By Gary Freeman Jr.
On Friday, we woke up to cloudy and windy skies. It was decided to wait until 9 a.m. and see what the weather was going to do. It did start to break up slightly, and we were able to finish up the last two qualifying rounds and a 5-round final.
The difficult part of racing 422 this year was we did not know how many rounds we would be getting in and we were told during the pilots’ meeting that if the weather stopped us from racing, whatever qualifying rounds we got in would be used to determine the winners. This made for a complete strategy change, as normally used for qualifying. In talking with many racers, it is a wish in the future to eliminate the qualifying rounds and just run a straight matrix for 10 rounds. This will not only eliminate the weather concern but will allow for less stressful LONG days. Hopefully, the powers to be will read this and ask the majority what they would like to do.
Moving on, like most all other finals, this was one was filled with lots of cuts and crashes. In the end, the winner was Randy Bridge and fast time went to Jim Allen with a 1:00.44. Randy was also overall Nats Champion for having the most combined points in 426 and 422. Great job Randy and well deserved.
It is always sad when the Nats come to an end, but lots of memories were made and we’re looking forward to next year. Last, I would like to give Mike Condon a huge thank-you for running a great and fair Nats.
