HICKORY, NC :: I am in search of a monkey slayer… Week after week we go to the track and it seems something always keeps us from where we want to be. And for all the animal advocates, no I’m not really trying to kill a monkey.. But I sure would like to pawn it off on someone. Our team worked hard the last two weeks to put us in a better position. We not only had our shocks gone through, but we looked at various other aspects of the setup. After changing some springs, and points on the front, we went to the track with what we felt was a decent setup and it definitely was. Our day would start off with a Bible study with me and some other drivers and crews. It is always a fun time to sit and talk and share about what has been going on in our weeks.
First and second practices went well picking up 2-3 tenths a lap from our last outing in practice. This would put us 7th on the board in preparations for qualifying. It had been a while since we were that high up on the board. We still weren’t happy and kept working on the car. Qualifying would prove intense as there were 19 cars going for the pole with a tight field. We put down a solid lap and held the top 5 for most of the session only to fall to 8th. Still not too bad from where we have been.
We went into the race feeling very good about the ground we had made and where the AR Bodies WrenchRags Chevy Camaro was running. As the green dropped we would move into 7th quickly and began trying to figure out ways to pass for the 5th place battle in front. After having some help coming off turn 2 from a fellow competitor we would fall back a couple spots. On the restart we would try to gain some ground back and in a hard battle to regain 8th position back we would unfortunately make contact with another car that got loose and came down in front of us to bring out another caution. The track deemed illegal use of the front bumper and put us to the rear. None of us were too happy about that, but there was nothing we could do to argue our point and to say that the guy checked up in front of us. So the monkey stays with us another week and we restarted 18th with about 8 laps to go. We were able to get back to 12th but just ran out of time.
We walked away from Saturday night feeling somewhat robbed, but at the same time optimistic about the coming weeks as we go back. We have finally gotten an idea on the car and now know what direction we need to go. We all believe we had a shot at our first top 5 of the year had things not transpired the way they did. We were considering going to Caraway this Wednesday for the SELLM series and try to compete there, but my job has brought me to Massachusetts and I won’t be back in time. We also considered going to Ace this Friday, but most of our team will be out of town, so for now we prepare the car for testing next week, and will be back at HMS on Saturday July 12th. We also got some news this week that we may have the chance to take our NCN Ministries/ Integrity Motorsports team to Bristol in August for some fan events. Looking forward to learning more about that, but for now our focus is on getting to the front next weekend. As always I am so appreciative of our sponsors, team, fans, family and God for all they do to help us accomplish our dreams every week. Oh by the way.. Anyone want this monkey? I’ll sell him cheap!
Allen Huffman competes in the Limited Late Model division at Hickory Motor Speedway.
