Shane Murphy had every reason to feel optimistic about the 2011 stock car race season.
Fourth in the street stock points derby last year in the Prince George Auto Racing Association, Murphy was thinking maybe this would be his year to take a run at his first points championship.
But instead of ruling the roost, Murphy's law has dictated much of his racing season. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
"We took a step backwards this year for sure," said Murphy. "We made some changes over the off-season, both of which we thought would make us faster. We put a new motor in and expected that would make a big difference. My old motor needed some work and I didn't have a spare, so it made some sense to invest the money. We were really hoping for a bigger difference right out of the box, but we've been told it takes a bit of time sometimes to break a new motor in."
Aside from tweaking their engine regularly, Murphy and his chief mechanic John Murchison have been experimenting with car chassis geometry. One those changes to the suspension actually slowed them down because they did not make a corresponding adjustment to the steering setup to prevent the car from pointing left when it's turning right. After a few worn-out driver's side tires, they think they've finally figured that out.
"Each time we've gone to the track, over the course of the day, John has been able to tune the car and make it faster, but we've had some bad days this year," Murphy said. "The last race, the motor did begin to feel and look like it was coming into its own, so I wasn't getting outraced down the straightaways at the end of the day as badly as I was at the beginning of the day."
Murphy, a PGARA board member, hopes he'll have all the bugs worked out this weekend as PGARA Speedway hosts the two-day Mr. G Street Stock and Mini Stock Invitational meet.
"I'm gathering up some good tires so I'll have all the tires I need to be competitive at the Invitational, maybe not capable of winning, but certainly capable of being competitive," said the 39-year-old Murphy. "We're working our butts off. This last race day, the tires looked as fresh as they did when we started the race day and we were quite competitive in the main event."
A winner-take-all cash payout of $2,000 is up for grabs for the street stock driver who racks up the most points in the two days of racing. Last year, Paul Tron of Penticton was the big winner. Drivers from Penticton, Merritt, Agassiz, Quesnel, Williams Lake, Dawson Creek and Hythe, Alta., will be among a field of at least 20 expected to pay their $50 entry fees in the street class this weekend. Another $2,500 will be paid out to the street stock drivers on a per point basis.
"Nobody pre-registers but we had 20 cars in the streets and 20 in the minis last year and I'm thinking we should be able to beat that," said PGARA president Chris Arronge. "We're allowing them to run their hometown rules [on car specifications] but guys with a little bit more motor than us will have a 75-pound weight penalty. When we got rid of the thunders and hobby stocks and put them together we wrote the rules so the they would be really close to the rest of the province.
"Last year our fastest street stock was one-thousandth of a second slower than the fastest out-of-town street stock. It was really close racing and it was excellent."
The minis are racing for a $1,500 total cash purse. Billy Bell of Agassiz was the top mini driver in last year's PGARA Invitational.
For the first time season, the hornet class drivers will be racing for bucks. Falcon Contracting has stepped up sponsor the rookie racing class.
Qualifying starts tonight at 6 p.m.,with racing at 7. Sunday's time-ins are at 1 p.m., with races to follow at 2 .
