Matthew Hicks Racing News

2010 News

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.