By: VLR_LastPlace
Middletown, NY (February 21, 2016) Team VLR Promotions headed up northeast to New York for its yearly visit to the historic Orange County Fair Speedway for the Eastern States 45. Why 45 laps? Who the hell knows?
Fortunately it was uncharacteristically warm for this time of year in New York with temperatures in the mid-to-upper single digits and a pleasant breeze coming out of Canada. Local resident XRL_XCR_IFRT_AIR_WFO_RB_VLR/Tiremaster was nowhere to be seen, as he headed down to Florida to spot for Danica Patrick in the Daytona 500. Despite his solid advice including, "ah, go faster", "you suck", “work it bitch,” and "WTF was that shit!!!" she only mustered a 36th place finish. RB was promptly demoted to rim-washer after his disappointing debut as a spotter.
Qualifying went off without any delays despite a nice field of 25 cars. XCR_KingGinger blistered the field with an amazing lap of 15.71 to grab his first pole of the year. Shock, Wheel , Rainman and JJ rounded out the top 5.
Some notable absences included point leader XCR_Orso and third place VLR_JW. It is my understanding that during a late night programming session, Orso was sucked into the digital world like Jeff Bridges in the movie TRON. If one had to be sucked into a movie with Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski would be better than TRON. You drink White Russains all day and get to fornicate with a circa/1997 Julianne Moore. The Dude abides. Orso, with his amazing computer skills, somehow got a message through to VLR_Shock to use his "magical" car for one week only. He must have felt sorry for Shock not even making the Amain in the last race. Shock quickly got Orso’s car wrapped up with his own paint scheme and was ready to roll.
Someone in the pits suggested running some heats, so, like, that’s what we did.
Heat #1 was a snooze fest with SKM_Wheel and KG running away from the field. Some fast cars were left in the wake and had to move onto the Bmains. Any time Wheel and Ginger finish 1-2 in a race, you know the fans had to leave disappointed as these are two of the most disliked drivers in the world.
Heat #2 saw Team VLR take the 2 transfer positions, with VLR_Shock taking the win over VLR_JJ. It was the first time this season that Shock transferred to the A Main directly through the heat, so Orso’s car had already paid dividends.
Heat #3 was the most action packed as WFO teammates Fascheck and Rainman had difficulty and DNF'd the heat. The last of the Independent drivers, J-mac took the easy win over WFO_GetReal. Could this be the week J-mac breaks into the win column for his first VLR win? Ah, if you read the headline you already know Shock won, so, no. But OCFS is one of J-macs best tracks and maybe the headlines were some kind of swerve. Not only that, J-Mac has a big fan following in his home state of New York and that extra motivation could feed him to a good finish.
Bmain #1 saw the front row VLR Teammates of Atwood and Lastplace walk away from the field in an uneventful race.
Bmain #2, to quote Wheel, was “one of the worst races I have ever seen.” ICE_KK and the returning Geisler took off from the start. From 3rd on back, it looked like a deleted scene from the Fast and the Furious, without the horrific acting of Vin "one facial expression" Diesel. SKM_DS5 thought he would outfox everyone with some harder tires that would come in when everyone else would start to fade. It was a good idea gone wrong...Google “New Coke” for more examples.
Some good news for Dillon is that he won the prestigious KY Petroleum Jelly Hard Luck Award after everyone lubed him up and ran the hell over him lap after lap. VLR_Superman was another driver with hard luck after getting shook up like a vending machine that won’t spit out a bag of chips.
With the preliminaries in the books it was onto the Amain. The race started with Wheel and Shock on the front row side by side and it stayed that way for the next 45 laps. These 2 put on a clinic of how to race clean, side by side. Some drivers need to check the replay out. Can't count how many lead changes there were. But I can only count to twelve to begin with so don’t get too excited.
You knew it would be a hell of a finish. On the last few laps, Wheel realized he used too much of his highly illegal acetone tire softener as he faded just enough for Shock to get the win as the #0 finally cleared Wheel on the final lap. Wheel said after the race “I have the amount of acetone softener to use perfectly calculated for all race conditions but I accidentally threw my sheet away before the race and ended up miscalculating it by two laps. I won’t make the same mistake next week.”
This was an unusually long dry spell for Shock, as he had not won a feature since season 22, and has not had sexual intercourse with a real person in an equally similar amount of time. KG came in third, J-mac with his best career VLR finish came in 4th. Rounding out the top 5 was ICE_KK. The rest of the top ten was LP, Geisler, Atwood, Get Real and JJ.
Next week we head to Lasalle Speedway in LaSalle, ILL for the Mompertown 50. Come get a taste and try to win the cash! www.teamvlr.com for more info.