We flew out Tuesday morning leaving Manchester bound for America. Dad has come with me and I’m well up for getting more seat time in the 5E car. We had a great flight and was looking forward to getting to work on the car. However last time we were there I had a few problems with my truck so spent much of the first day when we got there having a late night working on the truck. We were racing at i80 Speedway, I was looking really forward to catching up with some of the USAC drivers, no Lee Fairhurst, no Luke Davidson, no Paul Hines to race against, instead racing against the likes of Robert Ballou, Chris Windom, and a great guy from a famous racing family, Jared Andretti !
The car was good and after a few laps in my heat I managed to qualify straight through to the Feature getting a 5th behind a fast winner Chris Windom. In the feature I had good speed and managed to finish 15th just enjoying every lap and gaining more experience with the racing lines and driving style of the car. So a good night racing and buzzing for Knoxville where I had planned to race both my Non Wing Sprint and a Swindell Speedlab Winged sprint car but unfortunately Kevin couldn’t sort one in time, leaving us to just race the Non winged 5E car! Good to see the Jamie Davidson Scrap logo on another car too in the USA onboard with USAC veteran Robert Ballou.
I’ve raced Knoxville before and is a great track with great facilities it has the Sprint car hall of fame building showcasing the history of sprint cars and also the newly named Bryan Clauson suite. Bryan was a good friend and a great race driver before his untimely death and gave me loads of advice when i started racing in the USA. We prepped the car in a Walmart Carpark see the picture!! The car was going well and I was well in the top 10 fastest drivers in the Hot laps until I had a fuel leak problem putting me in 15th to start. I ran well in the heat with another great drive coming home 5th and qualifying straight to the Main A Final. The Main A soon came around and I was on the 7th row inside. The race went well a 30 lap feature and again had good speed especially when I grew some balls and took the high line!!
Ive had some great traction on social media and always good to see the Harris name on the TV from the Dirt vision race network the support from the fans in the USA has been great as well as the fellow USAC drivers.
It’s been a great couple of meetings and can’t wait to be back here in July!!! Another country when I get back, SCOTLAND ! Cowdie and Lochgelly for the F1 Stockcars where I always have gone well. See you at the tracks!!
Tom
