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2010 News

October 16th, 2010,

Remember those days where everything seems to go right? Saturday October 16th, 2010 was one of those days for the Matthew Hicks Racing team.  Matthew wanted to race one last time with his Legends car at Toyota Speedway before the regular season concluded.  It was a great choice.  Matthew had a fast car for the 1st practice session but he was only 11th fast. He said not to worry because he was just trying to wear his Legends tires in so they would get more speed for qualifying and the main event.  Boy was he right.  In the 2nd practice, Matthew was the 1st car in 12 years to break into the 16.50's. In fact, he ran a 16.50. Did I mention the track record, which has stood since the beginning of the inaugural season of Toyota Speedway (Irwindale speedway) was 16.51? Yes, Matthew ran a faster practice lap than the track record by one hundredth of a second.  Now, could he do it again in qualifying?

The answer is simple....HELL YES.  He broke the longest standing track record for cars that still compete at the track. Matthew ran a 16.45 to break the track record.  He then rolled a 6 for the main event which meant he had to start behind a bunch of other fast cars.  Not to worry, he knew he had the best car at the track this night.

Matthew started outside row 3 in 6th place. He methodically made his way forward, picking off car after car until he was in 2nd place. One of his young friends, Brent Scheidemantle, a very fast Legends racer and who was in 2nd place for the championship was leading.  It took about 20 laps but Matthew was finally able to set Brent up and make the pass for the lead.  He never looked back.  Matthew went on to win his first race of the year.  

Yes, it was one of those days, fast qualifier, track record and main event win.  What a great way to end the regular season. 

We're not sure of our plans for the near future.  Matthew states he wants to race his Legend in the off season at I-10 Speedway in Blythe.  The rest of his team wants to race the Super Late Model at the Lucas Oil California Classic at Toyota Speedway on November 27th.  We'll see who wins out on this.  

Thank You to all of our fans and friends who came to watch us this year.  We hope to see you again next year.  

A big thank you to Lyle Hunter, our friend, tax man and Super Late Model engine builder.  He gives us the power to compete week in and week out.  It's really only because of Lyle that we are able to afford to race the Super Late Model. 

October 9th, 2010,

We took the Super Late Model back to Orange Show for another night of Super Later Model racing. Once again the car was fast all day.  We knew we had a shot at fast time when Matthew ran a good time in the 2nd practice session.  We didn't know he would almost set a new track record. The track record at Orange Show is 12.89. Matthew ran a 12.92 and when he came off the track he said something was wrong with the carburetor. Matthew stated the car stumbled all the way down both straightaway's on his qualifying laps. He complained in practice the car seemed to stumble a little but he said it got real bad during qualifying. We worked on the carburetor after the 2nd practice and thought maybe we had a blown power valve. We changed it but it didn't help.  We changed the carburetor after qualifying and had a 3rd practice session during the nights intermission to test it. Matthew said the stumble was gone and we were good to go for the main event.  

Matthew would start 2nd in the main. This night, the outside lane had no grip and he struggled to get the lead from last years champion who qualified 3rd and started in the pole position. There were several yellow flags for spins early in the race. Twice Matthew had the lead when the yellow came out but because he hadn't lead a full lap he had to give the lead back.   Matthew chose the high grove knowing if he didn't on each restart then the fast qualifier would go outside. He was worried a quick yellow would come out and he would be dropped to 3rd.  After the 3rd yellow flag, the outside lane hurt us badly. The leader pushed up bad in turn one causing Matthew to have to go even higher than normal and the 3rd place driver got under him and the leader. Matthew was hung on the high groove and fell to 6th. 

A yellow flew again and Matthew wasn't willing to go to the high groove again as now the initial pole driver, whose car wasn't handling well chose the high groove. Matthew stayed on the inner line but 4 more cars went high. A quick yellow came out and now Matthew was all the way back to 10th. He stayed in the low groove and made his way back to 4th where he would finish the race.  He was very disappointed as he ran the fastest lap of the race and knew he had a great car but the darn cone rule bit him again.

This was the last race for Orange Show for 2010.  Although he didn't win a race at Orange Show in the 5 Super Late Model races he ran there, he did have fun.  Matthew finished in the top 5 in each of his races. We're not sure if we're going to race Orange Show full time, part time or at all next year with the Super Late Model.

August 28th, 2010,

We took the Super Late Model to Orange Show for another night of fun racing. The car was good right out of the trailer. We actually bought tires for this race because our tires had far too many laps on them to be competitive any longer. Matthew was near the top of the board all day in both practice sessions.

He qualified 5th but stated he left too much out on the track because he felt the car was better than he qualified. The invert for the main was perfect though, it was 5. That put Matthew on the pole for the main event. The main event started off slow due to a few cautions for spinning cars near the rear of the field. When this happened, it allowed some of the fast cars to use the cone rule (any car behind the leader can go to the outside and start next to the leader on the green flag). Some of the faster cars tried this and at first were not able to grab the lead away from Matthew. After one caution though, the car starting behind Matthew hit him, causing him to get loose out of turn 2 and the outside car was ahead of him and unfortunately a caution came out and put that car ahead of Matthew. Matthew decided to stay behind the new leader but another car behind Matthew used the cone rule and started next to the new leader.

Again a caution came out immediately after the green flag flew and now Matthew was in 3rd although he had yet to be passed! So Matthew decided to use the cone rule and he ran 11 laps side by side with the leader until a caution flew, but this time Matthew was ahead putting him back into the lead. The 3rd place car tried the cone rule but Matthew was able to hold him off as well as the 2nd place car.  Matthew was able to hold the 2nd place car off for about 10 laps but he got bumped going into turn 3 and was passed for the lead. Matthew rode behind the new leader for several laps until the leaders car broke. 

Matthew was back in the lead and it looked like it was his race to win until a caution came out with 10 laps or so to go. The 4th place car and current champion decided to use the cone rule and pulled up next to Matthew. On the restart, Matthew was hit from the rear by the 3rd place car coming out of turn 2 causing Matthew to get sideways and the 2nd place car took advantage of that and grabbed the lead away. Matthew was unable to get a good enough run to make a pass  for the lead so he settled for 2nd place.

Matthew is not much of a fan of the cone rule but he has to live with it now.  We'll be back out to Orange Show October 9th with the Super Late Model. Hope to see you there.

August 6th, 2010

There have been many things that have happened this year for the Matthew Hicks Racing Team.  One, it's been a tough year in racing due to the lack of racing funds.  We have yet to secure any sponsors and have been struggling to get funds to race the Super Late Model.  We decided a few weeks ago to purchase another Legend Car to keep Matthew racing.  The Legend Cars are much less expensive to race.  It's been a fun few weeks racing the Legend both at Toyota Speedway and Orange Show Speedway.  

After purchasing the Legend Car, Matthew and his good friend Darren Amidon took the car and set it up like Darren's car (he's been winning all the races this year).  After a few races, we've gradually made adjustments and have returned the car to more of our set up and it handles well for Matthew's driving style.  Unfortunately, at the last race at Orange Show the motor died in the main event after Matthew qualified 2nd and won the trophy dash.  Matthew and Darren have a race planned in August in Las Vegas so they will be taking the car and engine to 600 Racing West to have the motor rebuilt.  

The Super Late Model has been a different story.  Because Toyota Speedway has chosen to bring in the Spec Engine Program, we are no longer competitive at that track.  They have made one major adjustment for the open motor cars (like ours), they removed the restrictor plate.  We haven't been back to see if that makes a difference.  We do plan on it some time this year.

We've raced three times this year at Orange Show with the Super Late Model.  All three races were a lot of fun.  The quarter mile track is a tough track for the full size race cars.  It's a one-groove track and the inverts are usually quite large so the faster cars have their work cut out for the 50 lap main events.  So far Matthew has finished 3rd twice and 5th once.  We will race at Orange Show a few more times this year.  The good thing about Orange Show is we've only bought 4 new tires one time so the racing is much less expensive.  Our next race there, probably in September, we will buy 4 new tires.

We're sorry for not being up to date on the website as we've been busy on other projects at home.  We will keep it up to date after each race for the rest of the season.  If you want to talk with us about a sponsorship or know someone who might want to sponsor Matthew please drop us an email at matt@matthewhicksracing.com.  

March 27th, 2010

Well, we had high hopes that our run of bad luck would have ended in the 2009 season.  The 2010 season didn't start the way we wanted it too.  The car was pretty good for the opening day practices as we were on old tires and the car seemed fast and was handling good.  Unfortunately when Matthew went out to qualify, he stated something was wrong but couldn't tell what it was.  He qualified 13th out of 20 cars.  

We borrowed a carburetor from a competitor and asked the track for a few laps of practice to see if that was our problem.  Matthew realized what the problem was right away.  The new clutch we installed over the off season was failing.  We decided to start at the rear of the field and just make a few laps and go home disappointed again.  Matthew would finish 19th.

April 10th, 2010

We replaced the entire clutch with a new 3 disk clutch and went back to the speedway with renewed hopes.  Matthew said the car felt great and he ended up 3rd fastest in practice.  We were excited about our chances now.  Once again our excitement turned to sorrow when for whatever reason Matthew said the car got real loose on him in qualifying.  He ended up qualifying 11th.

He started the main event 11th but right away moved forward.  He moved into 4th place by lap two and was right on the 3rd place car.   Then bad luck struck us again.  He started to fall back and his lap times really slowed down.  He came on the radio with one word "loose."  Matthew continued to slow down and got back on the radio and said "real loose now, I don't know if I can hang on to this thing."  He stayed out and finished the race but had fallen all the way back to 11th.  He was very upset as he came off the track. 

It was determined a valve cover gasket had failed and he had oiled down the entire chassis and his right rear tire.  Matthew is so frustrated with his luck at Irwindale that he decided he wants a new venue to try to change his luck.  We will be heading to Orange Show Speedway Saturday May 1st to see if we can change our luck.  Hope to see you there.