LINEMAN PUTS A CAP ON 2011 SEASON BY FINISHING 5TH

IN THE SEASON FINALE "JOHN ROMANO MEMORIAL" AT NES

 

November 12th, 2011, New Egypt Speedway:  The 2011 racing season is now officially over for the Lineman Race Team. This past Saturday night was the season ending show, which is an annual memorial event which is held as a tribute to John Romano, who himself was a race car driver, friend, husband, and father. This is an emotional night, not only for John's family, and his wife, but as well for all the drivers, crew members, officials, and fans that knew the man who seemed to always have a smile on his face, which that alone made him a very likeable and well known person in the local racing community.

 

Bob Lineman had his car prepped and ready to race on Saturday, which was the way the team has done things all season in 2011, they have arrived ready to race, go for wins, and if the win is out of the cards the next thing is to finish in the top 5. Lineman drew the 7th starting spot in his heat and with the track still having sunshine on it, and the fall temps in the air many drivers were finding the surface of the speedway to be a little tricky. That being said it was on the first lap that Bob got caught up in a crash that happened in the front of the field. Getting the alright from a turn official that the only damage was to some sheet metal Lineman stayed on the speedway but would have to start at the rear of the field. Passing was very hard and with only a limited amount of laps in the heat race Bob knew he had to stand on the pedal and get into a qualifying position anyway that he could. By the end of the event Lineman raced his way into 5th place, which would be good enough to transfer directly to the feature event.

 

The draw for the feature event had Bob picking the 10th starting spot, which would make for a hard battle with the tricky and changing track conditions. The crew put together a package that had worked pretty well back in the spring, when the track conditions and air temperature were pretty close to being the same. In the early laps of the feature event Lineman was struggling with the chassis being on the tight side. The crew figured this would be the case, and they banked on the fact that in the spring the 2011 Troyer Chassis got better as the race went along. The crew banked correctly, and at the midway point of the feature Bob was starting to move forward, and his lap times were getting consistently faster. Lineman pulled off a few nice moves and by the time the checkered was waving he had brought the USA-1 Cenco Heating Oil modified home to a solid 5th place finish. Quoting Bob after the race, "finishing 5th wasn't the result we were looking for today, but considering how the day started out it was pretty good".