9/17/2010
Eric Schulz
Weld Family Memorial Sprint Nationals
This last weekend saw Ricochet Racing Group heading south on I-29 to Grain Valley MO just east of Kansas City MO. The event was the Weld Family Memorial Open Sprint Class Nationals. The weekend would bring two nights of tight racing on the little bull ring 1/3rd mile high bank track. With the sprints having no motor rules, Eric would find himself racing against anything from a 305 to a 410.
Friday night started off much like usual for Eric and the team, who was short Sandy do to feeling under the weather, and Jason do to prior plans elsewhere. Eric hit the track for his heat race starting in the third spot. As the race started the outside rows jumped out in front placing Eric in fourth. Schulz battled on the inside for third but was unable to complete the pass. With two laps to go, fifth place blasted around the top side leaving the Papik Motors number 4 the spot. After the race Eric had to say this, “That was a very different track, after that guy got around on the top, I learned a lot.”
The a-main for the night would see 25 cars starting with #4 in the sixteenth spot. As the green flag dropped Eric reenacted what he had witnessed in his heat race putting his car on the top of the track. This move proved to be very productive as man and machine gained 4 or 5 spots in one corner, and 2 more in the next. Fate would have it that the caution would come out causing a complete restart. The nest attempt would go much the same without the great gains. Eric had his hands full with all the traffic but displayed a great amount of patience. Then going in to turn three the number 4 was sent airborn, landed on the fuel tank and tumbled to a stop at the top off the track. After looking the car over it was found that the shock bolt on the right front axle had back out of its mount and let the frame dig into the race track causing the car to flip. “I was disappointed that that had happened, but I put the shock on and can’t blame anyone else. It was a shame that it happened 380 miles from home, we will look at the car in the morning and see if we can race on Saturday.”
Eric and Dick poured over the sprinter in the parking lot of the hotel, and with the help of the other HRA drivers and crews that made the trip, got the car back ready to race! The teams pulled into the track early and were met by rain showers, that dropped a lot of rain. “It’s crazy, the forecast was for sun, all day we had sun, and now that we want to race it rains.” Eric says. So the team turned around and headed back up to Sioux Falls SD.
