Todd Hansen just has to pass cars. Passing cars is just an obsession with him. His drive at MIS this past Friday once again demonstrated that obsession.

MIS was only his second race in a newly obtained car. It was also only the first time that he had a chance to practice on the fast 2 mile oval. Thus, with no provisionals, Todd just barely made the show, qualifying 32nd.

When the pace laps began Todd realized that his steering wheel was not exactly as he wanted it and he stopped on the track to adjust it. Being new to ARCA Todd was not aware of the rule that does not allow stopping on the track on pace laps. He was penalized and sent to the rear of the field. That put him 42nd in the field.

When the green flag fell Todd went about his obsession. He moved from 42nd to 11th on the scoreboard. That means that he passed 31 cars plus all of the lapped traffic. It was fun to watch. He actually got up to 9th but lost 2 positions on a last lap restart.

Todd's performance at MIS was better than that at Nashville the week before where he started 28th and finished 10th. He realizes that he needs to qualify better or sooner or later he will miss the cut. The ARCA fields are very large and very competitive and only 32 cars make it on time. On to Milwaukee.

The largest ever ARCA field contended for a chance to start at The Nashville Super Speedway on Saturday April 15th for the PFG Lester 150. This race was run in conjunction with a NASCAR Busch race on Easter weekend.

With 70 cars entered and waiting in line for tech, practice was half over before Todd even hit the track. Todd and his crew have just begun their ARCA career and knew it would be a challenge to qualify for this event. Going into his first race they had to make set up decisions on their own. Todd tried a few changes that ultimately did not work and the car had a severe push. The crew made a number of changes to remedy the push but none of them worked and the practice session ended.

Qualifying commenced and with the number of changes that had been made, Todd did not know what the car would do. Todd cinched up his belts and cut two laps that put him 8th on the grid. Todd's crew was ecstatic, only the top 32 would make the show on qualifying time, the rest of the field is filled with provisionals which Todd did not have.

In qualifying the car still had a push, but the entire field was impounded leaving them no opportunity to make adjustments. When the race began, Todd was able to always run in the top 10 and for a time was a high as 5th place. Fuel calculations indicated that one pit stop would be enough if it was later in the race. Todd's all volunteer crew made their first ARCA pit stop around lap 40 and pasted expectations. The crew performed remarkably and made no mistakes and Todd rejoined the field in good position for the run to the checkered.

Following the pit stop Todd was constantly in heavy traffic dealing with lapped cars as well as battling for position. A late caution mandated a green-white checkered and when all was said and done, Todd had an impressive 7th place finish in his first ARCA start.

The teams that finished ahead of Todd are highly funded teams with more experience. The Hansen Race Team is very proud of their accomplishment. The team has neither the funding nor the equipment for the next two ARCA races but will be preparing for the Kentucky race on May 13th.