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Most of you probably don’t know but a couple of months ago I made the decision to sell out at the end of this season. The expenses versus what there is the potential to take in are just way out of proportion. It has finally reached the point where I can’t even justify it in my own mind. One thing I am sure of
I still want to drive something!! I just don't want to own it!
Ever since I made that decision I have been thinking about what it will be like heading into the last race of the season. When I sold out the last time at the end of the 2003 season I knew that I was going to do some races in 2004 with the Robert Locke ARCA Re/Max Series team and maybe some truck series races so I knew I would be racing something. At this point I want to keep driving but the reality is I have nothing lined up for 2009 and after twenty nine years of driving it is a little scary…… Hopefully something will come along......
Hopefully I will not bore all of you too much as I write more of my thoughts about this between now and the banquet. For now since this week at Toledo could well be my last Lincoln Welders Truck Series race I would like to share some of our better experiences there in the truck series.
Our first victory at Toledo and in the series came in the final race of the inaugural season for the Lincoln Welder Truck Series on September 25th 1999. It was an especially satisfying win for me, my crew and Crew Chief Tom Cumbow because we had run the whole year with a huge weight penalty imposed by ARCA because we were running the Ford Cosworth engine from our ARCA Pro-4 car. It had good horsepower but the extra weight more than compensated for that and really hurt us especially on the shorter tracks. We also won our first pole award in the truck series that night but started eighth in the fifty lap event because of the inversion. It was a tough race and we didn’t take the lead until the half way point but led the final twenty five laps pulling away on each restart. As I look back now I find it humorous to read an article from that race that said:
“Witham took the lead and led the next twenty laps with Slaughter glued to his bumper. Slaughter finally found enough room to get along side Witham coming off the fourth corner, and as the two trucks exchanged a significant amount of paint, Slaughter edged ahead in turn one and snatched the lead for good.”
Its sounds humorous now but it was very intense making that pass and we exchanged a lot of paint! Tom Cumbow and the crew gave me a great truck that night and that win sent us into the off season determined to compete for the Championship in 2000!
The first race at Toledo in the 2000 season was one of our best ever!
Back before Speed TV (called Speed Vision then) became dominated by NASCAR events they use to record a couple of our races to show sometime during the year. Lucky for us Toledo was the first one they did that season. It was cool because they did it up right,
pre-race interviews that they used during the race, commentary during the race that helped show just how exciting our races can be, mentioned our sponsors, did great camera work covering the action and even did a victory lane interview!
We started out the night by setting a new track record and winning the pole award. By virtue of the inversion we started seventh in the fifty lap event. It was quite a challenge getting to the front as we ran the whole fifty laps green flag, no cautions! On top of that the early race leader Michael Carter was leaking rear end lube and the made the track quite slippery. We finally took the lead with fourteen laps to go and immediately put distance on the field leading the rest of the way. I remember watching the telecast later and hearing announcer Don Radebaugh say:
“Slaughter has this place figured out; he did not put one fender on one truck all night and he earned this victory”
It was very cool to hear and even cooler to see! The other announcer Brian Drebber said:
“Robbin passed high, passed low and didn’t put a wheel wrong all evening, virtually a perfect night as he won the pole, won the race and took over the point lead!”
As the telecast was ending Drebber wrapped it up by saying:
“I’m sure Slaughter would be the first to say: The crew gave me a good truck and all I had to do was drive!”
Needless to say crew chief Tom Cumbow and the crew loved that one. We have used that line many times over the years. Even though I hesitate to admit it, it was very true that night because the truck was awesome!
Our second race that year at Toledo on September 3, 2000 was a whole different story. We just missed the pole that night but had an awesome truck qualifying second just ahead of current NASCAR Nationwide Series team owner Todd Braun. (On a side note Todd raced with us for a couple of years and was a pretty good guy if you got to know him. He knew where he wanted to go in racing and it is cool to see him have success at that level!)
Just past the twenty lap mark of that race we passed Paul Hahn for the lead and immediately started pulling away. Our goal was to get as big of lead as we could before the half way break. In the early years of the ALWT all of the hundred lap events had a half way break to add fuel, make changes and change tires if you wanted to. Our truck was so good that as we came up on the break we had lapped up to the third place running truck of Braun! With Cumbow on the radio encouraging me to pass him Todd and I just about wrecked each other! He didn’t want to go a lap down before the break and we wanted to put him there! We did get by before the break but I also started experiencing fuel pressure problems at about the same time. There were only two trucks on the lead lap at the break, counting us!
Tom and the crew were all over the truck during the break trying to figure out what the fuel pressure problem might be. It seemed like it might be a wiring problem because sometimes flipping the switch on and off would help. They didn’t really find anything so we hoped for the best. Just a few laps after the restart as we were starting to pull away from the field again the engine quit no fuel pressure. It would quit then it would pick up again as I was turning the power switch on and off as we were falling back through the pack. What a sickening feeling. We pitted numerous times but never found the problem and struggled to a very disappointing ninth place finish. It wasn’t till later in the week back in the shop we found the problem, a band aid in the fuel filter! Evidently someone lost a band aid off their hand, arm or somewhere as they were putting fuel in the truck. It would suck up and block the filter off and then drop back down when we shut it off and pick up again when we turned it back on. Just about the craziest thing I had ever heard of!
Now is that bad luck or what! By the way did I mention we had an awesome truck?
Our last win at Toledo came June 22, 2001 and a dominating win it was. We always seemed to have a good set up for Toledo but this race we thought we would try something different in practice. In the process of trying some things and practice getting cut short we didn’t get to scuff our new tires and thought we were in trouble for qualifying. Fortunately our tire specialist at the time, Mike Jose got the tires just right and we grabbed the pole award even though we were loose off two on both laps! Though it was a pole award winning setup we changed back to our old setup before race time and it paid off. We started on the front row and led every lap of the fifty lap event. Probably the hardest part of the night was Tom on the radio trying to keep me calm through the numerous cautions and restarts. As always he did a great job and we had a perfect night! Won the pole award, led every lap, won the race and took over the point lead on our way to our second Championship!
Unfortunately our fortunes in recent years at Toledo have not been as good as we would like. This past spring at Toledo our engine was already sick and we didn’t run very well but at the fall race last year we had a pretty good truck qualifying third and finishing fourth. Tom and I hope to improve on that finish this weekend and have a run like the old days so we can show our current crew, Grump, Jeff, Mary, Nicole how it is to really have some fun racing!
Random News & Thoughts:
- As I was looking back at some old articles, race results and point standings I found it interesting that of the top twenty five drivers in points at the end of the inaugural 1999 season only three remain active in the series. Of course Bill Withers, myself and Tully Esterline.
Thanks for reading my column, all feedback is appreciated!
rspro4@juno.com
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