It was an interesting night, for sure. The first thing that was clear, when driving in along Highway 67 and up Edd Sheppard Memorial Highway, was there was a lot of residual moisture in the ground and pooled on top of the ground, from the recent barrages that Mother Nature had thrown at us. And I could had taken this information and made the decision to carefully enter the parking lot and wisely select a part of the parking lot that wasn't also soft. But, as in many cases with me, I didn't heed the warning signs and promptly buried my car up to the front axles. This could have been where stress became a factor, but it really didn't. There would be plenty of time to solve this problem. There were so many cars in the pits, it was jam packed. It was still very early. There was no impending doom on the weather radar (for a change). And I know the guy that runs this track. Him and his folks are always willing to help out, once they reach a point that they're not super busy. My thinking was "We'll get this figured out", so I locked my car, walked up the hill, bought a ticket and went in to see what the track looked like. And it looked like most of the rest of Putnam, Owen and Morgan counties had, on my way to the track. It was going to take a lot of work to get this thing ironed out and ready for racing, but it was obvious that's just what their intentions were. At first, it was hard for the push trucks to push cars off without sliding or sinking into the mud, but that got better and better and once we had cars on the track, wheel packing for an extended time, things started to take shape and you knew before long were were going to be racing. And since it takes a long time to hot lap that many cars, the time was right for them to hook a long cable to my car and slowly wench it out of the mud. So, I was free to spend the rest of the night watching racing, while catching up on lost time with my friends.

A very healthy car count of 53 sprinters, with a lot of great racers, 7 heats and a track that was really starting to take shape meant that it was going to be worth the wait and all the efforts of the track crew and drivers that got this thing ready to race. And once the heats were done, there were a few things that stood out and were obvious. Colten Cottle keeps getting better and has gotten to the level of damn tough competitor. His uncle hasn't lost a step. As time goes on, most people will come to learn what everyone who goes to Haubstadt already knows; Stephen Schnapp can drive and seems to get better with every race. Jake Scott's one of Paragon's best kept secrets. Having a busy schedule doesn't seem to be something that Casey Shuman views as an excuse to not go find a place to race. What a shot in the arm for the local racing scene it would be to have Brady Short back as a regular competitor. Your ticket value always increases when you realize Thomas Meseraull is going to be starting towards the back of the feature. And AJ Hopkins was just a rocket. Someone was going to have to drive their ass off, if they were going to prevent him from winning, on this night.

But that didn't happen. Hopkins just demolished the field. At one point, most of the way through the race, when a red flew for a Schnapp flip, he had just about a 3/4 lap lead on second. The racing action was very good behind the leader. Scott would eventually become a solid second, as both Cottles, Schnapp (before he crashed), Meseraull, etc all fought it out for position. And an amazing part of the evening was that as many races that there were to get through these divisions, there were 2 reds (one for Schnapp and another for a sprint car that stopped on the backstretch due to an engine fire) and very few yellows.

I came into this race weekend pretty well starved for live racing action. My 3 weeks in Scandinavia and Mother Nature had pretty much taken that away from me. But, even though I was leaving late, I had gotten my money's worth. I was happy. And as I passed the haulers that were sitting in the part of the pits that is right up against the road, I could see that several of those haulers were sunk into the mud. As late as it was for me, all those that had helped pull me out of the mud earlier where going to have a much later night than I did. And at some point earlier in the day, these guys just decided that they were going to race today, no matter what.

Jerry