Editor’s Note: Holley Hollan, 17, is a rookie in the NOS Energy Drink USAC National Midget Series. From June 5 through June 10, Hollan will be sharing her experiences with SPEED SPORT subscribers while competing during Indiana Midget Week. 

Hollan drives the No. 67k Toyota-powered midget for Keith Kunz Motorsports. Below is her fourth diary entry, recapping Thursday night’s events at Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Ind.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Friday night, our Indiana Midget Week run at Bloomington Speedway wasn’t our best night, but it definitely wasn’t our worst night, either!

I kept learning a lot all throughout the night; Bloomington is high-banked, but it’s really narrow as far as the groove goes and it was really narrow all night long.

I think we made some good laps around the bottom, though, with throttle control and just using everything we’ve learned through the first half of the week. We started out in hot laps, and that was when I really felt the banking the most; it was just steering the car with how much moisture was in the track early on.

As the night kept going, though, and the track slicked off … you just had to slow the car down so much that you really couldn’t use the banking to your advantage to get that launch, for myself at least. Luckily, we were still able to go directly from our heat race into the feature, which is important in USAC.

Sometimes, not qualifying further up works to your advantage, because you start further forward in your heat race, and we had that happen to us after qualifying 17th. That put us starting up front in the first heat, and we eventually ran third to lock into the main, a confidence-builder for me. It worked out for us tonight, but it sucks in some regards too, because a bad qualifying time buries you for the feature.

We eventually found something in the middle of the track as the night wore on. It went away pretty quick, but we knew it was there briefly, which was good. I had already messed with shocks quite a bit at that point, where I was good on the bottom, but the top took rubber completely with about five to go.

At that point, we were stuck where we were. I couldn’t jump up there in the fast lane; I was just way too tight to be able to do what some of the fast guys were doing up high. The top seemed a bit sketchy, and I wanted to make sure I got all 30 laps in, so I played it safe and ran the bottom to the end.

I feel like we made up a little bit of ground, though. We passed some cars, even though we fell back toward the end when the top took rubber. We were just having to enter pretty low just to make sure we were staying in the moisture.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with how things ended up. I wish there had been some more moisture in the track for the heat races and the feature, because I think it would have been a little bit better of a show, but it was OK.

Our goal for Lawrenceburg is to be better in qualifying, and hopefully to draw a little bit better as well. That’s pretty much what messed us up tonight, but we have two more nights to get even stronger.

Hollan’s prior entries can be accessed via the links below:

Entry No. 1: Rough Start For Hollan

Entry No. 2: Heat Win Gives Hollan A Boost

Entry No. 3: Hollan Fights Through Adversity