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Tuesdays with TMAC – Twice in the Top Ten, Once on the Lid!
(Bill W) September 18, 2007 – Terry McCarl has been a mainstay in the top ten on the tough World of Outlaws circuit as of late. Two more such runs were in the offing last week. The Clay County Fair played to a packed house on Wednesday, and TMAC finished seventh, before finishing tenth at Heartland Park Topeka in Kansas on Friday. Sunday night at the Charter Raceway Park in Wisconsin, he seemed headed for another strong finish when an incident landed him upside down.
Spencer
The WoO played to a packed house in Spencer, Iowa. At 6:45 p.m., the call was made that no more grandstand tickets could be sold. The largest county fair in the country packed them in, and the newly configured 3/8 mile oval did not disappoint. "What a great event," says TMAC, who is a promoter himself. "I probably pay attention to the promotional side more than most people, and Craig and Julie Dollansky and their partners did an unbelievable job. I know how much work it takes to get something like that done, and they did a fabulous job of making it a great event for everyone."
The WoO has done a nice job of incorporating these type of events, and it is not lost on TMAC. "We've really had a lot of these kinds of events with the Outlaws this year, and that is taking sprint car racing more and more back in the right direction, I think. Spencer was a great example of that."
Another reason that TMAC was looking forward to Spencer was the proximity of the people who make the team go. "I like being able to race in front of the people from Big Game Treestands, Bosma Poultry and DeBerg Concrete…and Ryan Yager Trucking was on board for the night, as well," says TMAC. "They're all from right in that area, so that made it nice."
Ryan Yager Trucking used the opportunity to show its product in front of a sellout crowd. TMAC does a number of one or two night sponsorship deals during the season. "There's always sponsorship room available!" he says. "We probably do a half a dozen to ten one or two-night deals a year. It makes it good for the sponsors, because we can come out and display the car, or whatever they need."
The racing proved to be electric. TMAC started the night with the 7th quick time of the night. He ran second in his heat and third in the dash (after starting fourth). The new track surface proved to hold up better than the team thought in the main event. "Normally with a brand new track, it's either really dusty, or really rough, or both," says TMAC. "In this case, the track was perfect. It actually kind of fooled us there at the end, and we were too tight in the feature, because it was so good." The result was a loss of a few spots at the beginning of the 30-lapper. After that point, TMAC held his own for a seventh place finish that moved him past Jac Haudenschild for 11th in the WoO point race.
Topeka
The beautiful Heartland Park Topeka was next on the agenda for the WoO. TMAC was the victim of something you don't see very often in time trials. "I was disappointed in qualifying," he says. "We went out and were second fastest in hot laps. We drew the second to last car to come out for time trials. I watched qualifying for as long as I could, and everyone was running the middle to the top."
"When you push of in turn four, you don't get the green right away; they give you a lap to warm up. When I got around there, I saw the traveling scoreboard and it said 'tenth quick'. That night we had three heats, so the heat invert was twelve. A tenth quick would be perfect for us and put us on the front row of the heat. My second number on the scoreboard said, 'eighteenth quick'. So I thought we were in good shape with tenth quick and only one car left to time. I went up and saw that we were eighteenth quick, so I said, 'I thought we were tenth quick'. They said that we were, but that time was on our warm-up lap! My warm-up lap was actually faster than my qualifying laps!"
The qualifying effort put him outside row three of the third heat. "That put us behind the eight-ball a bit," he says. "It's a neat track, but a little difficult to pass. We were really good in the heat race. The leader in clean air always seems to have the quickest lap times, but we had the second quickest lap, even though we finished fifth."
Starting outside of row nine, TMAC was quickly on the prowl and moving forward. In the end, he would finish tenth, and take home hard-charger honors for moving up eight spots. "We did a good job to get a top ten out of it," he says. "We had a really good car in the feature, and it was probably better than several guys in front of us at the end. We just did the best we could, and ended up with a top ten."
Charter
The car was fast again when the WoO pulled into Charter Raceway Park near Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. After registering the sixth quick time of the night, and a fifth place heat finish, the tables were set for another strong run.
Starting inside of row five, the rush to the front was on before disaster struck. "We definitely had another top ten car," says TMAC. "Early in the race, we had a huge battle going on with Randy Hannagan and Tim Shaffer. We were three abreast. Hannagan was on the bottom, I was in the middle, and Shaffer was on top. I drove it into turn three, and the thing just stuck like glue. I was thinking I would hook it up and pass both of them. Randy slid up a little, right as I got a good bite, and I drove right over his right rear tire and got upside down."
"We flipped pretty hard. I quickly remembered why we don't like flipping. It hurts. It hurts physically, and it hurts the pocketbook." Hurting or not, the TMAC Motorsports team will head East this weekend.
Eldora Next
The last time TMAC raced at Eldora Speedway near Rossburg, Ohio, he was third in the King's Royal. In the Knight Before the King's Royal he was the runner-up. So heading in with the WoO for this Friday's race at the historical half-mile, the team's confidence is high. "We had one of the fastest, if not the fastest car at Eldora when we were there those two nights in July," he says. "I want to get to victory lane there this weekend!"
In"Terry"gation
John Schmidt from St. Paul, MN asks: As the weather gets cooler towards Fall, what are some of the things you need to do to maintain and get the car ready on race day? I've heard the cooler air is better on motors.
TMAC Answers: The motor works better definitely, but you have to be a lot more careful. It will also burn down quicker. You generally need to be a little richer on your fuel mixture as it gets cooler. When the air is bad and it's real hot and humid, there is less oxygen in the air, and the motors can't burn the fuel as well. The better the air is, and the more oxygen there is, the more the fuel burns efficiently. Maintenance-wise, we really don't do anything different.
Got a question for TMAC? Send it to us at [email protected], and we may answer it in this section! Put "? for TMAC" in your subject line.
Did you know?
TMAC won his first race at Knoxville on July 5, 1986. Driving Daryl Arend's #1A, he defeated Danny Lasoski, Shane Carson, John Stevenson and Randy Smith. He went on to win features the next two weeks, to prove there was no fluke!
Website
Keep up to date with McCarl Motorsports at www.TerryMcCarl.com. We keep it fresh for TMAC fans!
Ultimate Challenge Tickets (Refund/Exchange)
Unfortunately, severe weather cancelled Tuesday night's 6th Annual Ultimate Challenge.
A refund or ticket exchange (for your same seats) for 2008 can be requested at:
McTwo Promotions
Box 185
Altoona, IA 50009
(Please include your tickets with your request)
"Tuesdays with TMAC"
To receive "Tuesdays with TMAC", send an e-mail to [email protected] with "TMAC" in the subject line.
TMAC Motorsports would like to thank sponsors Big Game Treestands, Bosma Poultry, Inc., AmeriCash Advance, and Ground Max Hunting Blinds.
Terry circles the Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer, IA (Doug Johnson)
Bill Wright
Bill W Media
Monroe, IAUSA
[email protected]
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