Race #12 at Orlando Speedworld
10-01-05

Man, this is tough! We worked our butts off this week trying to get ready for this race, and then, we got taken out by a chunk of lead!

After our dismal performance at Auburndale, my crew chief got on the phone to the spring and shock company and got some new springs ordered to soften up our suspension a little bit. When they got here on Tuesday we put them on and headed for the track to check out the new set up. I was tight and slow but we keep moving things around and adjusting here and there and finally got the car pretty good.

On Wednesday, my crew chief studied up a little more and we made some more changes. Then, on Thursday night, we went over to New Smyrna Speedway for practice and tried some other things. When we first got there I thought the car felt loose but my crew chief said he just didn't see that at all. It looked to him that in the corner the front tires were further up the track than the rear tires. He thought that would indicate a push but I was sure it felt loose. Finally, he said that he was going to loosen the car up a bunch despite what I said. He changed a spring and some other stuff and I went out and couldn't believe it. The car seemed to come to life! I was a full 1/2 second faster!

We are still not sure what I am feeling but the guess is that I was driving it in too hard and breaking it loose. Also, my car has a ratchet in the rear end where my go-karts always had a solid axle. They tell me that a ratchet will give you a weird "loose" feeling but the car isn't actually loose at all. The combination of these 2 things must really have me confused. My crew chief read somewhere that I should go around the track at half throttle first to see what the steering is and then go full speed and compare it. If I have to turn more, I'm tight. If I turn less, or have to turn in the other direction, I'm loose. I've been working on thinking about that rather than what I feel and it seems to make sense.

We thought we were ready on Saturday. Well, we hoped we were. We got a few rounds of practice in and the car felt awful. My crew chief changed a bunch of stuff again and we kept going out and then he would change more stuff and we would go out again. I just wasn't sure what I was feeling but when we were done with practice we had the car pretty much back to where it was in the beginning and I was comfortable with it. Then, the rain came!

The track promoter said the radar showed that when the storm passed we would be able to get at least the feature races in so we waited for the the storm to pass. Then, they got the biggest cars out there and dried the track off . I have a friend that races a Legend car and his race was before ours so we waited to talk to him before we made any changes. After his race he said that the track didn't seem to change at all. Boy, that was a relief.

I had pulled 5th in the heat but because of the rain we couldn't run the heat so that became our starting order for the feature. I think I have the starts down pretty good now and I started the race right with the leaders. Coming down the front stretch I glanced in my mirror and moved down to make sure that no one got under me. Those 2 things have really been hurting me and this time I did them right. We made one lap but when we got back to turn one a car spun ahead of me so I had to take evasive action. I went up the track all the way to the wall in turn 2 to avoid him and stayed out of trouble. So far so good.

We restarted the race in single file. I have been trying to give myself a little room so that I can start better without running into the car in front of me and killing my momentum. I was set up just perfect but the car in front of me didn't go and I hit him anyway. That made me move up the track as we came out of turn 4 and I let a couple car get under me. About that time parts starting flying off of a car several cars in front of me and everybody sort of went in every direction to avoid hitting them. That opened up the bottom and I dropped down and got the preferred line into turn one. At the center of turns 1 and 2 the car that was falling apart dropped a lead weight right in front of me. It must have bounced under my car and then up into the wheel between the wheel and the lower ball joint. The caused my right front tire to stop which pulled me up into a car on my outside. I spun him out and then continued up into the wall. I tried to steer the car down but the wheel wouldn't budge. When I hit the wall the bolts that hold the steering rack ripped out and now I had no steering at all. I was trying to stop the car as it slowly dropped off the banking and about that time another car clipped my left front tire as I continued to roll down into the infield. When it was all over I had no steering and 2 badly bent up rims. My night was through and they loaded my car on the flat bed and took it to the trailer.

I just keep telling myself that this is a transition year and what we are trying to do is get the bugs worked out for next year. Still, I want to win but I'm not getting discouraged. Even with all the problems we've had, this is still a lot more fun than racing go-karts!