DM Motor Sports

While the rain washed out Daryl’s planned Wednesday night practice, happily the sun shone down for the weekend events. The team had the car working well by Friday’s last practice, and the 66 had a strong qualifying, earning a top ten spot in Saturday’s feature. Saturday night’s 250-lapper was a more than 3-hour race, slowed by 21 cautions. Daryl did a great job avoiding the vast majority of the incidents, but unfortunately got caught up in three, one causing considerable right-side damage. Restarting at the back of the line-up each time, the team took the opportunity to keep tuning the car for better handling in response to the quickly dropping temperatures. Daryl climbed back through the pack for a great 9th place finish.

Join us for our next race, this Saturday night (August 14th) at Riverside International Speedway, Antigonish. Hope to see you there!

-Daryl and the DM Motorsports team

Daryl had a good race in Oyster Bed Bridge last weekend, after a delay while the track crew repaired turn 4 fencing and poles from a dramatic practice incident (the 24 car hit the wall in turn 3, climbing to rest across the turn 4 wall, nose through the fence into the grandstand area).

Once activities resumed, the 45 minutes of planned practice was skinnied down to 5 minutes. Daryl had the fastest lap in this practice and handily won his heat race. He started 12th in the 100-lap feature. It was the quickest race so far this season, and the laps ticked off quickly. Daryl wasfighting with a car that was pushing progressively harder. But he gained position and avoided getting caught up in the wrecks- although we were holding our breath as twice another competitor pushed it three-wide, the second time while exiting turn 4 in the final lap. Daryl finished 11th.

It’s a short week in the garage as the team works hard preparing for this weekend’s Atlantic CAT 250 race at Scotia Speedworld. The 66 team is practicing Wednesday night and preparing for a Breakfast Television Media event on Friday morning; open practice and qualifying take place Friday evening and the 250-lap Triple Crown race is set for Saturday.

Hope we see you there!

Daryl and the 66 team

It was smoking hot in Antigonish on Saturday, especially inside the bowl at Riverside International Speedway. Daryl had an awesome qualifying lap, holding the third fastest time. In the draw for starting places in the 12-lap dash race, he drew 7th and finished 9th- he’s starting place in the
250-lap main event. As the team readied for the event, Daryl and the other drivers brought their cars onto the front stretch and met and signed programs, autograph cards, hats, shirts, and arms and legs as the fans joined them for a meet and greet.

The main event got underway at 7:30PM, and it hadn’t cooled off much.   The 66 car was running well in the caution-filled first half, in good position for the second half of the race. Daryl had been smelling fumes throughout but was trying to ride it out to the mandatory competition break at the
halfway mark. At lap 97 he came on the radio to say he was having difficulty  breathing and did not seem fully coherent. Daryl, upon urging from the team, brought the car into the pits. Helped from the car, he slid to the pavement and received medical attention for the fume-induced breathing
difficulties and for heat exhaustion.

Throughout, Daryl’s concern was finding someone to take over driving the 66 for him. While some of the team did find a good candidate, officials would not permit him to race as he was not registered for the event. John Flemming also was willing to do it but unfortunately could not fit into Daryl’s
race seat.

Daryl is feeling much better and expects to be 100% for the next race, this Saturday at NBIS, Geary, NB. Hope to see you there! In the meantime, Daryl and the team are inspecting and modifying the 66′s exhaust in case that was the root of the fume issue.

It was a rollercoaster ride!

Daryl got off to a fantastic start, winning the time trials with the fastest lap time of 14.409 seconds (75 mph). The top 10 fastest cars draw for starting positions in a 10-lap race to determine their starting spot in the main event. Daryl drew 4th and finished a strategic 5th for an inside starting position in the 100-lap feature.

The main race began inauspiciously with another car dumping oil on the track in lap 1- quickly coming to light in lap 2 when the 66 and a few other of the top 5 competitors spun out. Eventually, as the track was cleaned up and the offender parked, the officials decided to give the affected drivers their positions back for the restart.

With the delays, it was now getting dark and cold. After 10 laps the 66 started getting very tight. Halfway through the race the engine started cutting out through the turns- not helpful! Within a couple of laps an incident brought the caution out and Daryl pitted to fix the ignition problem. As the incidents on the track continued, and Daryl successfully avoided them, the team used the cautions to free up the car for better handling. Daryl raced back to 10th spot before getting caught up in a turn 3 crash with 15 laps to go. This required one final pit stop to pull the quarter panel off the tire before Daryl finished the race in 12th place.

Our next race is in Antigonish, July 17th- the first of three 250-lap Triple Crown races. Hope to see you there!

Daryl and the 66 team