[Stevensville Mike]

15... maybe 16 cars showed up tonight. The first heat was run. Craig Karazim held off Chase Ridenour for honors. Gregg Dalman went down and into the pits with a broken top wing and maybe more issues.

Heat 2..... Dustin Daggett drew pole. End of story. Ryan Ruhl was making headway but would have never got there in eight laps. Then, about Lap 5, it started sprinkling and the yellow came out. After a few laps, they called it official.

Four stock car heats followed as black skies from the west were coming. Hartford went straight to the Features after that.

First up, late models. About 11-12 of them. 15 laps, or so, into their 20 lap feature, the black skies dumped. End of show. It was about 9:45 p.m.

Unless a miracle happened after I left, the rest of the night was left for mud bogging.

We'll hope for better luck next time. Sure wish they could have ran that SOD feature ahead of the weekly late model show, though. The cars were in the chute, ready to go, when the rain hit.

[Spi-nex]

Thanks for coming Mike. We rocked it as hard as we could. Probably would have been ok if we didn't have that 4 cylinder go up in a fireball. LOL.

[Stevensville Mike]

Originally Posted by Spi-nex Thanks for coming Mike. We rocked it as hard as we could. Probably would have been ok if we didn't have that 4 cylinder go up in a fireball. LOL.

Man, you can say that again.

For all not there, during one of the four cylinder heats, one of the cars developed a fuel leak of some sort going into Turn 3. The guy brought it to a halt and thankfully bailed out. By now it was a ball of flames. Bright orange against the darkening SW Michigan stormy skies (like a Poe story). It was actually quite impressive.... unless it was your car. The fire crew had a heck of a time putting it out but eventually got it tamed.

On a sidebar, despite the threat of rain, the crowd was huge. The track did all they could to speed up the program, actually starting early, nixing the intermission, and going straight to features. The track looked good all night long, too. There was actually a heck of cushion in Turns 1 and 2.

I remember the last time I got caught in a downpour at Hartford was the night Jason Johnson set the track record, which still holds, I believe, in qualifying for the old WoO Gumout Series. I don't think they ever got a heat in that night. Too bad, because everyone was flying around their in quals that night.

[dkdorkboy]

The rain has nailed the outlaw race at i 96 tonite.