Ups and downs. Craziness. Frustration. There were plenty of words to describe Zach's day today at Five Flags Speedway. But in the end, the word of the day was "satisfaction."
Today was race day at Pensacola. Well, it was practice, qualifying and race day. After a final practice on Friday that went well, the team returned to the track on Friday night and made wholesale changes to the car, not knowing what the hour and half practice on Saturday morning would hold. When it came down to it, the car was good. But the more improvements the team made to the car, the slower it went. When the team went out for their mock qualifying run, it was nothing special and put Zach 19th of the 65-plus cars.
A few more changes were in store before qualifying. That, along with some repair to the upper-A frame bracket that had broken loose, made for a tense qualifying session. It didn't disappoint though... in the not so good way. Zach qualified at a 17.59, which put him 40th of the 65 cars that took time. When Zach came back in, he said something was not right with the car and it was worse than it had been all weekend long.
Zach then started 5th in the second of two Last Chance races. The car was good after more wholesale changes, and he was able to grab the final transfer spot to get into the race with a 3rd place finish (ironically, last year, I worked with a driver named Zach who made the race by starting fifth and finishing third in the second last chance race). More changes to the car to make it looser came before it was feature time.
When the race started, Zach slowly started working his way up. He missed several big accidents and held his own, gaining spots and moving into the top-25. Then, when everyone else pitted, he found himself third.
He ran 3rd for quite some time. Finally though, around lap 70, his old tires fell off and he got freight-trained and fell a lap down in just about 8 laps. The team made the call for him to come in and get tires under green. He fell a couple of laps down in the pits, but was able to finish the race with the car in one piece, missing all of the wrecks.
He finished 14th. He also wrecked Johanna Long, who is the track champion and the most popular driver at the track. He got a few middle fingers because of that.
But 14th was a successful night, considering where the day started. So congrats Zach, on one hell of a run. You did AWESOME!
Gotta give our props to Nick Stroupe too. Today (Saturday) was the first day of the Winter Heat Series at Lowe's Motor Speedway. And Nick won his heat race and the feature in the Young Lions division (a new rule forced Nick to run Young Lions rather than his normal Semi-Pro). way to go Nick. You did AWESOME too.
Enjoy the pictures.
Zach gets introduced before the race. He started 36th and finished 14th, but this was the only checkered flag he'd see.
Deon looks at the car during tech. It actually went very smooth.
Zach qualified at a 17.59. That wasn't overly impressive.
The team sits in tech line. I know, the pictures are totally out of order today.
Zach raced really good during the Snowflake 100. He actually improved 22 positions. Way more than anyone else.
Zach and sis Jennell are very loving! Here, they share a close moment.
Zach got into a couple of cars during the night. And the side of the car showed it. 
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