Joseph Joiner and the Hunt the Front team aptly described their Wednesday night with the FloRacing Night in America series as “frustrating.”
The team explained in a post to social media that it stemmed from issues at the beginning of the night with deck height infractions, “Frustrating night at Eldora. 👎 We were one of several teams that had right-side deck height infractions before qualifying, which meant Joseph had to go out at the end of Group A and only got one lap. By then, the track had slowed down nearly a second from the start of the session and we ended up 32nd.”
As the Hunt the Front team shared Ryan Gustin and Jeff Roth also had tech violations before qualifying in Group A, which limited them to just a single qualifying lap and regardless of the what the lap was they could start no better than fourth in their heat race. FloRacing’s Ben Shelton explained during the broadcast last night, “You get one lap and the best you can start in a heat is fourth. So that tells you between the time they got tech’d and the time they made their way over to tech for qualifying, the pre-race tech, the numbers weren’t the same. … Again, there was a lot of dimensions checked on these bodies back in tech, those three drivers apparently had something out of whack.”
With only a single lap in qualifying and the track slowing down, the team was way behind and even described the night as “pretty much shot.” Nevertheless, they decided to take the opportunity to due some testing, “the guys decided to use the remainder of the evening as a chance to try a few things that might help us later in the week while also making sure we didn’t do anything that risked tearing up the car. We finished 12th in both our heat race and B-Main.”
Despite the early setback, the team is confident heading into the 32nd Annual Dirt Late Model Dream, “We’re still confident in our Horsepower Hydration Longhorn, and the team was able to put a few things in the notebook that may prove valuable when it matters most. We’ll take tomorrow off, regroup, and get ready to start fresh for our Dream prelim night on Friday.”
There is definitely quite a bit of reason for the team to be confident. Before they headed to Eldora they made two stops with the Northern Allstar Late Model Dirt Series at Bloomington Speedway and Brownstown Speedway this past weekend. The team picked up the win both nights. The Saturday night race at Brownstown was a classic as Joiner found himself in a 4-car battle for the lead earlier in the night with Jason Jameson, Adam Stricker, and Trevor Landrum. He then held off Jason Jameson in an exciting duel in the closing laps to get the win.
Joiner said after winning at Brownstown, “I can’t believe it. Two nights of this. To come up here and do this. Getting ready for Eldora next week this is-. I never would’ve thought we could come up here and get both of these and have a good weekend as we have. We ain’t torn nothing up. This is just great. Praise the Lord. I can’t believe it.”
As the Hunt the Front team noted, Joiner will not compete tonight in the first preliminary night. Instead, he will compete on Friday night in his Horsepower Hydration Longhorn powered by Clements. Joiner will not be competing tonight because the Dirt Late Model Dream format sees the 87 car field split in half with one group racing tonight and the other racing on Friday night. Each night will feature a complete racing program with qualifying order selected by random draw. Drivers will then take on hot laps and qualifying. The heat races are different from your typical standard program in that they will be inverted. After the heats there will be B-Features and then the 50-Lap $30,000 to-win A-Feature.
On Saturday, there will be six heat races that are seeded through the track’s Every Lap Matters points system that is based on the preliminary nights and then inverted based on the spin of the track’s Wheel of Misfortune. There will then be two B-Features and finally the Dirt Late Model Dream.
The Every Lap Matters points system awards drivers points based on how they qualify, where they finish in the heat races, and how they finish in the feature. Points are also awarded to the first 10 cars that do not qualify for the feature. Here’s how the point system breaks down:
Multi-Car Qualifying: the field will be split into two flights for Multi-Car Qualifying (Flight 1 & 2). Each flight earns points separately for their results – 1st) 100; 2nd) 98; 3rd) 96; 4th) 94; 5th) 92; 6th) 90; 7th) 88; 8th) 86; 9th) 84; 10th) 82; and balance of field decreases by 2 points per position.
Heat Races: 1st) 100; 2nd) 97; 3rd) 94; 4th) 91; 5th) 88; 6th) 85; 7th) 82; 8th) 79; 9th) 76; 10th) 73; 11th) 70; 12th) 67; 13th) 64; 14th) 61; 15th) 58; 16th) 55; 17th) 52; 18th) 49; 19th) 46; 20th) 43
Last Chance Showdowns: first 10 cars not advancing from any LCS) 222; 219; 216; 213; 210; 207; 204; 201; 198; 195 and balance of field decreases by 3 points per position.
A-Features: 1st) 300; 2nd) 297; 3rd) 294; 4th) 291; 5th) 288; 6th) 285; 7th) 282; 8th) 279; 9th) 276; 10th) 273; 11th) 270; 12th) 267; 13th) 264; 14th) 261; 15th) 258; 16th) 255; 17th) 252; 18th) 249; 19th) 246; 20th) 243; 21st) 240; 22nd) 237; 23rd) 234; 24th) 231; 25th)228; and 26th)225
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