Cody Freeman made the trip to Gator Motorplex Saturday night to try and finish his season on a high note. The team has done their best to improve overall throughout the season and seeing him improve over the season has truly been a blast. With major chassis adjustments made by the team, as we are already thinking of the 2014 season, it appeared we finally hit on something. He looked really good in hot laps and he was extremely pleased with the car but it was hot laps and the track was slick, however Cody showed his progression as he diagnosed a mechanical problem instantly when he got out of the car. The crew checked what he thought was an issue and he was spot on. I accredit this to all the time that he has put in this year working on his own car learning. This is where I as his dad have to give him credit. Rarely is there a time where Cody is near his car when it is getting worked on that he isn’t trying to take tool out of your hand wanting to do it his self. He has told me before that he can’t tell me what is wrong with the car if he can’t fix it or know how something is supposed to work.
Cody found himself lining up inside of row 2 in the 3rd position for the heat race. With a great start Cody drove the car hard into turns 1 and 2 staying on the leaders back bumper. I knew when he was coming down the back stretch that we had finally hit on something. Coming down the front stretch the cars were all nose to tail and it was really tight and I knew from Cody’s line he was about to try something and try it early. As he came out of turn 2 he was able to drive his car under the leader on the backstretch and gain the lead going into turn 3. He then held onto the lead for the remainder of the heat race picking up the win. It was great seeing this and made a lot of the hard work worth it. When Cody got to the pits the first person to greet him was his little brother Rustin. You could tell Cody was grinning ear to ear in his helmet and reached the ceremonial checkered flag that you receive for heat race wins out and handed it to his brother and told him it was his. Rustin has not put the flag down yet and I actually thought he was going to sleep with it. This just shows how close the family is and I am proud of him because he knows what that meant to his little brother. Unfortunately we do not know how things would have ended for us because Mother Nature showed up and rained the rest of the event out and we were unable to race the feature.
Thank you to C&J Energy Services, Casedhole Solutions, Frank Henry Equipment, MPM, Team 91 Motorsports, Driver Websites, and East Texas Angel Network for your support throughout the year. Also thank you to all of our friends, family and friends both on and off the track that follow us each week.