A whole lotta quarter midget racing going on

Isaak has spent a considerable amount of time on the track with the 2011 season winding down.

He ended the New Smyrna points series on the weekend of Nov. 12-13 with back-to-back race dates filled with highs and lows. On Saturday, Isaak won the Junior Honda A Main, putting himself in second place overall and one point ahead of third. The next day, a poor start to a caution-free A Main put Isaak back in third to end the year. He finished the season tied for sixth in Light 160.

After taking a week to prepare, Isaak headed to Salisbury, NC, for the 2011 Fall Nationals. It was his first time to race three classes at an event, adding Light 160 to Junior Honda and Junior Animal.

The North Carolina track has vexed Isaak and his crew each time we’ve raced there, and the Thanksgiving week event proved no exception. Even with three days of practice, we could not seem to find the speed in the junior classes that many of the other drivers had. With qualifiers based on speed rather than heat races to set the lower main fields, that meant a lot of racing.

Isaak began the day in the Junior Honda E Main, a place he’s not accustomed to being. He took a strong lead, then got passed but still was in solid second well ahead of the rest of the pack. But Isaak decided he wanted to win, so he challenged Andrew Molleur for first. Andrew’s somewhat erratic line caused Isaak some difficulty, and a light tap sent Andrew spinning, putting Isaak at the back of the pack with a handful of laps to go. Isaak made up three positions, enough to transfer to the D Main only as the alternate X car. He was upset, but coped. “It’s not my fault that guy decided to use my bumper to spin himself out!” he later declared.

Lesson learned for the Junior Animal C Main. He jumped from the outside line to second right away, protected his inside line and didn’t budge, making the B Main later in the day. Unfortunately, the crew changed gears between races and Isaak lost quite a bit of speed, never contending for the lead. During a red flag, he gamely said, “Oh well, I guess I won’t be going to the A Main.” And he finished up glad to have had the chance to race.

The biggest joy for him — and for his crew — was Light 160. We brought the car on a lark, without a setup, having put it together only hours before leaving for NC. We figured if we had time, we’d test it out. Isaak didn’t even want to race it. With the setup help of Michael Atwell, and shock advice from Matt Supan, we got Isaak a car that he loved racing. He started in the D Main and stayed in the lead pack the entire race, finishing fourth and transferring to the C. Friends JJ Sekelsky and Chase Lankford helped make some repairs between races, and he zoomed back out again, racing in the middle of the pack and contending for a transfer position until late in the race, when he bumped the wall with his right side and two cars passed him by.

He finished eighth, one spot better than he started. Later on, Isaak said the best part of racing was Light 160. He also had a great time playing with old and new friends, and was thrilled to see his buddies Ryan Israel and Preston Buckley do well in their races. Now it’s time to clean up the cars and prepare for the next ones.

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