Photo courtesy of Hixson Motorsports
The two-car team out of Hixson Motorsports in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee are putting the Saturday night race weekend in the Music City in the rear-view mirror and gearing up for Salem. Crystal Bates of HMS says that both Eric Caudell, in the No. 2 Hixson Construction / Honoring Americas Warriors Chevrolet, and Mike Senica in the No. 3 Bell Plantation/ American Powerhouse Chevrolet, are setting their sights on the next race of the 2017 season.
“We started good at the Nashville Fairgrounds speedway this weekend,” Bates said about the promising start to the weekend. “We unloaded good, were having a good practice – tweaking on the shocks – and doing some adjustments to both cars. Little things, trying to pick up a speed here and there.”
Bates said things were looking good during the practice runs and they were looking forward to the start of General Tire Pole Qualifying. Then, a problem popped up in Senica’s No. 3 car during the middle of practice. The car was fixed just in time for a quick run to shake things down.
“Mike moved over to qualifying, he got a new set of tires, but he ended up starting in the 28th position,” Bates said. “Eric and the No. 2 car started the race in the 22nd spot.”
Once things got underway the race began to unfold with both cars mixing it up in the pack during the first part of the event. Caudell then reported an issue with his ride. Bates noted that it seemed as if the “clutch was going out.” That signal an even deeper problem.
“Eric was having a pretty good run when the clutch gave – we knew it would make for an interesting pit stop,” Bates said. “We worked through it – coming to about five laps to go – that’s when Eric unfortunately had his motor blow.”
Bates said that Eric was not the only Hixson car to suffer Saturday night. Issues with the No. 3 car of Mike Senica also ended his race early.
“Despite the practice times, racing good all night – for both drivers – and not getting into trouble with wrecks, both cars had failures,” Bates said. “Mike also would blow a motor. That’s part of it, we’re already getting ready for Salem.”
Bates said the team is already past worrying about Nashville and how things turned out at their home-state track. The crew is focused and getting ready for the race at Salem and then Talladega.
“There are two new engines being tested and run through dyno to help avoid similar problems at Salem,” Bates stated about the upcoming short track race. “And we’ve been hard at work rebuilding one of our Superspeedway cars for the race at Talladega. It was damaged during the season opener in Daytona.”
The ARCA Racing Series Presented by Menards is off for the Easter Weekend but returns with classic short track racing at Salem Speedway April 27th with the running of the Kentuckiana Ford Dealers ARCA 200. The series then heads south to Talladega Superspeedway where it joins with NASCAR for a full race weekend. The General Tire 200 at Talladega is set for May 5th. Races are broadcast on FS1 and MAVTV with live timing and scoring on arcaracing.com.
Kent Whitaker, also known as “The Deck Chef,” is a culinary writer and cookbook author. He’s also penned Young Reader and History titles. The former winner of the Emeril Live Food Network Barbecue Contest also covers football, motor-sports, and bass fishing. Kent currently lives in East Tennessee with his wife, son, and a couple of dogs that love when he fires up the smoker or grill.
