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On The Cushion: June 2009 |
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Written by Byron Reed
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Tuesday, 09 June 2009 |
MID-SEASON UPDATE
ON THE CUSHION IS A MONTHLY ARTICLE FROM BYRON REED. HE WILL SHARE HIS THOUGHTS ON THE RACING ACTION FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THAT FAMILIAR BLACK NUMBER 5.
Well, it’s June already and technically we are near the mid-point of the season. Can I have a do over? Seriously, it seems like anything that can go wrong has gone wrong. I didn’t think the wing rule change(flat wings) would effect the handling so much on the cars. Everything that worked on the setups last year is not working this year. We have had to change our way of thinking on how to hook the cars up. With the car not handling so well, I have been probably trying too hard with my driving and making things worse. For example, I was running the high side at Attica a few weeks back and got over the edge coming off 4 and blasted the guard rail and flipped. Besides that, it seems like we have had no luck with our drawing this year and the yellows always seem to come out when I don’t need them and they don’t come out when I do need them. Many also may not know that I went to the Outlaw show at I-96 and was going to finish around 8th or 9th in the A when my steering failed with 5 laps to go and I slammed head first into a guardrail off turn 3. This destroyed my car and broke the block on my motor.
As you can see, it has been a trying start to the season. However, we are starting to see some improvement. We had a good run at Fremont Saturday, finishing second and felt like we had a shot to win. We still didn’t totally shake the bad luck because a car spun into me on the start which collapsed my header and pushed my nerf bar into the tire. The collapsed header made the motor real lazy on the starts. Despite all this, we are still in contention for the FAST, Attica, and Fremont titles. We are also hungry for a win and I think if we can get one there will be more to follow.
Our plans for speedweek this year are to run Attica Friday, Millstream Sunday, Wayne County Monday, Waynesfield Wednesday, Lima Friday, and Fremont on Saturday. We don’t plan on going to Eldora or Hilltop. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 09 June 2009 )
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On The Cushion: December 08 |
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Written by Byron Reed
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Monday, 08 December 2008 |
SEASONS GREETINGS
ON THE CUSHION IS A MONTHLY ARTICLE FROM BYRON REED. HE WILL SHARE HIS THOUGHTS ON THE RACING ACTION FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THAT FAMILIAR BLACK NUMBER 5.
Hello again As the 2008 season has ended and all the banquets have been held, it is now time to enjoy the Christmas season before we look forward to the 2009 racing campaign. I hope everyone is doing ok with the terrible economy we are experiencing. Our business has been ok, but we are starting to see a pretty significant slowdown. It will be interesting to see how our local sprint car circuit is affected. As I see it, things could be good for our area. With a down economy, fans might be more inclined to stay local and think about less expensive races for entertainment rather than spending the larger amount to go to a NASCAR race or a Major League Baseball game. Also, there may be more race teams that decide to stick closer to home and run Fremont and Attica rather than traveling and spending the money to get to the out of town tracks.
The last month of our season was a bit hot and cold. We finished up pretty strong at the local races to secure the championships at Attica and Fremont. We ran third at the Hoosier Fall Classic at Lawrenceburg. We were running very well at the All Star show at Lernerville, possibly could have finished in the top three after starting pretty far back, only to have an ignition failure. The biggest disappointment had to be the last race at Fremont. I wanted badly to win that race and we got ourselves in position to do it by qualifying well and making it out of our heat. We started third in the feature but just didn’t have the car setup right for the heavy track conditions. I then started making a lot of mistakes in driving to compensate for the car being so tight. Despite those disappointments, it was a very good season. We made every feature, including the Outlaw races we ran, and only was in one B-main all season. Our qualifying was improved from last year as well. It seemed like our DNFs were about the same as last year, but they cost us some very good finishes. For 2009, I would like to improve at Attica and find a way to win an All Star race or two.
The banquets were very nice this year. Each track does a great job with them and Brian Liskai is a great host. We are lucky to have an announcer of his caliber in our area. One event that I particularly enjoyed was the Fremont Old Timers banquet that was held this year at De Genzmans’ shop. This event is organized by David Harrison and Randy Mapis. Randy is the head of the local vintage racers club that we see in our area. The banquet is a get together of all the great old racers that ran at Fremont over the years. Names like Rollie Beale, Darl Harrison, Harold McGilton, George Fosco, and Johnny Auxter, as well as many others were at this year’s event. What they do is honor the track champion from the current year and the champion from 50 years ago. Unfortunately, Jim McCune, the 1958 champion was unable to attend because his wife was dealing with serious health problems. To see the pride that these men had when they spoke of their racing careers really hit home with me. It made me feel fortunate that I have been able to be a race car driver and my accomplishments are something that no one can take away and in thirty years I can have something to reminisce about. I can tell them about the time I almost beat Steve Kinser. Just kidding!
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 13 December 2008 )
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On The Cushion: August 08 |
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Written by Byron Reed
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Thursday, 14 August 2008 |
THOUGHTS & OTHER PONDERINGS AS THE SEASON WINDS DOWN
ON THE CUSHION IS A MONTHLY ARTICLE FROM BYRON REED. HE WILL SHARE HIS THOUGHTS ON THE RACING ACTION FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THAT FAMILIAR BLACK NUMBER 5.
Hello again Thanks for checking my web site. I apologize for not doing more frequent columns but it has been hard to get in the habit. I have to say I don’t know how a lot of these people maintain their blogs and go about their business. I am into baseball and I always read Curtis Grandersons’ blog of the Detroit Tigers. He does a great job with it and gives a lot of insight into his life as a major leaguer. Like I said though, I don’t know where he finds the time. I haven’t done a lot of writing like this since school so I thought that this time I would try to write down a topic and then talk about it. So let’s see how it goes.
RainI cannot think of any other year that I have been racing that has had so many rainouts. Even when we do race it seems like there is a threat of rain or we get a rain delay. During Speedweek I planned on running seven days and only got to run three. Both Skyline and Fremont were delayed. It was actually a miracle that we got Fremont in that night as it looked like a major storm was going to hit.
PerformanceI am very happy with our performance. We have been running well on all types of surfaces, heavy, slick, and rough. We now have five wins, a bunch of top fives, and are leading the points at Attica and Fremont. For whatever reason, we have done a little better at Fremont than Attica this year, but I think we are still running good at Attica and can get another win there before the year is out.
My TeamMy success this year has been a total team effort. I believe I have only fallen out of two races this year due to equipment failure and those were both part failures. My crew has done a great job with preparation and preventative maintenance. It also seems like we have really gotten into a groove with our setups. Kurt knows what I want most times without me even saying it.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 25 August 2008 )
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Written by Byron Reed
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Thursday, 19 June 2008 |
SPEEDWEEK ON THE HORIZON FOR B&S RACING
ON THE CUSHION IS A MONTHLY ARTICLE FROM BYRON REED. HE WILL SHARE HIS THOUGHTS ON THE RACING ACTION FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THAT FAMILIAR BLACK NUMBER 5.
Hello again! It’s that time of year again where we are gearing up for a bunch of races in a row called Speedweek. I have always enjoyed Speedweek and seem to do pretty well. It seems like when we run a bunch of races together like that our concentration level goes up. Probably my biggest win was the Speedweek finale at Portsmouth in 2001. The track was really fast that night with multiple grooves. We were able to beat some good competition and get the win.
This year we are planning on running the local show at Fremont on Saturday then Attica on Sunday. We are not planning on running Wayne County on Monday. The reason for that is my oldest son Sam has a baseball game that night and I help coach his team. We will then head to Hilltop on Tuesday and then onto Skyline Wednesday night. We will then head home for Fremont on Thursday and finish out at Lima on Friday. We will not run Eldora on Saturday.
So far our season has gone pretty good. We started off at the Attica All Star show looking like we might get a win, but a fuel leak stopped us with 10 laps to go. We ran pretty much in the top 10 for most of the races, but were not getting any wins. That changed two weeks ago at Fremont when we finally got our first win. We backed that up with another win last weekend.
Both Attica and Fremont have had their tracks in good shape this year. Fremont started out a little rough, but in the last 3-4 weeks they have really got the track dialed in. There are usually two grooves, which gives us a lot of room to race. We are really lucky to have two great tracks right in our backyard to race on.
Speedweek can really make or break a team’s season. I think we are going into it running well and with our cars well prepared and fresh. With a little luck, maybe we can get another win. It has been a while since I have won an All Star race. If you are at the races, feel free to stop by our trailer and say hi!
Thanks,
Byron Reed
Photos by Larry Reese Photos
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Last Updated ( Monday, 08 December 2008 )
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Written by Byron Reed
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Friday, 27 July 2007 |
SEASON'S END ON THE HORIZON
ON THE CUSHION IS A MONTHLY ARTICLE FROM BYRON REED. HE WILL SHARE HIS THOUGHTS ON THE RACING ACTION FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THAT FAMILIAR BLACK NUMBER 5.
Hello again! Sorry it has been so long since my last update. I told Scott the other day that I always have it on my to do list but it never gets done. So I am forcing myself to pluck away on this computer!
As most of you know my Dad had surgery a few months back and fortunately everything has gone well and he is about back to normal. At his last check, the surgeon said “see you in a year.” My father-in-law is doing fairly well also and has made it to several races this year.
Our season has gone very well so far. We have won five races and are leading the points at Attica and Fremont. It never is a big goal of ours to win the points, but those tracks always seem to have the best races for us, especially with the All Stars running so infrequently this year. We were pretty fast at Speedweek with the exception of Hilltop. We finished fourth at the opener at Attica and were really coming on strong at the end. At Buckeye, we were going to run second but broke a rear end about halfway through the feature. Waynesfield was an exciting race. We were running second and it was very hard to pass. With five laps to go I did a slide job on Paul May and he ran into the back of me which caused me to turn sideways in front of the field. I’m not sure how I or anybody else didn’t wreck. After all that I wound up 9th. Fremont was a good run; we came from 10th to 2nd. Finally, at Lima we finished second despite having no brakes most of the race. That was probably the most disappointing race because I feel we could have won if we had brakes. The last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle as we seem to be fighting some mechanical problems like a broken rocker arm in the feature at Attica one week and losing our brakes there last week. We had been running a new brand of brakes this year which stop the car very well, but there seem to be a lot of failures with them. So this week we are going back to our brake system from last year.
There are some big shows coming up at Attica and Fremont that we are gearing up for. We are also planning on running the Outlaw show at I-96, weather permitting. I would also like to say thanks to Jim Ford and his family for all they have done at Fremont. Whoever takes that place over has some big shoes to fill. Please feel free to stop by our trailer and say hi.
Thanks,
Byron Reed
Photos by Jim Fisher & Mike Campbell Photos
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Last Updated ( Monday, 25 August 2008 )
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