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Dan Simpson Race Recap

By George Hague

Rio Vista, Ca…July 22…Dan Simpson has added a second car and driver to the DES Inc. Racing team and he has taken the challenge by recording his best results this season. Destiney Hays has joined the team and both drivers are motivating each other to better performances the first two weeks together.

Dan and the team ran the Silver Dollar Speedway series on Friday July 11^th and stared the night with his best qualifying run of the year logging a 5th fastest time. In his heat race he had a great battle with new team mate Destiney Hays, and Dan brought the Flowmaster, DryVac Services , DES Inc # 4s home to a 6^th place finish in the heat action. The 25 lap main event saw Dan drive to his career best finish, a 5th place, which moved him into the 9^th spot in the year long Silver Dollar Speedway Series.

On Saturday July 12^th the Des Inc., Hushpower, DryVac Services # 4s was back at Silver Dollar Speedway and round 18 of the 2008 Golden State Challenge Series. After a 17th quick qualifying run, Dan lined up on the pole for his heat race and held off a hard charging Bud Kaeding and Jonathan Allard for the win, his second of the year on the Golden State series Dan started 15^th in the A-Main and fought to a 14^{th place} finish and still 12^th in the year long points standings.

The following weekend the team headed to Watsonville, Ca and Ocean Speedway located just a couple of miles from the Pacific Ocean for the site of round 19 of the Golden State Challenge Series and the cool ocean air. Ocean speedway was super fast and tacking for the Friday night race and Dan went out 15^th and was sitting on top of the qualifying charts until teammate, Destiney Hays, beat Dan's time. Dan ended the qualifying session 4^th and Destiney was 2^nd quick behind Tyler Walker. Dan was looking to make his first career Golden State Dash but had to battle the youngster, Shane Golibic, for the transfer sport and the teenager got the best of the 64 year old Simpson for the final transfer to the dash. Dan fought a motor issue during the main event, but held onto a 19^th place finish in the 30 lap feature.

The next night the team followed the Golden State Challenge Series to the very tight confines of Antioch Speedway, just a few miles from Dan's home town of Rio Vista, Ca. for rond 20 of the Series. After the night before at Ocean Speedway, Dan was looking to improve on his best qualifying of the season but an early draw ended in a 14^th fastest time for the night. In his heat race Dan took the # 4s Des Inc., Flowmaster, VacDewater Maxim, Kistler to the front and held off Jason Statler for his third heat win of the 2008 Golden State Challenge season. The main event was a battle of the fittest and who could avoid the flying race cars. The most spectacular crash that Simpson avoided was a wild flip by Golden State points leader, Jonathan Allard, down the back stretch with Allard's car bouncing off the right rear of Dan's machine with out damage to the 4s. When the checkered flag fell for the 30 lap main Simpson battled his way to a 13^th place finish and still holding down the 12^th spot in the points standings.

Next up for the Dan Simpson Racing team is the two day finale for the 2008 Golden State Challenge Series at Silver Dollar Speedway July 25-26. For the schedule for the remainder of 2008 Dan Simpson Racing team go to; www.dansimpsonracing.com .