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07 June 2008, Roseville, Ca. Laura Hayes had yet another strong finish in her Peoplefinders.com Chevrolet late model on the weekend on June 7th.
The car was strong in practice but it was difficult to tell what the chassis was doing because Laura was forced to run tires that were several months old. Since proper feedback couldn't be provided, the team decided to scrub in the new set of tires, sacrificing qualifying, to get a better reading for the main event.
For the pill-draw which sets the order for qualifying, Laura picked a 2, putting her first out on the track. There has been a consistent trend in qualifying times throughout the season. The cars who are sent out early, suffer from poor track conditions brought upon by another class of cars that run a different compound of tire rubber directly before the late models enter the track. The track eventually cleans up after half of the field qualifies and the lap times pick up by a couple of tenths. Laura did have fast time until the track improved and every car after that beat her time, dropping her to 11th place.
At the driver's meeting, All American Speedway's head official made a strong point for everyone to calm down because many cars were being torn up and returning for another race was beginning to become more expensive for competitors. And everyone did a much better job at keeping the racing clean. AAS is a tight 1/3-mile track and contact does happen, but it mustn't in excess. Laura drove a very clean race, coming from 11th to a high of 5th. The car was decent for about half of the race and Hayes could easily pick off cars as soon as she caught them. But on a late restart, the car immediately changed and picked up a heavy push. Laura had piloted her #22 late model to 5th and was trailing the leaders, however, when the car gave up, she lost a position and fell to her finishing spot of 6th place.
Overall, it was a decent night for Laura and the crew but not all the way satisfying. The good news is the team is learning more and more about the car's needs and why the handling goes away during the concluding laps of the race. Laura is gaining valuable experience driving heavy stock cars, side by side on the small oval.
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