Since my crew chief is now a college student I've had to deal with not having her to help when out of town, so Wed. she flew out to Phoenix to share in the holiday festivities, and get ready for some racing.

So with turkey day behind us we prepped for the trip south to Tucson. Friday we headed there with a couple stops along the way to see friends in Casa Grande,so  we decided to make our gear change while not in a dirt pit area. Thanks Robert Dodge for your help!

With our Ariz. crew having to work on Friday, they would make the trip later in the day.

Bobbie and I unloaded to a full pit area with lots of cars ready to hot lap. Out on the track to pack I realized it was gonna take some time to roll this wet track in, so I pulled back into the pits and stuck Bobbie in the car to go make laps. She was all smiles!

After a couple sessions out on the heavy track we were dialed in so we loaded up ready for Sat. racing.

Sat. pill was not good, 56 mods on hand and we drew 38? Could've been worse I guess.

Anyway, the track was still very wet,from rain earlier in the week I heard, so as much as everyone wanted a dryer track, moisture kept coming up. As the heats got started the track started to come apart, I mean rough race track, holes you could lose a car in! So I sucked all day cause I won't race on rough race tracks, it tears up equipment and it's hard on an ol guy!

I ran in the back of both heats not pushing it at all. In the C main which transferred 6 I ran 8th still not wanting to tear my equipment up, so we loaded up hoping for some track grading to help things far Sunday.

Boy they cut the heck out of the track for todays racing, looking good for some dry slick too.

After the packing/hot lap session I was excited that we now have some race track, so to work we went. In the last chance we had to run 9th to transfer to the C main, we had a good run to finish 5th, car was pretty good just needed more shock control cause the track was still rough in turn 1 &2,for the C we needed to finish top 16 to transfer to the B main, at the green I knew we were good, but I was racing the low groove which was where the holes were in 1&2. Somewhere about lap 10 I was running 9th when the RR spring exited the car, the birdcage mount broke when I hit one of those holes, rotated and spit the spring out, !@#$%^&* darnit! What do you do? Later as we watched the other Mains everyone was breaking parts to the tune of only 13 cars finishing the A out 24 that started. Rough weekend at USA speedway for us all, just wish it could've waited a couple more races to break on my car!

Thanks to Bobbie Jean, Brett & Brian, and Deserae for all your hard work this week. We ran into some more ol friends this week also. Since I grew up in Tucson it's like homecoming when were here, and our new dry slick setup was awesome, can't wait to try it out at Canyon in Feb.09.

Enjoy the pictures Bobbie took of USA's track, you can see how rough it is.

Canyon Raceway Desert Classic -- by Butch Reid

At the last minute I decided there is a race and I need to be there!

So with a few phone calls I had my Arizona crew put together and was in route on a Thursday morning so as to make practice night.

Practice went well but those night race tracks before the big show always seem to change for race day. Friday's racing started out with a decent pill. At the green of the heat I knew we were too tight, had a terrible throttle push on a hammer down track, so we would be running a last chance race to continue on because I went backwards in the heat. In the 1st of two B mains we got the car turning good and made a decent charge forward to start 24th in the A qualifier. The top 8 would lock into the A, second 8 to the B, third 8 to the C, so with that I made a good charge to finish 15th in the A on Friday, which locked me into the b for Saturday.

We were darn good in the b, ran the middle of the track while others were on the top, to pass up to 5th at the finish, that started us 13th so at the green I was pinned on the bottom of the track for a lap or two as the top was the preferred line. Finally on the top I worked my way up to 10th when on a restart the #8 car drove in too hard and took out my left rear, this was about lap 20 of a 30 lapper so we were done, darnit!

These big shows are a lot of fun to go to. I meet friends I've made over the years at different race tracks and we trade stories since we last met. I get to do testing for the Coach's modified so we can improve on our program at home and hopefully learn from these touring pro's we're racing with, and what's the ol saying, a bad day racing is better than any other day!

Thanks to my Arizona crew who worked tirelessly: Brett & Brian, Pete from Flexi-Flyer who let me hang out there all week and dyno shocks and stuff, and to my sis Shelly who always has a bed for her travelling brother.

I'll be staying here all week and going to Tucson next week

Friday we unloaded with much enthusiasm for this biggest of the big mod shows in the southwest!

Drawing a good pill on Friday we ran some hot laps in the slop and didn't learn anything, so we lined up for our heat with our HH setup for tacky tracks. At the green I knew we were too tight but not bad otherwise. We raced to a 5th place finish so that put me in a C main for the lack of passing points! We made some changes to free us up and started 3rd row of the C. We took the green and went right to the front taking the lead after a lap. At about lap 13 or so we were taking the white flag when local car 58 came down the track in front of me as I was lapping him. After locking up the brakes to miss him I blew a rear brake line. Trying to continue, I lost one spot in turn one and another in turn 4, finishing 3rd darnit. We had that race won! In the pits we hurriedly changed the brake line and tried to bleed the system to hurry out for the B main. At the green I knew we hadn't got it bled cause she wouldn't stop?! So we raced around in the back not going anywhere for the B main, done for the night.

Saturday, we worked on brakes and setup stuff, drawing another good pill we got some dry slick track this time. Finishing 4th we locked in to the B this time not having to run the C main. Starting 12th we raced hard for 7 or 8 laps till the 3x car spun in front of me. Clipping his bumper with my left front I limped to the wall only to be towed off the track broken!

Replacing EVERY bolt on part on the left front of the car, we readied for Sunday's last chance races.

Wow, another good pill started us in the front of last chance race #1 of 3. We were pretty good for this race with decent forward bite, but the track was rough and I missed that in our shock setup, so I finished 4th when only 8 transferred to the C main. Naking some hail mary  setup changes (you know,nothing to lose), we couldn't touch the track, no forward bite or side bite, so we went backwards racing for 18th? 14 cars transferred to the B main, we were done!

Thanks to Bobbie Jean who worked tirelessly all weekend, Mike Andrews for all his HARD work (before this weekend, and after), Butch Jr for his sponsoring me the entry fee, the fuel fool from Sunoco for the barrel of methanol, and Coach's Chassis for their support of our racing!

Next race for us will be the Desert Classic at Canyon raceway in Phoenix coming up in two weeks. I plan to go early and do some testing for those dry tracks we never see here at home. (yet)

Thanks to all those fans and supporters of mine and Bobbie Jean, see ya at the track!

I have a lot of people to thank for helping out this weekend so I'll start with Sam Hodges of Cardinal Motor Speedway in Eunice, N.M. He, with the help of Brian Prouty of Carlsbad who actually hauled it, brought their track packer up to help prep our track this weekend. Hopefully, since everyone saw the awesome job it did, the tribe will want to own one of their own! My crew, who worked tirelessly with the changes we made all race day trying to keep up with the track; Tom & Ruth Brooks of Coach's Chassis, Bobbie Jean, Mike Andrews, 'chef' James Sundsmo, Mike Walker, Brad Winters & Steven Francis jr., thank you all.

A big pat on the back to the Tom Ball/Robert Shay crew for busting their butt all weekend trying to get the show in. Hopefully everyone can see your efforts!

For the heat race, with a #26 pill draw, I started 2nd row outside of heat one. With the decision to cut the track and rewater, all we did was pack, then heat two packed. Finally heat 3 raced and back to heat 4 and then we lined up again. At the start I jumped behind the 2m car running from the pole to the bottom, the 3 car and 16 went around us both on the outside so to the top I went making the pass on the 2m. On a restart I passed the 3 to finish 2nd in the heat.

For the main we had to redraw for starting position, we drew 67? So I lined up 11th for the A main, out of the 12 who qualified from the heats.

Working the VERY bottom, I moved up a few spots to work on the 131 car for most of the race, battling for 5th spot. Finally I got a good run off turn 4 to pull under/beside him into turn 1 when he came down on me entering the corner. The contact pancaked my right front wheel and seemed to lock us together, both sliding high into turn one by the wall. Then a fire developed under the hood so I proceeded to climb out to the delight of everyone and investigate, pulling the hood. I guess the wheel contact blew a power steering hose which sprayed all over the headers causing the fire. So on the hook we went to the pits. This is the luck we tend to have every time we race with the 131 car, hopefully his "i'm sorry, didn't see you" will be the end of that bad luck for future races! He did come in a lap later broken,so maybe Karma?

Anyway congrats to Jimmy Ray on the win!

I don't think I could have got to him in the remaining 7 laps when the red flag came out for my fire, being a one laner, but I sure would liked to have tried.

Bobbie Jean made her Modified (dirt) debut today and she did great. I'll let her tell you in her own words with her recap! But we're sure proud.

Butch Jr. raced with us also and we all had a good time!

This has been a awesome season for me and sometimes I want to pinch myself to see if it's all real. Thanks again to all our fans and supporters!

If I decide to do any Winter racing I'll post it soon.

Hollywood Hills Speedway Recap World of Outlaws (Saturday, 10/12/08) -- by Bobbie Jean Reid

Well!! This weekend was the most fun I've had in my entire life! As I'm sure it's mentioned in my dad's recap as well- I experienced my very first dirt modified race! Thanks to my wonderful Daddy, I raced the black car which I'm sure you've all seen pictures of as well as heard of! Obviously, I knew I was jumping right onto a learning curve, but I took the challenge. And as challenging as it was, I wouldn't take any of it back! I started scratch in the first heat race and learned quite a few thing (mainly that the car is SUPPOSED to be sideways). This car is definitely different from Mark's street stock that I drove up in Aztec! As my awesome crew including- Crew Chief Mike Andrews, Bad Brad, Mike Walker, Kenny Todd, Coach and Ruth Brooks, Steven Francis and of course my fabulous Daddy- helped me out, I lined up ready to go. Well, I'm sure you'll read about most of it in my dad's recap but the track conditions changed drastically and frequently since the World of Outlaw Sprint cars were present. After some yellow flag laps packing, lined up side by side, they gave us a yellow checkered flag and called the next heat onto the track. Once the track figured out just what they wanted to do, I headed back out and lined up right behind Steven Bertetto. I fell in right behind everyone and tried to learn the line. I didn't spin out!!!! Yay!!! (that was my goal). That was my very first dirt race with my daddy. And, although I didn't get to actually see him cause he's so dern fast... I look forward to the next time. My dad and brother gave me much advice that helped me a lot. Thanks guys :)

I lined up for the b-main because only the top three cars transferred to the A-main from the heat races. I felt really confident out on the track and I was having a blast! I got up to sixth (transfer spot to the A-main) and was lovin' every minute of it! There were some close calls for contact with a few "veterans" but the car stayed untouched for the most part. Still tryin' to get the hang of everything, I spun going into turn three and turned into the infield JUST in front of the other cars.

The yellow flag flew and I lined up in the back. After a few more incidences like that, I finally kept the car under me. I learned a lot but most of all... I had sooo much fun. It was a blast and I really look forward to the next time.

I'd like to thank everybody for coming out and I hope all had as great of a time as I did. Thanks again to the crew, I love and appreciate you all. Most of all- thanks to my daddy for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime. :) hope to see ya'll soon!

The annual Hot Pepper 40 is in the books!

And we didn't win, darnit, but some 17 mods showed up to try and take the trophy.

After much work on these two pavement cars since we last raced Sandia, we made great improvements on the Harris but couldn't find a setup for the 63bj car today.

After me having to work at 11,000 feet Friday, and Bobbie having school till 5;30, we made a last minute attempt to make the Friday practice. The #5 had serious issues so we concentrated on the 63 car. First laps were not good as Bobbie spun out in her own oil. Dad must be the culprit 'cause the right side valve cover was pouring oil on the right rear tire. After some time repairing that, the next session went much better with Bobbie logging 15 laps or so at speed. Then with the track calling an end to practice we went to work on the Harris, draining the fuel cell of contaminated methanol, flushing the system, and refilling with clean go juice. The KSE tandem fuel & power steering had been pushing ps fluid into the fuel system. Must be a bad seal or O-ring??????? Anyway, the other issue was/or has been a serious vibration. Well that ended up being the driveline, not the water pump as I had been advised by others. With those items changed and ready, we called it a night and returned Sat. am to continue with more maintenance for the sat races.

Bobbie decided it was my turn to do pill draws. Mistake! I drew 34 for me and 36 for her, which was last for each of us in our heat races. Her turn next time!!!!!!!

Bobbie ran her heat and spent most of it getting adjusted to the pavement after running some dirt. Finishing 6th, I believe, my heat wasn't a lot different as everyone was fast and I had a tight car, But I managed to pass a couple cars to finish 4th.

For the 40 lap main, I lined up 4th row inside behind the 00 car. At the start i followed him through traffic to take over 2nd spot. That didn't last long as we started the main with a new stickier left rear. It grew 2 inches during the race to give me a VERY tight car. After pushing up off the corner for several laps and losing a couple spots, I changed my line by moving up the track to run a higher line. That seemed to work as I ran 4th for a long time til we had a yellow. After the restart, I ran side by side with the #8 car for 10 + laps. He finally got me and I finished 5th!

Congrats to Frank Dutton on the win tonight!

Bobbie seemed to fight a loose car the whole race coming to the checkered in 10th.

As frustrated as we get when we miss the setup we still try and have fun. Heck last week i raced with my son and this week I got to race with my daughter! Life couldn't be any better than that!

Thanks to Wyoming Service Center for there support this year, Action Alignment, Action Hose, and Coach's Chassis, and to those die hard fans, hooray to you all!

The pavement cars are for sale and we do have some interest in them. But starting tomorrow they are being winterized. We're done with that deal for at least this season!

Next week=World of Outlaw weekend. See ya at the Hills!

A big, big thank you goes out to Richard & Anna Johnson for making this first annual race a huge success and a lot of fun. We all raced hard and to win, but I sure saw a lot of smiles all weekend regardless of how they finished!

The Coach's Chassis modified was on rails tonight, with Tom & Ruth Brooks, Bobbie Jean, Kenny Todd, Mike Walker, MAD Graphic designer/installer Mike Andrews, and 'chef' extraordonare James Sundsmo all bringing it together tonight we clean swept 'em one more time!!!!!!!! YAHOO! Bring out the broom? Why not!

It all started with a football toss to the track officials who each had a pill (eight of them, and eight drivers), and we ended up with #2, so that put us front row outside of the dash. Getting a good start we led every lap to win the dash for cash/line up race (thanks to those who sponsored this race) which paid $125.00.

So that put us on the pole for the main, wow, no pressure here????!

So after watching 2 last chance races and a B main the lineup was set. The crew made some last minute setup changes for the quick drying track hoping we weren't shooting ourselves in the foot, since we race in mud all year.

At the green I knew we were good. I jumped out to the lead being somewhat cautious in my corner entry but blasting down the straits, running the bottom of the track I knew I had a hornets nest on my tail so I had to be smooth and make no mistakes. After multiple cautions we finally got down to around lap 30 when approaching several lap cars running the bottom I had to make a decision (in a hurry by the way) to either hug the bottom and hope for a hole, or take a chance on the high side (which looked good all night, but I hadn't tried it), so I shot high, the 2m pulled under me off turn 4. I went up on the cushion in one and hammered down all the way around the track to finally clear the lapped cars coming down the back stretch to resume the lead I had the whole race. Many people think the 82 helped me win this race by blocking the bottom of the track and holding up the cars chasing me. Sorry, if he hadn't been there, I would have stayed on the bottom where I had been running and the result would have been the same, just not as exciting. So thanks but no thanks to the 82! I didn't need the help, but no one beats me in lapped traffic anyway, so WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!And that race paid a smooth $1,000.

Thanks to the HH crew on putting this show on, Tom Ball, Robert Shay, Paul Wilson, and many others who make it all happen, thank you all.

My son butch jr came to race with us this weekend and brought a lot of his friends who race in Eunice at Cardinal speedway with him. I want to thank all those guys (who didn't all have a great race) for coming and playing with us!

Thanks to our sponsors and fans who REALLY make this worthwhile, we love ya!

See ya at the track next week for the hot pepper 40 @ Sandia

The first annual Fall Mod Classic is in the works-35 mods on hand tonight running 5 heats, 2 last chance races, and an A main.

12 cars per passing points and finishing order locked into the front of the A feature tonight, while the remaining cars had to battle it out with 6 transferring out of each last chance race to make a 24 car field in the A, and the top 8 finishers in the A would lock into the front of the A for Sat. night and also be in the trophy dash sat. to determine the starting grid for those 8.

I drew another good pill,#4, can you believe it? Oh wait, there's passing points. Anyway starting on the pole of heat one we led every lap of a very wet and slimy track to win, hooray! Hoping that was enough to take us straight to the A, (it did) we lined up 8th out of the 24. With multiple cautions, we slowly worked our way up to the front to finish 3rd at the checkered. 1st was the 51 car, the 2m was 2nd, us 3rd, 25 4th, 21 5th. It seems like tonight was good for most, seeing smiles everywhere, but a lot of tension among the track personnel. Calm down folks, his is supposed to be fun!

Tommorrow will be interesting as the dash will be VERY important,and the last chance races will be do or die,should be fun.

See ya there!

Great people running this race track. The locals should thank their lucky stars they have such a great place to race managed by great people doing a great job!

Being new to this IMCA track and no point average, we lined up in 4th in the 3rd heat with 5 cars starting. After much packing (by everyone but the sprint cars) we started the heats with about 1 & 1/2 grooves, Taking the green, I moved under the leader off turn two on the first lap as he pushed up off two. Going down the back stretch, he tried moving me down so entering turn three we slid together through the corner side by side until my rr spring came out #$%^& darn it!

I slowed and pulled into the pits to evaluate. No shock on the rr, no spring, and a broken shock mount. Must have broken the bolts holding the mount cause there was no impact (more new car blues). So crew Bobbie Jean & Mike Andrews proceeded to repair and replace to get ready for the main.

With 20 mods on hand, we lined up last in the main. I took a lap to see what I had and proceeded to move forward after I knew I liked it! Racing hard with a lot of three wide racing, we raced up to 5th. With 3 to go, there was a caution. These guys do a Delaware restart where the leader takes the point and second picks high or low and everyone staggers all the way back. The bottom was where I made all my passes but on this start I was put to the outside. I raced hard with these guys but still lost 3 spots before I could get back to the bottom, shucks!

Finishing 8th with a undamaged car can't be all bad after starting 20th.Would have won with the Coach's car though, I'm sure of it.

Other members of our crew on hand this weekend were Andy Andrews and Curtis Berry taking those mystery photos.

Saturday 09/20/08 Recap

After a quick night's sleep and many quarters at the car wash we enjoyed some Aztec cuisine (sorry James) and proceeded to work on tonight's setup and Bobbie Jeans ride (provided by Mark Seifried of Action Hose) for the street stocks.

Mark made some new friends on Fridays race with some paint swapping and one fingered salutes, so we had a few items to deal with (not many) on the stock car. After pulling tires and looking the mod over, we had a lot of NEW car issues to deal with. We finished with the left rear shock unhooked at the top (laying against the fuel cell), the drive line yoke bottoming out into the trans (causing sparks) no wonder we were pulling 3 ft wheelies off the corners,so we spent all day checking/tightening/adjusting so as to be better for Saturday races.

Now with a point average we started 4th again, but in the first heat race of the night. What a slop pit. Taking the green we pulled up and raced with the 25 of Bo Martinez for the top spot settling for 2nd on this one-laner slimy track as the 25 won the heat. For the main we made some significant changes to this black car as the track was actually drying out and going black. I guess I'll never learn my lesson. starting 8th i wrestled with a tight car on this tacky around the bottom fast one lane race track, @#%$$&* (shucks again). Anyway,we came home 11th with about a 10th place car (couldn't quite pass the 10th place car, but almost).

I sure wish i had my Coach's Chassis mod here this weekend. Oh well, we did get some laps on this car finally. The motor is very strong which drove us toward the front on Friday.

After our main was over, we readied for Bobbie's stock car main event. As she did run the heat and was settling in very well to the dirt car by the end of the heat. The streets took to the track and where coming around two by two to take the green, when the skies opened up and flooded the track, sh****t! As luck would have it, they lined up to try and repack when the rains came once more. Bobbie and Mark conferred and decided to call it a night as everyone knew it would be a while before it could be race ready. Everyone was disappointed but there will be others for Bobbie Jean.

So we hung around and bs'd  for hours until finally the stocks got their main in, and then the wing sprints took to the track. WOW is all I can say about the 45x of Johnny Herrera! One of the most entertaining sprint races I've seen, congrats to the 45x on the sweep and collecting the bounty.

Thanks to all our fans and sponsors who support our racing!

Next week: HH 2 day mod special-see ya there!!!!!!!!!!!!!