Lucky 7 Sportsman Race
New Smyrna Speedway
06-27-09 - VIDEO

According to my crew chief we had a great night.  You may have heard the old saying, "Anytime you can roll the car back in the trailer it's a good night..." That's what he thinks.  For me a "Great Night" is one that includes a trip to victory lane... (more...)

To be honest with you, I'm sort of baffled.  The Lucky 7 Sportsman car sure has given us a workout but last night that car was awesome. We've got the car pretty balanced now and it turns great and comes up off the corner like a rocket. I know I have a good motor too but I am just getting smoked down the straight-aways.

I keep thinking about how I could maybe use less brake entering the corner but I really only have my foot on the pedal for a short time and its really sort of there just in case I need it.  Then I think maybe I could get back to the throttle a little sooner or harder but I gain on the cars in the corners not only on entry but coming off the corner too.  It just keeps coming back to the fact that these 2 cars I can't seem to keep up with are only faster that I am down the straight-aways.

The race had to be pretty boring to the fans.  I started on the pole and was in second before I got to the first turn.  On the second lap I just moved over and let the next car go by because he was all over me and I knew I couldn't hold him off for 23 more laps. So, on the 3rd time past the flag stand I was comfortably in 3rd place with no one pressing me from behind as I watched those 2 cars pulled away from me a little bit more each lap.

At about half way, the first and second place cars switched places and after that they must have realized how badly they were stinking up the show because they both slowed down about a half a second a lap. Or, they may have started the race on new tires and that could have caused their laps times to drop off too.  My tires were pretty wore out to begin with and my lap times stayed about the same from the beginning of the race to the end.

I drove my butt off every lap and I thought I was catching the second place car a little there at the end but at the checkers I was about a half a lap down to the winner. It might have been a much different race if we would have had a caution and been able to tighten the field up there at the end.

Well, I've got next weekend off and then we have a 50 lap race coming up on July 11th. I always get new tires for a race that long and I'm going to call around and see if I am missing something on my motor so maybe I'll be in the hunt at the end next time.