The World’s Fastest half-mile in Winchester Speedway is an entirely different race weekend from the rest. This weekend started off great, went South, then ended up pretty good.
Practice
For the past few years, we have been a contender near the front in most of the events at Winchester Speedway. This changed on Labor Day 2024. For the first time, we weren’t a contender to win. As a response to this, the team completely threw out that setup and we started over again. Unfortunately, we missed slightly on the setup. In first Friday practice, we ended up placed P10 on the board (17.747) with 28 cars making time. We went to work and changed every single spring on the car. In second practice, we made a giant leap in the right direction and improved by over a quarter second on pace. After second practice, we landed at (17.411) which was good enough for P7. After second practice, we still weren’t happy with the speed so we, again, changed every single spring on the car.
When Saturday rolled around, we expected to pick up another few tenths in time. Unfortunately, the motor had different plans. In our first practice session on Saturday, the motor fell flat. Upon pulling the car in for inspection, we discovered that we had a parts failure on a rocker arm in the motor. We decided that we would take the cylinder offline, pull on to the track to start the race at the tail, and pull off after one lap to get our start money.
Race
We fielded our car (which sounded like a sewing machine at this point). We were fielded in 16th position with 30 cars on the track to start the race. On our first (and assumed only) lap, we passed a car. Cassten thought he might just stay out for a few more and see how the handling felt even though the car had ~30% power. On the second lap, he passed another car. Then another and another. By the first caution, Cassten found himself in 9th position. After some chatter on the radio, the crew decided that we should just stay out and see what we can make of it. As the runs went on, the cars with full power began to heat up their tires and fall back. To Cassten. Who was waiting there with his sewing machine with four cold tires ready to pounce. In what seemed to be nearly a miracle, Cassten found himself in the 4th position with 10 laps to go. “How funny would it be to park this thing on the podium” Cassten thought to himself. With 8 laps to go, Cassten completed the pass on the outside in turn 3 to solidify the position on the podium. To top it all off, Cassten had to drive the last 15 laps with a broken power steering belt, and hence, no power steering.
This was a race we will all reminisce on for a long time into the future. One of our Sponsors, TrackTune, had a lot of personnel at the track and we were thrilled to be able to show them a podium finish after all of the bad luck we had faced throughout the day. The CER team doesn’t give up.