7/14/2010
Eric Schulz
Trying Week for Schulz
The past week for Eric Schulz and the crew has been a rough one to say the least. “ I feel like we got a lot accomplished this week, but when you look in the record books it don’t look like it.” Explains Schulz. The racing “weekend” started off in Rock Rapids with a make up feature from a few weeks ago. The feature was run right away in the program with only two heats of racing on the track. With the track bad fast and Schulz starting in tenth he knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy task. With the green flag waving, Eric maneuvered the Papik Motors #4 around a few cars, but was having trouble gaining and ground. “It was pedal to the metal for the whole race, a ton of fun to drive. There was a four car pile up in the front of pack early on, that was about the only way I was going to pass cars in this race.” Stated Schulz. After the track was cleared, Eric found himself in fifth. Despite trying for the next position on the top and the bottom of the track, Eric could not advance his spot. However, he and the other drivers put on one heck of a show! “I found myself getting a nose under the car in front of me, but that was about it. On the last lap I noticed that the water temp had slowly climbed to 250 degrees forcing me to ease up a little.” With the evening’s heat race looming in the near future, Eric and the Crew worked franticly to cool the Automatic Transmission Service Sprinter down. When it was time to line up, Schulz reluctantly decided to let the car sit this one out.
After scratching the heat, Schulz and the #4 Sprinter were buried in the pack with a starting spot of fourteenth for the second main event of the night. After a few circuits of the track, Schulz learned that he could make the high side of the racing groove work for him. Eric dug in, got his elbows up and went to work marching to the front, at times, three wide! While running in the fourth spot, working for third, Eric bobbled a little and the track couldn’t hold him as he narrowly escaped damage as the car spun to the bottom of the track. Schulz was able to re-fire the car, but had to tag the rear of the field for bringing out the caution. As the field bunched up and the green flag flew, Eric tried to time the start of the race perfect to regain some of those lost spots, however, the track officials deemed the start a “jump” and sent Eric to the infield for bringing out two cautions. “I was a little surprised with how they called the re-start,” stated Eric at the end of the night, “but it is what it is and we can’t do anything about it now.”
Then it was off to Jackson MN to the famed half mile track at the fairgrounds where Eric would drive for Dick Veenkers out of Windom MN. The team would have extra help in the pits for Saturday’s race as Kent Franks and Kevin Young would lend a helping hand and years of knowledge on set-ups for Jackson Speedway. Eric took the #4 Sprint out for the heat race after changing gears to find out what the motor would like. “The gear change hurt us bad in the heat,” exclaimed Eric, “the motor would run out of air about half way down the straits.”
After putting the correct gear set back in to the Winters Quick Change rear end, Eric went out for the feature. With only ten competitors, Eric felt a little more at ease. “This is a new team, the car still has a few handling issues that we are ironing out, so it is nice to have a thinner crowd.” Eric gained one spot in the feature and kept up with the rest of the pack with one car dropping out. “We are getting closer on what the car likes, it really helped to have Kent and Kevin in the pits tonight.”
Tuesday brought on another half mile, this time sans wings. Sioux Center IA was the scene, and it was a fair special. Eric started pole and leaped out to an early lead in his heat race. It appeared that Schulz had cruise control on when second place challenged Eric for the lead and swept it away.
With the redraw going to Eric’s favor, he would start on the pole again for the feature. Eric again stepped out to an early lead when the 25 of Dylon Peterson snuck around him on the bottom. The two cars battled it out for a few laps, swapping the lead back and forth, when, with no warning, Schulz’ car popped out of gear forcing Eric to stop on the track. Tagging the rear of the 14 car field, Eric was having to work hard to finish in eighth spot.
“It’s been a tough couple of nights on the track, we need to gather ourselves up and re-group for the next couple of nights and get through the this weekend!”
