CB3 looks to "Victoria" once again this year at Utica Rome

Once again Chad Brachmann has set his sights on some of the Northeast's biggest prizes in 2011, and his first target was this years Victoria 200. This race is held annually at the Utica Rome Speedway on the Memorial Day weekend and while Brachmann had good luck the previous weekend with "Victoria Day" celebrations at the Humberstone Speedway, this race is a much more difficult task to tackle.

  When you compete with  many of the best modified drivers in the Northeast, all of whom are looking for the $10,000 winners prize, Brachmann would have to step up his game to beat the likes of Brett Hearn, Stewart Friesen, Matt Sheppard, Tim McCreadie and others in order to pocket the full payday. Upon entering the pits CB3 drew 79 as his number (out of the 100 numbers to pull) and would immediately put himself in tough with an 8th starting spot in the 3rd heat of cars. Challenge accepted as the Sanborn NY driver would steer his Mighty Taco number 3 to a second place heat finish and a re-draw starting position for the nights feature event. It would turn out that Brachmann and Todd Burley, another Ransomville Speedway regular would be the only 2 local cars to compete in this event, Brachmann, the only to qualify. To help understand the difficulty in achieving a qualifying position, Brett Hearn did not actually qualify for this race either, and this fine gentleman, is closing in on his 800th career victory this year.

  After the re-draw portion of the event, Brachmann would start the feature in the 3rd position for the feature, and compete with many of the finest until lap 56, when he took the car pitside to change a right rear tire and improve his car's handling. When the green flag fell on the restart, CB3 would continue to drive back to the front and edge his way back toward the top 10, but it just was not to be as Brachmann would finish in the 13th position for the evening, after falling off the lead lap in the closing moments of the race.

  In post race retrospect, Chad feels that this race was "Definately a step in the right direction for the Mighty Taco, Power Trip Beverages team, and we did what we came to do, compete. We had a good car, I could put the car where it needed to be, and we made more progress tonight."

  With a schedule that is far from permanent this year, keep your eyes peeled for this team at your local dirt track, as you never know where or when the Mighty 3 may be. 

  Thanks to Rob at Racers Preferred Models for his assistance with photo's from this event.