Robert Summerhalder

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Race Results 5/9/09After a three week break and last weeks rain out, mother nature allowed us the opportunity to get our scheduled race day in. After the major disappointment of the season opener back on April 18th, my hopes were high for a decent night of racing. Well, unfortunately, those high hopes were destroyed in qualifying. We had twenty cars post qualifying times and out of those twenty cars, I managed a fastest 20.049 lap time which placed me 19th out of the 20 car field. With this poor qualifying time, I once again was forced to race in the B-main and attempt to finish in one of the four transfer spots. When our heat race line ups were posted, the hopes that were destroyed after qualifying were starting to come back as I lined up outside of the front row which meant I get to set the pace on the start. When we rolled out onto the track for our heat race, I got a feeling in my stomach that this was going to be a great race for me and it was. As we came around the 3 and 4 turns, I hit the gas, green flag waving in the air and I was already in the lead. I lead the 7 lap heat race from flag to flag never challenged as we crossed the start finish line ending the race, I won by a 2.701 second margin over second place. With winning the heat race in such a dominating performance, my confidence in my ability was back in full force. Now it was time for the B-main. Though I wanted to dominate that race too, I knew that all I had to do was to finish in the top four and I move on to the A-main. The start of the B-main was just the same as the heat race. I jumped out to a pretty good lead right from the get go only to have my lead disappear with a caution. After the restart second place came up and challenged me for the lead briefly as I let him go and did not put up much of a fight as I knew I didn't want to battle hard and end up not transferring so I didn't battle him and just let him go. Even though the B main was supposed to be a 15 lap race, we ended up racing 25 laps and finishing with a 2nd place. Now it was time for the A-main. I started 14th. With the track becoming what is refereed to as "Dry slick", my car came to life and was a rocket ship. When I crossed the line completing lap 1, I was racing in 15th position. By the time we came back around to complete lap 2, I was all the way up into 10th position where I stayed for a few laps. With some hard racing I wound up finishing 7th. Also, we ended up only getting to race for 13 laps instead of the scheduled 30 laps. With the way my car was handling and running, I could only imagine how much further forward I could have finished. But in any case, I finished a solid 7th place reestablishing my confidence. Also, with this solid 7th place finish, I should have moved into the top 10 in points hopefully beginning my march towards the top of the points sheet so I can battle for the championship. We are off this weekend and again on the 23rd but we will be in action on the 30th with a new attitude car. We will be changing a few things in the car so hopefully it will give me what I need to get to the front and stay there but only time and luck will tell. Breakdown of weekend:Qualifying - 19th out of 20Heat Race - 1stB-Main - 2ndA-Main - 7th As always,R thank you to my sponsors for they're continued support as it is much appreciated.
52nd Ave. Hardware & Building Supply
McCutcheon Fence Co.
Darrel's Economy Mufflers
Summerhalder's Racing Collectibles
Van Raden Industries
Christopher Bean Coffee
Fastlane Graphics
Speshl Stitches
Airgas
Discount Race Car Parts

Sincerely,Robert Summerhalder# 32 Sunset Speedway Pure StocksRace Results 4/18/09I ended up having a poor qualifying time and ending up 15th out of 20 cars. In the driver's meeting, they told us just to be watching the light and flagger for the green and then go.....well that screwed me in the heat race. Everyone in front of me didn't get going when the green came out and everyone behind me jumped all around me so I was kind of stuck for a couple of laps but I managed to move up a spot or two by the time it was over. Then I had to run the B-main......that's were it went to hell. I was running 7th when I came off of two and saw a potential opening developing so I dove to the inside and right after I headed to the inside I got tagged a good one right at the back side of the driver's door spinning me to the infield. I was able to get it refired and continue. Within a couple of laps of my incident, the car that hit me hit another coming off of four sticking that one into the front stretch wall.....not to say.....the car that hit me was black flagged and done for the night. I ended up finishing fourth just making it into the A. The A main went well for the most part except for spinning in turn 3 and then coming back out only to get the move over flag a couple of laps later for the leaders so I ended up finishing 14th. But, all-in-all, I was still able to load the car up in one piece with just a little body damage.....It just wasn't what I was expecting nor anticipating to have.....I was anticipating a solid top 5/10 finish.....maybe next race.We are off this coming weekend so we will be back on track and hoping for better results on May 2nd. Thank you again for all of your support,
Robert Summerhalder#32 Sunset Speedway Pure StocksPre Season Practice Re-Cap 4/11/09Race Update 4/11/2009
We had our first and only pre-season practice day this past weekend at Sunset Speedway Park. All I can tell you is that I really needed it especially since I hadn’t been in the racecar since last September when we had our season finally. My first practice session that I went out for, you could tell that it had been a while since I had been in the car. I was slower than I should have been and the car looked visibly terrible. But, none the less, I improved every session there after.
The second session I went out for was by far my best session. The car handled great. I was getting on the gas in the center of the corners. I was driving it into the corners smoother. The car was fast!!!! We ended up getting about 10 laps this session which I was glad that we did.
Then later, we went out for what ended up being our third and final practice session that we participated in. The first part of the session was just as good as the second session. The car was fast and I was smooth. Unfortunately, about half way through the session, we developed a carburetion issue so I wasn’t able to get on the gas as soon as I usually do when exiting the corners. The basics of the problem were that the carburetor was flooding itself out when accelerating up off of the corners. So we will be addressing this issue and fixing it before this coming weekend’s season opener.
This coming weekend is our season opener. Since the end of last season until now, the track had decided to start the racing events for the first part of the year earlier than usual. The new start times are: (Starting April 18th thru June 13th) Grandstands open at 1:30, Hot Laps at 12:30, Qualifying at 2:00, and Racing at 3:30. On the card for this weekend’s season opener is: Late Models, Modifieds, Street Stocks, PURE STOCKS, Woman’s, and Tracers. It’s going to be a fun and exciting year as both myself and my T & A Motorsports teammate try to win races and the season end points Championship.
Thank you again for your continued support,
Robert Summerhalder
# 32 Pure Stocks
2009 Sponsors: 52nd Ave. Hardware & Building Supply, Darrel's Economy Mufflers, McCutcheon Fence, Summerhalder's Racing Collectibles, Van Raden Industries, Speshl Stitches, Christopher Bean Coffee, Fastlane Graphics, & Discount Race Car Parts. Sponsors still wanted and NEEDED for this season!