastor, Jeff Knight race his late model to victory in their 100 lap main event as well as fellow mini stock racer Molly Helmuth compete in her very first late model race.

The Main rolled around and from the drop of the green, Scott said he knew we were going to be tough to beat. He quickly made his way to the front and settled in around 4th place, taking his time and choosing spots to pass where he knew there would be no danger of cars coming together. When he eased into 2nd, he began  a several lap battle with the leader Andrew Schukar in the 07 car. They sliced and diced with Andrew holding the low groove and Scott running the high side. As they got to lapped traffic, one of the lapped cars decided he wanted to interject himself into the outcome of the race and ran Scott up the track in turn three. Scott got on the binders and pulled an over under move, slipping around the lapper. The next lap, the caution came out and the lapper, now behind Scott, decided it would be a good time to ram into us from behind, which he did.

Scott was then hit by the lapper again as he was slowing for the broken car that had brought out the caution. The lapper proceeded to hit him hard enough to destroy the front of his car and tweak our bumper pretty good, but that wasn't the end, as the lapper then demonstrated how to do a PIT maneuver by driving directly into Scott's left rear quarter panel, damaging it pretty good and spinning us out in the process. However, it was superficial body damage and did nothing to the performance of the car. The lapper was black flagged and parked for the night and we went back to green flag racing. On the restart, Scott was able to take advantage of a tiny slip by Andrew and took the lead, which he stretched out quickly to about 5-6 car lengths... A lead which we held as we took the checkered flag for the 4th and final time this season. 2nd place went to Bobby DeYoung and 3rd to "Triple Duty" Molly Helmuth who had a heck of a run coming from the back several times to grab the last podium spot.

At the end of the night, we made history... By winning our 4th championship, we now stand alone as the all time championship leader in the 26 year history of the class and are tied for the most titles in any 4 cylinder division in the 50+ year history of the track.

Will we be racing for 5? Well you are just gonna have to stick around to find out! :-) The blog is going to be a busy place in the next week or so, so please be sure to check back often. We are headed off to Yakima this weekend to help out with Jeff Knight at the Fall Classic so hopefully we will see some of you there!

Champions....

Please enjoy a few photos from Saturday night's Season ending victory. Full race update will be posted later today and season updates are coming up over the next week or so.

Hot day at the track

Hot temps greeted us as we arrived at the track on Saturday for our 14th and 2nd to last race of the season. We had some cooling issues last race and were eager to check out the fixes we had made along with making sure all the other damage repairs were set and ready.

Bill was a little thirsty, we we got him a large water...

Practice: The car was good, not great though. The track was hot and slick, so times were a bit lower than what we had been running previously. The water temperature was staying within the normal operating limits that we like to see, so we made a few minor adjustments to the set up and got some nice relaxation time in the sun before qualifying.

Our driver, chillin out

Qualifying: We were in the 2nd group and set the pole speed for about 5 minutes. Scott let us know that the car was still a little off as he came in from his run. We confirmed this when we checked the numbers and saw that 3 other cars ran faster, setting us in 4th qualifying spot. Several more adjustments were made in anticipation of the upcoming heat race.

Holding up the wall and calling out lap times 

Heat Race: We as usual were in the top qualifiers heat race, starting on the inside of the 2nd row of the 6 car field. Scott got mired up a little bit, but soon enough he made his way to 2nd behind Mikey Fritz. A caution came out and we chose to go high at the cone when Mike went low. When the green flew, Mike got a small jump and was able to hold off Scott for the next 4 laps and take the win. After the race, Scott and Mike enjoyed a spirited recall of the high speed battle they had.

Main event : We started towards the back of the 17 car field as usual and immediately went to working our way forward, as the feature was only 25 laps. The cars were making moves and Scott was no different, having seen a spot on the low side of the car in front of him coming out of turn 4 on the 1st lap. He surveyed the situation and saw that he could pick up several spots on the front stretch, which is a good place to pass as everyone SHOULD be going straight and not turning. Unfortunately, the driver he was passing decided he did not want to get passed at that moment and when Scott was at his door, he made an aggressive turn left to block. Scott got on the binders hard but the other car kept coming down and ended up hitting our right front tire and the recently fixed bumper, spinning himself across our nose to the infield of the track.

The consequence of this was that when Scott got hit, his car pushed up in front of Mikey Fritz, who was behind Scott and making evasive moves of his own to avoid hitting Scott. Unfortunately, Dale Creager was attempting a pass of Mikey on the outside and they came together, crashing into the front stretch wall and ending both their nights early. Both Mike and Dale had really fast cars and it was disappointing for everyone that they got caught up in something that shouldn't have happened.

On the restart, we quickly made our way into the lead, with Jon "Fozzy" Roberts and Molly Helmuth in hot pursuit. Fozzy was the fast qualifier and was showing why as he was very fast and battling hard with Scott for the lead. Scott mentioned that the car was pushing pretty bad, but he could drive it so we felt like we might be able to hang on, but we caught lapped traffic at the wrong time, with 2 cars battling on the back stretch. Scott went low, Fozzy went really high and the inside of the 2 slower cars moved down just enough to slow Scott's momentum and Fozzy was able to get by and pull out to about a 6 car length lead, which he would hold for the rest of the race. Scott tried valiantly to make up ground, but with an ill handling car and Molly running fast in 3rd, we knew that if 2nd place was what we would end up with, it would be a good night. The race ended with Fozzy in first, Scott 2nd and Molly in 3rd, scoring her first ever Mini Stock podium finish. When we got the car back to the pits, we noticed that the right front tire was pointed much too far out in the wrong direction, which explained the handling issue.

if you turn your head, you can see this is our trophy!

With one race to go, we want to end the season with a bang and win on Championship night to complete a season that has defied all logic. Championship night is September 24th and we would absolutely be honored if all of our fans could be there with us to celebrate an awesome season of achievement. Bring some rain gear though, you may get sprayed down with some celebratory fizzy bubbly stuff! :-)

See you at the track!