Nick Carlson
Driver of the 09 Legends Car
Welcome to Carlson Motorsports
It's been another good season even though we haven't run as much as we wanted to. We were hoping to have the Late Model ready but you know how things go so times. It seems as though all the race tracks around haven't been getting very good car counts this year. I guess the economy is hitting everyone the same way. We are hoping to sell our backup car this year to help finance the Late Model so if you know anybody looking for a car please let me know.
The long awaited addition to the Carlson Motorsports Team (long awaited by Ryan) got his first opportunity to see the race track from the drivers eyes yesterday. Ryan (Ron) Carlson took his first laps around Shenandoah Speedway yesterday and couldn't have been happier. The number "66" was first tested by Nick then turned over to the hugely smiling but nervous new driver. Being that he has never driven anything bigger then an Ocean City go-cart, he was the right amount of nervous. Ryan drove 136 laps which were broken into several small sessions giving him time to stop and talk to Nick about how he was progressing through each segment. Each segment Ryan got faster and more confident. By the end of the test session he had laid down some laps as fast as 19.0s, not bad for a first day driver. After a second test session Ryan was a little more confident and was able to turn laps in the 18 second range. As you start to drive faster the opportunity for a spin or two becomes even more possible as Ryan found out when he spun a few times going into turn one. Fortunately he was able to keep it off the wall and keep on driving. I think after one more practice session it will be time to see what Ryan can do around a track full of fast cars.
Along for the ride we had a few friends who had only dreamed of having to chance to drive a race car around a real speedway like Shenandoah. Each one had a turn behind the wheel of "Jennifer" the back up car. I can say that everyone did a great job. No one even so much as spun out and ran some times that were not bad for guys that never had gone around in circles before. (that was for our drag racing buddies). Erik laid down the fastest laps out of the four guys that gave it a shot. George, Steve and Lee all had a blast and maybe left with a little different opinion of what circle track racing is all about. At the end of the day every body had huge smiles on their faces and a cool story to take back home.
After five years in the Legends Series it was time to try something a little bigger. Our friend John Gunter let Nick try his hand in the #41 car. If there is one guy that needs a bigger car it would be Nick. The first thing Nick realized is just how comfortable his Legends car really is. The seat in the Late Model didn't fit very well and was mounted too high so his head was right up against the roll cage. So he had to cock his head to the right the whole way around the track. Nick's goal that day was to just get the feel of the bigger car, not to worry about speed but everyone was surprised that he was knocking off low 16 second laps on old tires and a purposely tight set up. All in all he really like the feel and power of the Late Model compared to the Legends. Who knows you may see him in both this year.
The
biggest thing we need for the Late Model deal is a couple of
sponsors. As everyone knows the tire bill alone is a chunk of money. The
main sponsors we have had for a couple of years will come back next year.
Ameritech Office Systems and Colonial Auction Services have been great and
we couldn't have done any of this with out them. But to run a Late Model
or Truck is going to take an even bigger effort. So if anybody knows
anyone that might be able to help further Nick's racing career please let
us know. You can send us a message from the message board button above.
Thanks to John for letting us test his car, if things work out it may find
a new home. The only problem we have with the car is the stupid bow tie on
the front of it. Anybody that knows the Carlson's knows we're Ford people.
But a race car is a race, Nick doesn't care if it's Ford, Dodge or Chevy
as long as it goes fast and he's driving it.
It's
been a while since we came out with a new style T-shirt so we talked to
Terry down at A.S.A.P Screen Printing and got to work on a new one. Terry
is the man when it comes to T-shirt design. We wanted something with a
little more edge then we have had in the past. So here is the first draft,
I'm sure we'll mess with it a little until we get exactly what we
want.
Go to the message board and drop us a note, let us know what you think.
All I am going to say is it was nice to see the checkers again.
It's hard to believe that in the Beginning of June that you would only have two races under your belt. Unfortunately that's the case. We have been rained out of all but two races at Old Dominion, have not had a race at all at either Potomac or Eastside. So off we went to Summit Point in West Virginia.
Summit Point just opened a new track at their facility called The Shenandoah Circuit. This was a pretty challenging course, especially for Nick ( who has only been on a road course twice ), with about 20 turns on it's 1.9 mile loop. Nick started out a little cautious but quickly picked up the pace. At first he was running lap times about 5 seconds off what everyone else was running in practice but in the race he was only down by maybe a second to the leaders. Nick ended up finishing third.
Now it's time to get everything ready for Old Dominion again on the 18th. Now that we fixed the problem with the motor we're hoping we can have a better qualifying effort which will lead to a much better finish.
Check out some of the pictures from Summit Point.
There comes a time in every man's life when he just has to say, OK I just have too much stuff going on. Well, for the last year I've had too much going on. Just imagine this, your building a 1300 square foot race shop, your restoring a 64 1/2 Mustang from the ground up, your trying to run a business and your trying to run a race team all at the same time. That has been my life for the past year. So now you can see why I haven't been keeping up with the web site. Sorry.
Now I can show you some pictures of Nick's new ride in the new race shop. I don't think the pictures will capture just how much work went in to this project but I hope you can appreciate them anyway.
Click on picture to enlarge
There is a little glimpse at what we have been doing for the last couple of years. I'm happy to say the shop is done and the Mustang is 99.9 percent finished. All we have to do now is find an insurance company that will let a 19 year old drive a car like this. So far that search is not going so well.
I thought once these project were finished I would have a little time to relax, but noooooo, its time to rebuild some race cars for this season. That's all right, that's what we do.
