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.
I have become involved with the Harrison and Burkett families in the Racers for the Cure charity. I have purchased some ½ size helmets to be autographed. I sent two down to Frankie Kerr and he had each one autographed by about 19 drivers including Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Bobby Labonte, etc.. I sent another one to a good friend of mine named Gary Prall who is the right rear tire changer for Ryan Briscoe on the Penske Indy car. He is getting Helio Castroneves, Sam Hornish, and Ryan to autograph it. I got another one signed by all the World of Outlaw drivers and one by the FAST drivers. Finally, I am most proud of one that I am having signed by all the living Ohio drivers that are in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. This includes Rick Ferkel, Kenny Jacobs, Jac Haudenschild, Rollie Beale, Brad Doty, Larry Dickson, and Jack Hewitt. I am not sure how we will raise the money with all of these, probably a raffle or auction. Stay tuned for that.  Well I hope my next article will be filled with better results than this one. I also want to thank those of you that continue to support me despite the troubles I have been having on the track. Thanks,
Byron Reed
Photos by Mike Campbell Photos |
