Hi everyone – Toni here again. I know I said Jim would be writing the next blog but we have a lot of things to talk about this week and I told Jim I would write the first part of the blog and he could write the second part. That sounds like a fair enough deal to me.

First off, I would like to let everyone know the wonderful news about our niece, Joanne. In a previous blog we shared a picture of a very pregnant Joanne and I am so happy to report that we finally have another new “great-nephew” in the Yates family! Walter H. Russell III a.k.a. “Mac” was born on Sept. 16 and weighed in at 7-pounds, 8-ounces. Mac took his sweet time getting here, though, as he made Mom wait more than a week past her due date before he decided to bless us with his presence. Thankfully, Mom, Dad and Mac are home in New York and at last report, everyone is doing great. I think they are planning a trip back home soon so we are all looking forward to seeing baby Mac. (Of course we can’t wait to see Joanne and Walter too!) Anyway, I will be sure to share some pictures as soon as I get them.

Well, Memphis was another great race for us but it was not without some crazy circumstances. On the last qualifying effort, we were on a pass that was sure to land us in the top half of the field. The left lane was great, the car was making a great run and we were pretty happy when the 6.62 e.t. came up on the scoreboard. It ended up being No. 9 but it was better than where we started the session. Unfortunately, when Jim got to the finish line and stopped in the shut down area, there was oil dripping from under the engine. Oh boy, this is never a good sign! We thought for sure we had really hurt our engine. So, back to the pits we went, we pulled the engine out, put it on an engine stand and Jake and Dave (from Jenkins Competition) proceeded to do “exploratory surgery” on the engine.

The good news is the engine didn’t break a rod or something catastrophic (thank God!). Believe it or not, a piece of counterweight from the crankshaft broke off and went down to the bottom of the oil pan. It hit the bottom of the pan so hard that it put a small hole in the pan – hence, the oil leak. At this point we just had to do is figure out how to fix it. Sounded easy enough to me. They pulled the pan and found all of the counterweight and knew exactly where it needed to go. All we had to do now was find someone to weld it all back on and then weld up the hole in the oil pan, and we would be back in business. Jamie knew just the person and luckily he was still at the racetrack – Don Ness.

Don was able to put all of his welding equipment on a golf cart and bring it over to our trailer. (It would have been a task to get the engine to his trailer.) He welded on our crankshaft for more than an hour and then fixed the oil pan. When he had finished working on it, Bill said it looked better than new. Don is a great craftsman and we were so thankful that he was able to help us out.

Well, by the time Don had finished packing up his equipment, Jake and Dave had the engine back together and in no time it was back in the car and ready for Sunday’s race. I never had a doubt everything would be just fine – yeah right! As I am sure everyone already knows we went to the semifinals where we lost to eventual race winner Dave Connolly. He has been on fire lately and doing a great job winning the last three races. We did the best we could without lane choice, but he is a tough guy to beat right now. Nevertheless, we, as a team, were extremely happy with our weekend.

Well, this is about the end of my blog – I will get this going along with some pictures of our welding project and let Jim finish the rest of the week in his part. We actually took a day off while in Memphis to do some sightseeing and enjoy the company of our good friends, Don and Jana Knapp who had come to the race to help us out. I will let Jim tell you all about it. Stay tuned!