SEPTEMBER 14, 2009 –-- This was our third year to compete in Chico’s legendary Gold Cup, an annual event where the locals try and keep-up with the Outlaws!

The Gold Cup again turned out to be our favorite race of the year even though for the second straight year we did not obtain our goal of getting in to Saturday’s A Main Event….more on that in a minute.

Evan has been talking about bringing some professional help onboard to work with us periodically and hopefully push ahead our program a little. Richard Brown, an expert crew chief of many years who has worked with such notables as Jac, Brad Doty, Sammy and Wolfgang agreed to sign-on for the event and this move turned out to be extremely positive. In addition to his expert advice and encouragement Richard is a self described “nice guy” who fit into our program perfectly. We hope to have his help next year as often as he is available.

Evan qualified on Thursday night and tripped the clocks with a best lap of 12.122 which was only good enough for 19th of 35 cars. We knew this was going to be a problem but as it turned out Evan finished 3rd in his heat after starting 5th. So he picked up a couple of points with that effort and rebounded a bit but still missed the all-important Dash by one car.

Starting in the back of the Main Event is always tough at Chico when you are racing with the Outlaws. Not only are they fast but with their rules if you get lapped you do not gain position on the cars ahead of you if you pass them and they have not been lapped. So, here is what happened; the race opened with a long stretch of green laps and Evan got lapped by the leader, a yellow came out and the cars in front of him were not yet lapped so Evan was a lap down. As the race progressed he passed the four cars in front of him which would have scored our eventual finish of 16th as 12th…thus depriving him of four valuable positions.

On Friday night we got to be spectators as another group of cars (43) competed for the right to race on Saturday. There is no better way to relax than enjoy a race with your friends in the pits, that is for sure.

Saturday came around and we found ourselves starting in the B Main in the 18th position and desperately needing to get to fourth, the last transfer spot to the A Main. Evan did a great job and raced his way to the 7th position but by then was out of laps. Our Gold Cup was over but we felt we were moving forward and in the right direction.

The Gold Cup marks the end of 410 wing racing in California for the year. There are three GLR winged 360 races left at Watsonville’s beautiful Ocean Speedway however, with the next event being Friday, September 25th. Evan is third in points in this series and we hope to improve by the final event on October 16th.

Lastly, Linda, Evan and I wish to sincerely thank the entire Hoserville crew who graciously sponsored us for the Gold Cup. Their friendship and financial contribution is immensely appreciated. 

Thank you for checking in and we hope to see you in Watsonville.

John Suggs