Spence Family Racing

NHRA Heritage Hot Rod Series-Fontana ‘09

First off, I would like to thank Alex Mikkelsen our crew chief and friend from American Roadster for giving us a great car and tune-up for the weekend. I also would like to thank Alex for your leadership and for praying over the car and myself before every run. To my friends from home Josh, Jeremy, Justin and Manny, thank you for coming out and showing your support for me in my come back debut…much love. I thank you guys for your support.

Dad, thank you for allowing me to race your hot rod and for making this weekend one of the best weekends I’ve ever had. Mark and Jason, thank you for being the best crew a guy could ever wish for and for your support in calming me down before every run. I couldn’t have made the passes without both of your efforts. Again, thank you so much.

Well about the weekend! I was a little nervous and a little rusty to say the least but, it all went away after the first burnout. After mark backed me up, I pulled forward to stage the car and then down came the tree and off I went. The car made a move about 300ft towards the wall so I lifted. I was pissed but it was a blessing in disguise. This tells me that if I need to lift, I have no problems lifting again. The next pass was a little bit better. I did the burnout a little better, staged the car and smashed down the throttle and oh what a feeling I have missed for a while now. We recorded a number that was too fast for our class but, more importantly, I got to run the car out the back door. I’m starting to feel good in the car again. The final run on Friday, everyone had gone home except the crew and what a rewarding run it was for all our hard work. We ran another fast time for a high gear only pass and the fastest speed the car has ever gone to this date. What a great feeling for everyone who put in such a long day and to finish it with a good run.

The rest of the weekend we tried to slow the car down by lifting early, and the last pass I brain farted when I lifted at a 1000 foot. I automatically pulled the chutes and when I did it I was thinking you dumb ass. What did you do that for? Oh well, we had a fun weekend. The car was in one piece, we didn’t hurt the motor and everyone had a great time. We even got Justine to come out and play! All in all, this is what our racing is all about family, friends and meeting new friends and just a bunch of good times.

Hopefully next weekend will be just as fun! Hope to see you at the track and until next time. Have a good one! SS

The 51st March Meet (March 6th, 7th & 8th)

We had entered two cars for the meet and since we had Alex, Scott, Jason, myself, Jeff Jaynes, John Vosper and another friend Manny set to help out we decided to keep the two race packages but just bring the Fiat. My youngest son Tommy was slated to come up to join us too but couldn't get a ride up after work.

We were told that we'd have one pass on Friday and one pass on Saturday to qualify. There were 44 cars in NE 2 trying to make a 16 car field. Scott, Jason and Alex decided to lower the tire pressure down to 6 lbs pressure and the Fiat liked it. Jason launched it in first gear from an idle, lifted the front wheels for about 100 feet and sailed through the lights with an 8.04 ET @ 155 MPH. This while running the blower @ 7 percent under drive with 10 degrees taken out of the mag to try to slow it down. Obviously it didn't work. For Saturday's run it was agreed that Jason would make a high gear only run and try to match what his opponent ran. He got "Dragster Jeff" Kreider so we figured Jeff would run the number and if we matched him we'd be in the show. Well Jeff got an 8.66 and we got another 8.37 so that put us as the 44th qualifier for the field. Interestingly enough Jason's 8.04 run on Friday would have qualified him 33rd for NE 1 which is a 32 car field. Oh well.

All in all even though we didn't qualify for the race we got two arrow straight runs from the Fiat and the quickest runs we've ever had. There were more cars that we've ever seen and the crowds on Friday, Saturday and Sunday were the largest we've ever seen too. We had a blast!!

Thanks to everyone that has made this possible

American Roadster Fabrication, Underbear Race Engines, Pro Machine Race Engines, Bob Danely, John Ewald, Van Osten Family, Mario, Engle Cams, Westminster Transmission, Continental Converters, Mike's Transmissions, Racers For Christ, ANRA, GoodGuys and to all the people who have helped us get these cars down the track safely, Thank you.

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