Posted By: HeavyMetalRacing on September 06 2010 at 03:40:57 PM
September 4th, 2010
Calistoga Speedway
“in a 360.”
I’ll refer to this comment often over the next few
paragraphs, as The Human Highlight Reel Geoff Ensign stamped himself as one of
the upcoming and unheralded sprint car shoes around with a performance never
seen before at Calistoga Speedway….in a 360 Sprint Car.
Call it fate. Call it
karma. Call it whatever you want, but
Ensign was about to make his mark in the Northern California Sprint Car
Community if he hadn’t already. Calistoga
Speedway was the place where Ensign experienced the highs and lows of racing
all in one night when he fulfilled a dream of racing Calistoga in a sprint car
and the ensuing crash later that evening that almost ended his year and tore up
his car badly the last time they were at the beautiful half mile. The car was pieced together oh so slowly, and being they had a refurbished hot rod and fresh off of a 2nd place finish the previous night in it's return after a month on the sidelines, the Heavy
Metal Race Team put their helmets on and headed over the hill to do battle with
the best wingless sprint car drivers in the nation while spotting them roughly
100 horsepower for their troubles. Ensign does not have a 410 motor, but wants to race as much as possible,
so it was never a question as to whether they’d be in the pits this night, as
wanting to race overcomes any logic about not being competitive because Ensign
believes in himself, his car and his crew. There they were, in beautiful wine country, the Heavy Metal
Motorsports/Able Maintenance/Nor Cal Transmission/VSR #5 ready to go.
A funny thing happened when the #5 hit the track. The car was set up nearly perfectly right out
of the box. So nearly perfect in fact,
he qualified 5th overall out of roughly 30 cars that qualified…..again
with a 360 motor. Ensign then started 7th
in his heat race and came through the field to finish 2nd, putting
himself outside second row of the main event and wearing the Cinderella story
crown for the night….in a 360.
Realistically, Ensign never had a chance to win the race, as giving up
that much horsepower on a half mile track is an impossible task to accomplish,
but Ensign stuck his chest out like Mighty Mouse, looked over the field and
said “Bring it.”
At the green, Ensign not only stayed where he started, but
actually gained a spot and was running solidly in the 4th spot
halfway through the main event when a right rear tire went flat, bringing the
#5 into the pits for a tire change. Ensign, already playing on the house’s money, went back out and found
himself 19th and last on the track. If you have been reading this, you know the 21 year old does not back
down from a challenge and he and his #5 went sprint car hunting and went from from
19th spot to 11th at the checkers and ended up as the
highest finishing 360 powerplant in the main event, earning a nice little bonus
from the race sponsors. Adding it all
up, Ensign outqualified roughly 25 other cars, passed 5 more in his heat race
and passed 9 altogether in the main event while spotting most about 100
horsepower.
Ensign would not be done adding things to his growing list
of accomplishments just quite yet as there was another night to race.
You thought this story was over?
Geoff Ensign can be reached on his Facebook page (search
Geoff Ensign) or at [email protected].
Ron Lingron – Heavy Metal Racing
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