RACE OF CHAMPIONS 100 AT 5 MILE POINT

ENDS AFTER MECHANICAL PARTS FAILURE...

 

October 29th, 2010, Five Mile Point:  Team Lineman decided to make the journey up to 5 Mile Point for the 2010 season ending Race of Champions event. This was a 100 lap feature event, which had one of the largest purses of the season for the Sportsman Modified field out of any of the tracks on the east coast. You could tell that just by taking a gander of how full, or should I say over following the pit area was. Fifty-Seven Sportsman Modifieds were on hand to try and make the field, making this the largest field of the season at any speedway.

 

One thing was for sure, the only way to make this field was to either qualify in your heat, because if you had to go into the 1 of many consolations to run, followed by a last chance B main you better hope you were the best of the best. This was like the TV commercial, and the  drivers who qualified in their heat races were all like Visa Credit Cards, and anyone who didn't make the race was a, "and we don't take Master Card, or American Express", moments.

 

Team Lineman was on the mark, and Bob pulled 8th for a starting spot in his heat, which really couldn't have been much worse. But, Bob didn't let that stop him, and he went right out and started picking off slower cars left and right and when the checkered was waving he posted an impressive 3rd place finish which had everyone upbeat and ready for the feature to start. It was a while though until all of the cars had a chance to make the event, it was just that tough, and many top Sportsman drivers from a 5 state radius failed to qualify for the event.

 

Bob took to the Speedway in the familiar Cenco Heating Oil, Troyer Chassis, Medford Speed powered, USA-1 and would start the event in the 16th. Making his way through the tight traffic Lineman was soon up to 10th and things were looking just like in his heat race, everything was falling into place and Bob was on the move. Then just that quick an accident up near the front of the pack had everyone scramble for an outlet, but all the cars got bottled up with no place left to go except into the back ends of each other. Lineman locked up his brakes and hit the car in front of him who had just bounced off of the car in front of them. It was a chain reaction deal all the way, and one that nobody could have avoided. The impact caused the center of the steering box to be knocked out and Bob was able to get into the pits and have the crew re center the box in order to get him back out onto the speedway. Lineman re entered the race but the steering box kept locking up forcing him to retire from the feature event. Most likely the hit caused an internal part, or parts to break and that's what caused the steering box to keep locking.