Hahn Battling for Positions and Tackling Tough Track Conditions in July

Although the month of July would not feature many races for Meade Hahn and the 7 car, it would not be short on action and tests. Meade would haul the 7 car to both Selinsgrove and Port Royal. Each race presented its own challenges, and Hahn would have to adapt to a wide array of conditions.

Selinsgrove would be the team’s 9th race of the year, on July 10th. Meade would start 3rd in his heat.

“I fell back to 4th on the start, but kept moving around trying to find some speed. I could run with the guys in front of me, but I just couldn’t get enough of a run to pass them on the bottom, so I moved to the top and got myself into 3rd by the end and was happy with how the car felt.”

The Millerstown driver would start from the pole in the feature after the invert.

“We made some adjustments because we really thought the 360 sprints would blacken the track up, but when I pulled into the track I was surprised to see it wasn’t black at all. We had a decent start, but I couldn’t hold the lead, and slowly we fell back through the field and ultimately finished 8th.”

Even with the backslide in the feature, this still netted Hahn his third top 10 of the season. The team would have to do some work and make a quick turnaround for the next night at Port Royal.

“After the checkers, we got spun around by a car and tore the whole left side up on the car.” Meade and his crew, “got the car back together after a lot of work on Saturday and headed to Port.” 

Port Royal would be a test of the overall speed of the 7 car, as the track was very wet and narrow. Meade started his heat in 6th and would have trouble making ground up.

“The track was hammer down and fast. With the caliber of cars in our heat, we couldn’t make any ground and finished 6th.”

Starting in the 17th position in the feature, the track didn’t really slow down a whole lot throughout the night, which would again make it difficult to find spots.

“We passed a few cars and missed the wreck on the back stretch, which got us a few more spots. Coming to the checkers, I could see a bunch of dust and cars going everywhere, and I snuck through and got no damage. We finished 13th, but the 2nd place car that caused the big wreck at the checkered flag got disqualified, which made it so we finished 12th.”

A somewhat chaotic race, but a gain of five spots was still something to be proud of. 

Both nights featured some tricky track conditions, and Hahn was still trying to fine-tune the setup on the car.  At Selinsgrove, “I think we had too hard of a tire on the right rear. I couldn’t feel it as much as I needed to and couldn’t lean on it like normal.”

With the track being really heavy the next night at Port Royal, Meade had to loosen up the car.

“The changes we have made to get the car more loose have worked, but we have gone a little too far and have to back up on some of them.”

He will have a few more chances to get the car dialed in during the month of August and is excited to get back on track.  As of now, the team will travel to Selinsgrove Speedway to open the month on August 1st. Then, the limited late models will accompany the Lucas Oil Late Models at Port Royal, as part of a two-day show on August 28th & 29th. Make sure to head out to both tracks and catch some great racing action.