1 Down, 49 To Go April 19, 2004 Yesterday we opened the 2004 NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series season at Thompson International Speedway in with the Icebreaker 2004. It was great to see all of my old buddies from the #4 team. I was so excited on Friday about making this trip back to Connecticut, and in the blink of an eye, it's over already. The entire Mystic Missile team did a great job and made it a very enjoyable weekend for me. We broke an axle during qualifying and were forced to use a provisional starting position to make the race. This may have had a negative effect on many teams, but our team had the perfect attitude about it. They saw the positive side, that it happened during qualifying and not during the race, which would have really dampened our spirits this weekend. I can't say enough about the effort my team puts in, and they did a great job fixing the Mystic Missile. Not only did they get it fixed for the race, but they pulled the rear-end our of the car, tore it apart, fixed it, and had it back together in time to go out for practice and our final happy hour. To give you an idea of how good they are, the team completed the repairs in about ½ hour. Unable to qualify, we were forced us to start in the back of the field in 34th position. During the race, my friend and spotter, Greg Aumann, did one hell of a job getting me to the front and the pit crew showed that practice makes perfect by pulling off a killer pitstop. From what I can already see in just our first race, we are more prepared than ever to make a run for the championship. The car was really strong and we ended up finishing third. In hindsight, the only thing I would have changed is during our pitstop, we could have added more stagger than we did to help us at the end of the race. All in all, it was a great weekend for me and the Mystic Missile team. It was good to see everyone again, and to get the season under way. I think I can speak for everyone on the team when I say that we were very pleased with the result. Due to bad weather at the beginning of April causing the original Icebreaker 2004 race to be postponed until this weekend, I had to miss opening practice at Lancaster Raceway Park with our #22 DeLange Racing Team modified. I'm happy to say though that all is well with the #22 team and we are looking forward to having a great summer in 2004 racing our car. Over the winter we made some improvements that are going to make the team that much stronger. The entire team put in a lot of effort, and I would like to thank them all. I'd especially like to thank my good friend Henry Ketch for his extra help over the winter. Henry was on seasonal layoff and was able to spend some extra time helping to prepare the car for the upcoming season. We won almost half of our races last year and hope improve upon that this year by bringing home even more victories for DeLange Racing. It's fun to get back to racing again, and I'm very excited about my expanded schedule for 2004. This upcoming weekend I'll be heading to Stafford Springs, CT. for the Spring Sizzler. It will be my first weekend racing the #47 SK Modified. We have a brand new car we will be debuting the week with Wisk/Clorox as our primary sponsor. Everyone tells me that the Stafford SK division is one of the most competitive classes in the Northeast. I'm looking forward to experiencing that first hand, and it will also give me a chance to gain more experience at Stafford Motor Speedway. I'll have the chance to win three features this weekend, two 35 lap features in the SK Modified division on Friday, and the 200 lap Spring Sizzler Featherlite Modified race on Sunday. With so many things in the works for 2004, I'm happy that the season has finally begun. I'm really looking forward to chasing the championships on both the Featherlite Tour and the SK Modified series at Stafford, and to running my own car, the DeLange Racing modified at my hometown track in Lancaster. I hope see you all out at the tracks this year, take care and I'll check back in soon.
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