The Bill Eldridge Story by Lou Modestino – The Northeastern Midget Association has just enjoyed one of its most successful seasons since the late 1950‘s. NEMA has taken the lean years in stride and has perserved very well. It is now on the brink of popularity that could surpass the early days of the old AAA racing club that sanctioned Midget and big car races on the New England circuit.

Of the many great drivers in the NEMA organization, one individual has stood out among the rest over a period of many years – Bill Eldridge. Bill was… Click Here to Read More

This weekend (Sunday 09-11) was hard all around. Though I can’t complain too much, allot of guys went home with wrecked cars. Track conditions could have been a factor, though I wouldn’t put all the blame there. We are defiantly thankful to have a place to race this weekend. Without these guys, the speedway in Rumney would have been barren all season. So for that, I do say thank you!

The surface of the track was very rough this weekend. Though, it was probably the best it could be without haling in thousands of dollars of clay. Most of the clay that the track was built with last year, had washed away leaving a very rough, sandy surface to work with. It’s not easy to groom that type of surface.

In the heat, both Drew and I underwent mechanical issues. First Drew, coming out of turn two, lost the ability to steer his car and headed into the wall ending his night early. He destroyed his front axle, shocks, steering box, and all the radius rods holding everything together. It will be a merical if he’s able to get it back together for next weeks final race in Bradford, VT. For me, a few laps after Drew’s incident, I snapped a chain sending me to the pits.

During the feature, it didn’t get any better. I made some changes to try to eliminate the chain issues for the feature but it wasn’t enough. Only a few laps in, I lost my second chain for the day and made my way to the infield where I watched the rest of the race.

Next weeks race will be on Saturday at Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford, VT. Hopfully Drew and I can find enough time during a busy week to figure out our issues and get back out there to put on one last good show for this season. I hope to see some of you there!

There was a mis-comunication on my part in regards to the start time of Sunday’s Race on 09-04. For some reason, I was under the impression that racing would start at 4:00pm. When I arrived, I still needed to install a new sprocket on my car. When I was loading the car on the trailer that morning, I realized that I didn’t just blow a water line the week before. I also completely rounded out my rear sprocket. The sprocket only had 3 races on it, and I had turned it around each race. I did notice that it was experiencing a bit more than usual wear, but I underestimated the severity of the wear.  When I thought that the motor had sucked in water last race, it was actually the chain skipping teeth on the sprocket.

I hassled to change the spocket as the 600′s were lining up for the heat. I had already missed the practice laps, and Drew, still hadn’t arrived yet. By the time he did arrive, I was climbing into my car for the heat he would end up missing.

With my late arrival, I started at the back of the pack. Seven cars started the heat. During the heat, I gained 2 spots to finish 5th.

The feature was a bit more exciting. I started 3rd beside Lowbed Johnson #12, and behind GSMSRC driver Jake Williams #73 and Christine Boesch #23. Drew, missing the heat, started last. The green dropped and cars would jockey for position. By the back stretch I was chasing Williams for the lead, with everyone else on top of me. Into turn 3 and Williams suddenly slowed more than expected. With everyone on top of us, I tried to maneuvers up beside Williams. As the 73 came down the track I caught his left rear with my front tire and took a pretty good hop. Quickly back in action, we exited the turn everyone still on track and running full speed. In the hussle, the #12 managed to make the pass on the inside to take the lead. The following lap, I made the pass to take position away from Williams on the inside and secure 2nd.

After a caution for Rich Crooker #21 who wedged a rock in his chain, and Williams exiting with fuel pump issues the restart found Terry Reil #11 on my inside looking for 2nd. On the dry slick track we had to work with, Reil found himself sliding up the track during the pass. We pressed wheel to wheel as we exited turn 2, and I helped hold the two of us on the track.

Now running 3rd to Reil and Johnson, Drew found his way up behind me. Turn one had a hole in the track so large, that I hit it once, bottomed the car out, sent a shock wave through my back, and I knew not to run that low in turn one again. Drew on the other hand, apparently hadent found the hole yet. While I was now running higher than usual, Drew saw an opertunity to make the pass. unfortunately, he found the hole in the process. His car hopped, slid up the track in front of me, and colided side to side with Boesch who was lap traffic at the time. Both cars spun in front of me. In the process, I was able to manouvor under both of them to come out maintaining 3rd.

On the restart, I held 3rd as Johnson and Reil pulled ahead. For the remainder of the race I worked to hold off Rookie Spencer Allen #22 for the third place spot. Meanwhile, my brand new rear sprocket was taking a beating. I could hear the chain snapping off the top of the sprocket as the teeth were rolling over. With two laps to go, I slid a little too high in turn 4 and it opened the door for Allen to make his move. And that he did. Allen was able to get it to stick to the low side, pushing me back to 4th for the last two laps. Drew, finished right behind me in 5th.

What an exciting race with allot of close action. After the race, I inspected my rear sprocket and found that within that single race I destroyed another sprocket. Something was defiantly wrong, and it will take some investigation to find what. For next week, I’ll change out the chain and replace the sprocket once again.

Our next race will be September 11th at the Legion Speedway in Rumney NH. See you then.

Bear Ridge Speedway, August 20, 2011. Back to my favorite track to race at, least favorite to drive too. Why, cause it’s 2.5 hours away. The last time we were here, I finally got my car to hook up well, and if it wasn’t for the excess moisture in the air, I would have pushed things a bit further than I did. With a respectable 3rd place finish, I was looking to repeat that luck again this week.

During the week leading up to race day, I was able to get a new fuel map for the stock engine and felt pretty confident that last weeks problem would be solved. I was also able to better square up the engine to get rid of some of the chain binding I was experiencing. To be sure, I would just have to wait till I could get on the track to find out if the changes were right or not.

Turns out, the day started with the same issue I was contending with last race at Canaan. The engine was shutting off when I gave it too much throttle or raised the RPM to race range. No, it wasn’t the rev limiter. The rev limiter has a distinct rapid bounce in revs. This was more of an engine shut down, until I backed off the throttle. It was blatantly obvious in our hand full of practice laps that running the heat was going to be quite challenging. With less than 15 minutes between the practice and the heat race, I was going to have to deal with it for now.

I started on the outside pole for the heat, only to drop back to 7th out of 9 for the checkers. Throughout the race it was a struggling balance of managing throttle position and struggle to keep up. I wasn’t the only one dealing with issues. Drew started 3rd and finished 5th, and was having his own issues with handling.

Between races, it was an anxious struggle to figure out what was causing the problem. I tried changing fuel maps once again, but could now here the cut out while reving the car in the pits. With a little help, we started scouring the wiring harness to see if there was something apparently wrong there. Sure enough, we found that the mass air sensor plug had come disconnected. The way I have my wiring in the car, it was hiding behind the engine and was not easy to find.

Come feature time, we gained a tenth car and Drew and I started on the front row, Drew to the outside this time. The green flag dropped and I was wide open, problem solved! Heading around turn 1 and 2 I caught a quick glimpse of the #05 car of Scott Preston looking to the inside as we exited turn two and then it was clean air as I lead the first 7 laps. While entering turn one on what would have been my 8th lap, my temperature warning light started blinking. When I exited turn two , the car bucked a few times and gave off a puff of smoke as I blew a coolant line.

The last time I blew an engine at this track, the engine seized and locked up my rear end bring me to an abrupt stop. That thought being my major motivation to get out of the way as quick as possible, I drove a straight line down into the infield and around the light post on the grass. What I didn’t know untill after the race was that Rich Crooker in the #21 car was working his way up to my inside when I drove down to the infield. Crooker had to take action, and lost two places to Spencer Allen in the #22 and Lowbed Johnson in the #12. My night, now over, it was up to Drew to pick up the slack.

Pushing hard, Drew ended up spinning in turn 2 not to many laps later. From my water? Maybe. Maybe not as I found later that I didn’t drop all that much.  He would then spend the rest of the race trying to recover position. He was given one more restart when Preston and  Brian Cunningham’s (#99) entangled in turn 3 to bring out the final caution.

Rounding up the night Drew placed 5th and I ended up 9th.

We’ll have two weeks off till our next race in Rumney, NH. Till then, I’ll have to investigate the damage done to my engine. Hopefully none. With new gauges in place, I definatly had a quicker response to issues with the engine. The new gauges may have just saved me from loosing a second engine this year. I’m now using 2 Elite Glowshift gauges. One for water temperature, the other for oil pressure, both with attached warning lights. Both gauges are programmable to flash the warning light when values are too low, or too high. They also both have a peek recall. Very useful to gain incite on the max temps your reaching during a race.  The best part is that you can get both gauges for under $160. At that price, I don’t know why I didn’t install these gauges sooner.