Tough Luck in East Bay Winter Nationals

In spite of great challenges, the team still made the Thursday feature.

TAMPA BAY, FL - Over the last weekend of January, Caden Mullinax and Josh Adkins competed in the Crate Racing USA Winter Nationals at East Bay Raceway Park in their first trip to Florida for Speedweeks as a team.

The four-day weekend in Tampa Bay, Florida, started with Wednesday practice at the famed raceway. Going into the weekend both Caden and Josh knew that these races would be a tough test for the cars and a good start to the season no matter the outcome.

East Bay is a flat 1/3-mile track with wide turns and a racing surface that can change from very fast with grip to dry-slick in an instant. This combined with the sandy surface made this track tricky to set up for as it is an uncommon configuration. Another factor in the weekend was the sixty-four car field that would compete to make the twenty-four car race, meaning that forty cars would miss the race each night.

With all this in mind the team hit the track hard for practice with Caden setting a top ten lap time in the first round of late models. Hardships struck early in Caden's second practice session when he broke a shock mount which caused the rest of his day to be mute. Josh's practice sessions went as planned with a car that looked fast when the track agreed with it.

On Thursday, the team unloaded the cars ready for the first of three full feature race nights in Tampa. Out of six groups of ten or eleven cars each Caden was placed in Group two while Josh's number 57 machine was in group six. In qualifying, Caden set down a good lap which landed him fifth in his group and Josh was tight which placed him seventh in his respective group.

Neither driver advanced in their heat races causing both to have to drive in the B-Mains later that night. By the time the heat races came around the track started to slick off and the track became a one lane track around the inside. To the team's advantage, both Caden and Josh would start on the inside lane.

In the first B-Main Josh would start seventh and have a fantastic drive, taking the lead on the second lap and keeping it. This advanced him into the feature and would give the team a great start to the weekend.

In the second B-Main race, Caden started ninth and had an uphill battle to get into the top two spots to advance. After a caution on the first lap, Caden moved up a row and started again seventh. He took advantage of this by gaining four positions on the bottom and moving to third but on the next lap he got loose off of turn one and spun, causing another car to end up on top of his nose and ending his fight for the night.

In the Thursday night feature, Josh Adkins started nineteenth and rode the bottom all the way to tenth during the race before a caution made him restart on the outside. Despite Josh trying to hang onto his spot he would drop back to eighteenth where he would eventually finish.

Friday morning saw the team trying to repair the wrecked front end of Caden's M2 car. After the crew got the car back together Caden found out he would be in group one and Josh would be in group four. These two groups would turn out to be the two toughest groups of the day.

In group one qualifying Caden would lay down the fastest lap of his weekend but would still end up seventh in the group. Josh jumped the cushion on his fast lap attempt and ended up tenth in his group, causing both cars to have to fight for a spot in the feature.

During the heat races both drivers would struggle and finish in the same position that they started in. This meant that both would have to run B-Mains again.

In the first heat race Caden got off to another good start, after dodging a wreck on the first lap, but just as the previous night, he over drove it into turn one and spun in the slick again. It was later found out that one of the bars in his car was in the wrong spot causing his car to be nearly uncontrollable once it reached speed, thus effectively ending his night early.

Josh's heat race was not much better as he had to start in last place during his B-Main. Josh would move forward in his race but his night ended after the B-Main when he failed to advance into the top spots.

After a rough Friday night, the team returned Saturday looking to redeem themselves. After the pill draw, both Caden and Josh were placed in group three, sandwiching the field by being the first and the last to qualify in their group respectively.

Just before Caden approached his qualifying effort, a light rain began but the officials still sent the cars out anyway. This caused Caden to slip on his first and second lap as he was the first car on the now slippery track giving him the eighth quickest lap. Just after his effort the rain stopped, and Josh put in a strong lap landing him fifth in the group.

In the heat race both drivers struggled with traction in the cars and neither advanced forward, finishing sixth and eighth. For the third night in a row, Josh and Caden found themselves in the B-Main struggling to make an incredible drive to get into the feature.

In the B-Main Josh would start seventh and Caden lined up eleventh on the grid. Josh quickly moved into the top five at the start and a spin by Caden in turn one brought out the first caution. This led to multiple consecutive wrecks by other drivers in the grid, effectively moving Josh up to fourth.

After the race finally started back without issue, Josh pulled into third but did not have enough to get into the final transfer spot. He finished third and Caden pulled off the track with a hard-fought ninth.

Though the team only made one out of three features, the lessons learned at East Bay are extremely valuable. Both Josh and Caden went in knowing that these races would be a hard challenge and a hard challenge they got. This looks to set them up nicely for the rest of the season where Mullinax Racing plans to have its biggest season yet.

Updates of the weekend will be found on Mullinax Racing the social media pages where everything will be kept as current as possible. If you want to follow the Mullinax Racing team, make sure you follow the Facebook page or follow us on Instagram @MullinaxRacing.