Dan Lowther #63 Terry Lydell #75 Are In Front Racing SuperStock Race Cars

Dan #63 put on a driving show that brought the crowd to their feet!

During Dan's second qualifying lap, he decided to add some spice to the night by going around just once and then decided to go around twice in one lap..

HOW??? Easy according to Dan.

"I felt the back end coming around and I just gassed it up!" "It was a blast!"

On his second lap, Dan completed a 360 degree spin on the back straight and without missing a beat, brought the car out of the spin, pointed it into turn 3 and continued on with his last qualifying lap.
The last lap was not his quickest, but it was by far his prettiest!
Dan's first lap was fast enough to take the 4th quickest qualifying position and put him in the pole position for the trophy dash.

Terry ran a couple of qualifying laps but compared to Dan's they were pretty boring and much slower.

Dan took the green flag to start the trophy dash and walked away from the other 3 cars.
Dan took the checkered flag, the trophy dash win, earning the first trophy of the year for the In Front Team.
After the races were over and fans were mingling in the pits, Dan took his trophy dash trophy, autographed it and gave it to a young fan.
You should have seen his eyes light up.
Not only is Dan a gracious winner, he is also a fantastic representative of how a driver's relationship with the fans can help promote racing in the Treasure Valley.
Not only did Dan make this boy's night, Dan also earned a fan for life and a lot of respect from his fellow racers!

Great job Dan! Keep up the good work.

The main event was almost as fun filled and exciting as Dan's qualifying lap.
The 30 lap race went almost half way before the first caution flag came out.
Both Dan and Terry missed the wreck and the debris scattered all over the track.
On the ensuing green flag, 5 cars spun sideways on the front straight, Dan was in front of the chaos and unaffected but Terry was smack dab in line with a destructive crash...
Somehow Terry managed to squeeze the # 75 Super Stock between the spinning cars and the solid cement wall...
I wonder if he had his eyes open....
The rest of the main went by fairly uneventful.
Dan managed to move thru the field of cars and take home a 3rd place finish.
Terry..... Well, he managed to finish on the lead lap, without wrecking himself or anyone else and not in last place...

GOAL ACCOMPLISHED!

Congrats to Dan on a great opening night!

Make sure you join the In Front Team on May 10th when both cars will be back out running with the late models.
Also be sure to wish Ben Lydell a happy birthday.
Ben is Terry's youngest son and he will be celebrating his 10th birthday that same night, May 10th.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN!

Both In Front Super Stocks were in action for the first time in 2008. Dan and Terry took the cars out to compete against the local Treasure Valley late models.

Terry's first time in the car in a competitive environment went pretty good. During the first practice session the car was good. The soft spring set up that the car came with wasn't working really well on the flat track at Meridian Speedway. It was very noticeable that a spring and ride height adjustment had to be made. A stiffer right front spring was installed and an adjustment was made. The car was better thru the corners but a loss of 3/10ths of a second per lap was noted. During the second practice session some adjustments to the stagger were made, hoping to loosen the handling up a bit. We went just a bit too far and now the car was too loose. Now, for qualifying, we had a good idea where we needed to be.

On the # 63 Super Stock, a rear end gear change was done before practice even started. Trent stopped at the shop on the way to the track and pulled the rear end gears out of the Terry's street stock. At the track, the other gears were being pulled. After the gear swap and during the first practice, Dan was dealing with some minor handling issues but man was he fast. Terry posted a respectable 14.5 second lap time in the first session but Dan blew that away posting his fastest ever time of a 14.0 second lap... and he said it was handing weird... Yeah, right! On the second practice, Dan too lost a couple tenths of a second.

Qualifying: Terry declared with the track officials that he was running as a rookie in the late model division so no matter how Terry qualified, he had to start in the back. Terry turned a 14.8 second lap which would have put him on the pole (front row inside). Dan posted a very respectable time of 14.4, placing him as the 6th quickest qualifier out of 13 cars.

Heat races: Terry started front row outside in the B heat, consisting of 6 cars. Fighting side by side with a late model, Terry hung in there until the inside car pushed up and scrubbed Terry high into the corner between 3 and 4. The other cars in the B heat shot underneath both front running cars, shuffling Terry into last place. With the never say die attitude of the In Front Team, Terry took off after the pack, not only catching but also passing the car that scrubbed him into the corner. Terry crossed under the checkers in 5th place in the B heat.

Dan qualified into the A heat. 4 laps into the 12 lap heat race, Dan was sitting pretty in 3rd place but was aware of a grinding noise coming from the back of the car while cornering. After a short red flag for oil on the track, the heat race resumed. Dan managed to hold off all challengers and retain 3rd place in the A heat.

Main Event:
Dan started third row outside, Terry, running rookie, dead last in a field of 13 cars. Three of the 13 cars were actually Super Stocks. The other 10 were true late models. In a night filled with caution flags and red flags, the 40 lap late model race went start to finish without mishap.
Dan finished a respectable 7th place, Terry right behind him in 8th.


NEXT UP?

Saturday April 19th. Dan and Terry will be at it again. Only this time it will be in the Super Stock Division. Come on out and cheer the team on, they need your vocal support for the Best Looking Car competition.