MOTHER NATURE WINS!!!
ST LOUIS – The heading says it all!! Unfortunately for both racers and fans, Mother Nature did not cooperate over 
the weekend and ensured that cars remained in the ready but not racing state. Jake and the Allstar Dodge Challenger NFC team were one of the featured cars at Gateway Motorsports Park on Saturday, 9 May as part of the 2nd annual St. Louis Nitro Rendezvous and were looking forward to entertaining the home town fans with heads up racing against the Kansas City based, Metal Mafia Nitro Altered car and team. Some classes were able to make qualifying runs on Friday before weather forced the events cancellation late Saturday afternoon but we were not able to.
“The car was as ready as its ever been. We were ready to try a few new things in the car’s setup and tuning to address a few gremlin’s that bothered us at the end of last season but that’s just going to have to wait until the next event,” said Jake. “What’s really cool is despite the weather, we had a great turnout of our fans and sponsors….really shows their support and commitment to me and my team. I can’t say thank you enough, it really does matter.”
Although no passes were made for the records, the team, family, fans and fellow racers made the best of the situation by enjoying the hospitality of food and beverages provided by our great sponsors. Dave Townsend, owner of Hot Rod Grillers and with NuWay Construction prepared and served up the area’s best BBQ (in my humble opinion) provided by Dave and Teresa Baer with Kodiak Equipment. Since racing wasn’t going to be possible, we and Metal Mafia team did fire up the cars as we normally would prior to a race and treated the fans to some “nitro and noise” which they deserved. We enjoyed the company of representatives from Victory Performance, Hotshots Bar and Grill and Dave Zientara of David Zientara Racecraft. We had the privilege of meeting for the first time, Kevin Petty, Regional Representative of Liquid Nitro Beverages who had dropped by to say hello.
Thanks to Tom Luebbert and Dave Groen, here are links to videos and photos taken throughout the wet weekend.
