7/4/2016 - 305 - 4th of July - American Dirt

We had big plans for this 4th of July weekend. We wanted to take both the 305 and 360 race cars down to Dodge City, KS and compete with the big boys. It would have been a blast but unfortunately we were not able to make it because we had a sponsor back out at the last minute but to make matters worse...this happened on the way home last weekend. The entire trailer tire and wheel were gone we we got home. We had to order parts and put it back together to just make it to the race in Calhan at El Paso County Speedway on the 4th. 

The weather was gorgeous and Justin was ready to back out on the track after his addictive win last weekend. It was great having momentum to carry into this race and as always it's awesome to race at our home track with many fans to cheer us on. We had over 40 people who had specifically come to cheer the #05 and celebrate July 4th with us. 

Special thanks to our good friends who joined us in the pits. We were honored to have Dennis with us as he brought past sprint car wisdom with him from his early days of dirt track pitting. He was eager to get his hands on the 05 and was extremely helpful  to the team. 

We qualified 3rd in our heat race which after invert, placed us 2nd row inside for the feature. The team knew right away that this was going to be extreme dry slick conditions. We made many changes to the car after the heat, knowing that it was going to be super slick. 

At the drop of the main event green flag, Justin was on a mission! Happy with the handling of the car...it was hammer down. The 05 quickly gained and fought within the top 3 positions while passing and battling for the 2nd place position. Even after a few cautions, he was able to maintain and secure 2nd place. He fought hard for 1st place but the 49 car had just a bit more drive. Justin was thrilled with gaining more knowledge about dry slick conditions and looks forward to his next race.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!
We are honored to live in a country where chasing your dreams is possible!

Proud to be an American! 

305 - Byers: Back2Back Races - Resurrected Dreams

Saturday night was full of dreams come true! Colorado MotorSports Park held two back2back races since one was a rain out reschedule. Justin qualified for the pole a few weeks ago right before a storm came in so the first race started with that line up for the main feature.

Justin was on a mission from the drop of the green flag, speeding down the straightaway. He was a rocket, smoothly handling the corners, it was quickly noticed that he was car to beat as he dominated the track. He navigated lap traffic beautifully, while aggressively taking over half the field.

Photo Credit: Rob Robb's RaceCar Recovery

A red flag came out when there was 5 laps remaining with two cars getting tangled up. Everyone was then set up for the green, white, checker which was incredibly heart pounding since the cars were all put back together again for a restart.  Justin had a great restart and held his position which gave him has very first sprint car win!

This win is so meaningful to us as this journey, although exciting and adventurous, has been full of battles, frustration, disasters and hardships. It's taken us many years to make it to this point...sometimes wondering if we'd even race again after our accident. Many events were race by race, waiting on sponsorship and for God to provide.

It's such an amazing feeling to sit in victory lane and celebrate with the team and the fans. Justin's excitement was contagious and everyone was thrilled for him. It was so cool that we even had our friend Brandon with us who was at our very first sprint race and then got to celebrate the first win also.

Happy to have had this win on Colorado turf...represent! Big thanks to Colorado Motorsports Park for their commitment to bringing sprint cars back to Colorado and creating a great dirt track and fun for the fans.

Deep thanks to our sponsors: To God be the Glory, IronWolf Designs, Made in the Shade, Huger Reality, and Dales Paint for supporting us. Also to our families, especially Justin's parents who have supported him from go-kart days and are at every race along with Justin's brother Nick and the Wolf family and we can't forget our pit girl, Hailee.

From April: Watching Justin grow in experience, knowledge and confidence in this crazy race world has been amazing. We have been through so many adventures together, even extreme loss and pain. I can't imagine walking this world with anyone other than him. I'm proud to be by his side as these moments unfold. I was thrilled to watch him shout for joy and must agree with Martin Truex Jr's girlfriend Sherry Pollex, when she said this...

..."God was building his character to win a big one, and this was huge for us and our hometown and our family. ... We’ve been through so much. This is just the icing on the cake.”

Thanks be to God for building character in us.  Under of the Shadow of His wings!

305 – Calhan BST Race – Spin Me Right Round

We always enjoy racing at El Paso County Raceway since it’s our home track. We love the fans that come out to cheer us on and the friends who enjoy and support not only our love of racing but also IronWolf.

Justin was interviewed by the new country station Country 107.3, and made sure to plug the dirt track and the 305 racing that has returned to Colorado.

April’s nephew loves our RZR and has a blast helping out as pit crew for the team. AKA…Mud Scraper and assistant push car passenger.

Moving forward Justin hopes to see the “2 spin rule” go into effect for not only safety reasons but also it makes for better racing for the fans. Justin made many clean passes battling for the top 3-4 cars but the event had over nine cautions which caused many restarts so he would lose the position he just gained because another caution was thrown. But Justin loves the new track surface that Joe Bellum and the fairgrounds have invested in. It was so much fun to go full throttle through turns 1 & 2. He can’t wait to get back there on July 4^th. 

305 I-76 Speedway - Choose your battles wisely

I-76 Speedway has always been a favorite local track that Justin has enjoyed a lot of success in his karting days. The day started off great with Justin finishing 3rd in his heat which after inversion, qualified him  for inside pole!

While we were in staging for the main event, the lightning sprints were out and there was a horrible wreck which required emergency response teams. They had to cut the driver out of the car and rush him to the hospital. We know what it's like to have hospital bills overwhelm you, so if you can please donate towards his massive hospitals bills...Click HERE.

Meanwhile the 305 cars sat in staging...engines cooling, track changing and the crash danger settling in driver's minds. They finally got going about an hour later. Justin battled for position in the top 3 cars for about half the race when on turn 2, he charged the corner too hard and spun himself out. Several cars were able to avoid him except for one that ran into the front of the 05, which caused the other driver's own tire to be sliced down. Justin had to start at the back of the pack because of the spin rule but his front wing had been knocked sideways which made the car extremely loose on a very greasy track. He managed to salvage a top ten finish.

As Justin was looking over the damage of his car, he was incredibly upset and blamed himself for destroying a great opportunity for a win. Shadow Racing Team has faced many obstacles from bad set up, to being wrecked, to stuff breaking but it was frustrating to take himself out. To add salt to wounds, the crew of the driver that ran into Justin came to our pit stall, yelling and accusing Justin of taking out their driver. Foul language, threats and degrading remarks towards Justin's wife made it tough to stay calm but Justin held his cool. After being angry at himself and then being falsely accused, we all felt completely discouraged.

Justin will admit that he wanted to jack the guy up but it was obviously not worth it and communication was a lost cause so it was time to turn his back to the issue. What kind of example are were setting for those around us when grown adults are yelling at each other?

We are not going to let this night weaken our passion for this sport and will put this behind us and move forward. We have had a lot of consistency in our qualifying efforts and plan to focus more on our main event preparation.

Mud Festival in Byers

As many of you now know, life with us is always an adventure. As we prepared for racing Colorado Motorsports Parkway we had to take the semi truck for emissions and had not yet hooked it back up to the trailer. The trailer was sitting out on the property, up on steel plates and we hear this metal crunching noise. Running out to see...the trailer had crushed through the plates and sank into the soft ground. It took us hours, lots of metal and wood plus much creativity to level it out. Funny thing is while we were out there struggling, some guy running for governor drove over to offer encouragement and a flyer...Seriously?!

We made it to the track safe and shortly after we unloaded, we hear a loud popping noise only to discover that a trailer tire valve stem had blown out. Thankfully, Brian Hardman and Brad Wasson came to the rescue with an air-jack and impact driver and had the spare in place NASCAR pit crew style.

Justin started in the second heat, 3rd row inside and after battling through the field, took 2nd. We were excited to see he qualified for the outside pole only to see massive dark clouds come out of nowhere. Everything was instantly drenched and the track became a mud pit.

Amazing double rainbow of the Shadow Racing EMI 305

After much kicking and screaming, the drivers got back in their cars to try and roll in the track. Hailee and April were soon covered in mud while pushing not only Justin but many other stuck drivers. They had a blast after the first initial shock of cold mud in the face from those fat Hoosiers. Not the mud facial that April had in mind.

MUD FEST!

After about and hour, the track officials decided to call it a night. The mud won that night but the race has been rescheduled for a double header on the June 25th.

 

We had a blast with Justin's brother Nick who was out for a visit. Nick has always been one of Justin's biggest fan's and Justin is thankful to have had his support for so many years.

Back in the Saddle! & 2016 Schedule

We have had a few races under our belts for the 2016 race season! It's been great to get back out there and hit up some local tracks plus meet up with fellow racers and 05 fans. We plan to race the entire BST series along with some NCRA races and the Colorado Sprint Car series. The 360 will be out there too so stay tuned.

We are blessed to race again this  year and feel we have come a long way after our accident in 2010.
God has redeemed so much and continues to light our path as we follow the road less traveled.

Let us know if anyone would be interested in sponsorship opportunities! We have exciting things happening this year!

2016 Race Results

• Oct 7th @ Colorado Motorsports Park (Byers, CO) - 5th Place Finish
• Oct 1st @ I-76 Speedway (Fort Morgan, CO)  - 2nd Place Finish
• Sept 17th @ Colorado Motorsports Park (Byers, CO) - 2nd Place Finish - Track Champion!)
• Sept. 14 - Special Event ~ World of Outlaws (Calhan, CO)- 17th - Awesome Event!)
• Sept. 10 @ El Paso County Raceway (Calhan, CO)- 5th place Finish
• August 27th @ Colorado Motorsports Park (Byers, CO)- 2nd place Finish
• Aug 13th @ El Paso County Raceway (Calhan, CO)- 5th place Finish
• Aug 6th @ I-76 Speedway (Fort Morgan, CO)- 10th place Finish
• Aug 5th @ Philips County Raceway(Holyoke, CO)- 5th place Finish
• July 30th @ Colorado Motorsports Park (Byers, CO) - 10th place Finish
• July 4th @ El Paso County Raceway (Calhan, CO) - 2nd Place Finish
• June 25th @ Colorado Motorsports Park (Byers, CO) - 1st Place Finish!
• June 11th @ El Paso County Raceway (Calhan, CO) - 10th place finish
• June 4th @ I-76 Speedway (Fort Morgan, CO) - 10th place finish
• May 28th @ Colorado Motorsports Park (Byers, CO) - Rain Out Rescheduled
• April 23rd @ Colorado Motorsports Park (Byers, CO) - 8th Place Finish
• May 13 @ Lamar Raceway (Lamar, CO) - 5th Place Finish
• May 14 @ El Paso County Raceway (Calhan, CO) - 11th Place Finish

We hope to see you out there! 

2016 - Prepping The Foundation

We had a blast in the 305 BST/CAT Sprint Car Alliance last year! It's giving us motivation and excitement about 2016. After starting from scratch in our new 305 car, we had a big learning curve to traverse. The late season success of 2015 has given us momentum to carry into 2016.

We began preparing our promotional plan for the year. April created our promo cards which is a personal approach and hope that is highlights the great marking opportunities that we offer. The fact that we race in a Colorado series is enticing to many local companies.

This winter our main focus this year has been to become more efficient with time and area at the race track, so we cleaned out and organized the entire race trailer and race shop. We feel as a small team, we need to be as efficient and orderly as possible which will make our pit area more productive which will carry out onto the track. Justin feels that less stress in the pits, offers more focus in the race car.

We're also excited to now have a local race parts dealer Hathaway Performance and enjoyed their open house.

Justin took some time this month to travel to EMI in Lincoln Nebraska to further his education with chassis setup. He was thrilled with the knowledge that Eagle shared with him and is eager to apply to the upcoming season. It was also fun to visit Speedway Motors and to find some killer deals.

Looking forward to the new season and excited about the sponsorship opportunities!