The racing portion of the 2019 Dream Ride Racing campaign kicked off this past weekend at Lee USA Speedway, with Jake Dore and team taking on the Granite State Pro Stock Series 150-lapper, which was the highlight event of the track’s inaugural May Madness event.
After qualifying in 14th on Saturday, the Bentley’s Saloon/Kayem Hot Dogs-sponsored #05 team was looking forward to improving and making gains during the feature race on Sunday. The team struggled finding speed during practice on old tires, but found their stride with newer tires.
Before going out for the first practice on race day, the team hit a very big snag: the car would not fire up. “Sunday, we started the day losing the ignition system. The team worked hard to change the ignition box and rewire the connectors, as the ignition systems weren’t the same.”, Jake Dore explains, praising his crew for their quick efforts to get the #05 onto the track for some practice laps.
Come race time, Jake had gained 2 spots by lap 14, climbing up to 12th. He was gaining momentum on the track, but came to a slow on lap 18, pulling down to the pits. Turns out, the ignition wires had become disconnected and the #05 machine lost power once again.
“We started the race off with the best car that we had all weekend. I thought that we had a solid top 10 car, maybe even a top 5 if I saved the tires well. Unfortunately, one of our connectors in the ignition system had an internal failure and we lost power to the ignition box”, Dore explains.
There was a window of opportunity for the team to patch the ignition system back together and return to the track, but that would have left the #05 machine more than a dozen laps down. The team elected not to risk getting the car banged up and decided to park the car for the remainder of the feature, a wise decision seeing that the car was still in one piece.
Although the #05 team did not have the ideal Dream Ride Racing debut, four Special Olympians were at the track, cheering the team on and bringing smiles (and plenty of hearty laughter) to the entire crew. These athletes brightened everyone’s day and made a bad day at the track feel much better. They even helped push the car in the trailer, load the trailer up and met the race winner, Brandon Barker.
“It was really cool to have the athletes at Lee this weekend. They all had a great time at the track, even with our struggles. It was great to see how happy they were on a bad day for us. I can’t wait till we have a good day with them at the track!”, Dore shares.
Dore is looking forward to the next Dream Ride Racing event in two weeks, the 50-lap Pro Stock feature event at Wiscasset Speedway on Saturday, June 1st at 6:00 PM.
“I’m looking forward to going to Wiscasset. I have had a lot of success there in Legend cars. I’m hoping that we can have that same success with the Super Late Model. My last race there was a DNF due to a part failure. I’m hoping to have a solid run to make up for that.”, says Dore.
There is still plenty of room on both #05 machines for bronze level sponsors. These sponsorship’s are $500, which can be paid via payment plan over the course of the next 10 months or paid as one lump sum and will be featured on the cars for the entirety of the season. If a sponsorship plan is not in the cards for you, any and all donations are MORE than appreciated. Please contact Steve Perry directly at 207-229-1449 if you’d like to become involved with Dream Ride Racing in 2019.
We have still raised over $55,000 to date, but we are still working toward our goal of reaching $100,000 by the end of the 2019 Dream Ride Racing season. Please help us in reaching that goal and going above and beyond for the Special Olympics and the Dream Ride Experience.
Thank you to the Wrenn family, Bentley’s Saloon and Kayem Hot Dogs for their support this past weekend.
Our sincerest thank you also goes out to the Bobby Webber, Jr. Racing team, who will be donating $1,000 to Dream Ride if they win their feature race this coming Sunday at Wiscasset Speedway. They are looking for donors to match this and so far, the American-Canadian Tour has agreed to donate $250. If you’d like to help match their efforts, please contact Bobby Webber, Jr.
Catch this week’s episode of Mainely Motorsports to see footage from the Dream Ride Racing team at Lee USA Speedway, where both Steve and Amy were on-site on Sunday and recapped the weekend’s events, as well as footage from all of the feature races.
The show will air on Friday on YouTube and on television at 5 am Saturday morning. You can also follow Mainely Motorsports on Facebook to follow our progress with Dream Ride Racing throughout the course of the season.
We hope to see you at a Dream Ride Racing event in 2019 and we thoroughly appreciate all of your support. See you at Wiscasset!
