Race #15 at South Georgia Motorsports Park
10-22-05

What an interesting couple of weeks. We have sure had a tough time but at least I finished the race this week!

After we lost our drive shaft at Waycross we came home and took the right side of the bodywork off so that we could easily get to the area where the drive shaft was supposed to be. We took the drivers compartment out and beat it flat again and put it back in. The holes were still there but they weren't very big and my new fire extinguisher covered up the biggest one. Then, we got some new drive shaft hoops made and I welded them in place while we waited for the drive shaft to get repaired.

There is really no place to weld the drive shaft hoops to unless we put them in at sort of an angle because the frame rails that are under the drive shaft cross and run diagonally from front to back. We got this idea that we could make them bigger and put them in diagonally too. It was a good idea but we really needed the front hoop to be wider because it ran kinda close to the drive shaft. My crew chief talked to several people and they didn't seem to think it was problem so on Wednesday before the race we headed down to Orlando to make sure everything was alright and get a little practice.

We made all of 3 laps when the drive shaft came out again. This time it came up through the floor and busted my fire extinguisher open which let out a burst of white powder all over the inside of my car. I spun backwards but got it stopped before I hit the wall and then rolled down to the apron and got out of the car. My crew chief saw the white powder of the fire extinguisher and thought I had blown the motor but when I rolled to the apron, what was left of the drive shaft was sitting there on the track so he knew what had happened. What we didn't figure was the amount of body roll the car had as it went into the corner. When the car rolled over on the right side the new drive shaft hoop hit the drive shaft and knocked it out of the car. This time the damage was a lot worse than before. The only thing was we had a little experience this time so we were able to repair the car by Friday night and had the drive shaft back in on Saturday morning in time to make it to the race.

South Georgia Motorsports Park is a brand new race track near Valdosta, GA and it is beautiful. Everything is top notch including the staff. We had about an hour to spare before practice started so I went around the track several times in the golf kart looking at where the rubber was down trying to get an idea where I should set my marks. When we got the call to go out for practice I made a few laps to get a feel for how much I should have to turn the car in the corners and then they gave the green flag to run some hot laps. I made about three laps and was entering turn 3 up a little bit where I though I needed to be and I got the car real loose and almost wrecked it. After than I wasn't sure if I could feel the front end anymore and I thought maybe I had broken something in the steering box so I decided to cut practice short and head to the trailer to check it out. We looked over everything but found nothing wrong except that maybe, after all the problems I have had lately, I might be a little too apprehensive about the car breaking!

Things went much better in the second practice. I was really focused on how much I was turning the wheel rather than what I was feeling and I had to turn right as much as I was turning left to get though the corners. I don't like to turn right because that's how I wrecked the car the first 2 times but when I came in and talked to my crew chief he explained to me that nudging the steering wheel to help the car up off the corner would make me faster and that I really needed to get comfortable with driving the car up off the corner like it was. I went out and watched some of the really fast cars and I noticed how they sort of hang the rear end out coming up of the turns and then it clicked what I needed to do.

One bit of luck I still have is being able to draw a good pill number. I drew the pole for the heat race again! I got a good start too but I missed the shift going into turn one and slowed up a bunch letting 6 cars get past me before I could get things going again. Sitting in 7th, way back from the 6th place car, I ran the best I could and tried to do what the late models were doing while I got used to the track. I wasn't able to catch the 6th place car but I think I ran pretty good considering that, even though I was trying to slide it up off the corners, it was just too loose and I wasn't comfortable getting back in the gas as hard as I needed too.

With the car still in one piece, I have to tell you that I was very relieved! Now I could concentrate on all the things I have to do just to drive the car. We discussed just how loose I really was and the changes we had made in the past that had messed the car up. We were also a little low on RPM but we thought that we could get some of that back if we made the car better. We went over it and over it and decided to just put a little cross in the car and go down a little bit on the panhard bar. Well, it seemed like a little bit to us! But, it was still too much.

In the race I did a lot better start this time. I was right on the 6th place car but he was running a real low line to keep me behind him. After about 3 laps I had to go so I drove it into turn 3 real hard and tried to beat him off the corner but he sort of stopped right in the middle of the turn and I had to jump in the brakes to avoid taking him out. That got me loose so I had to drive up the track to save it and lost about 100 feet and all my momentum. I ran him back down in 2 laps and this time I drove in real easy and when he parked it in the corner I got back on the gas to go under him. He held the car down and I ran into the back of him to move him up the track a little so I could go under. I passed him at the flag stand and them set my sites on the fifth place car. I caught him in 3 laps and, when we came off turn 2, I was going to go high around him because he was running low all the way around the track but I got a little better bite coming off then I thought, or he got a little worse one than I thought he would, and I clipped him as I went to his outside. It was a light touch, just enough for him to know I was there, and he gave me the position.

At lap 10 the caution came out when the leaders spun in turn 4. When we lined up I was in 3rd but I was back a little too far. I didn't expect the leaders to take off like they did in turn 3 because they told us in the drivers meeting that the flag man would start the race in turn 4. I was going to lay back a little and try to anticipate the start but they started early and they took off and left me. The leaders than spun were way faster than the rest of us and they blew by me on lap 13. So, I finished the race in 5th.

I finished the race! You would of thought I won if you saw my crew chief! It really felt good to have the car working well even though we did tighten it up a little too much... Again! The set up in the car would have been great in the heat but it started to get pretty tight after the caution came out. I made a few mistakes on my own too. I forgot that I could turn the brake bias towards the front a little when the car was loose in the beginning laps and I forgot that I could downshift to a lower gear if I wasn't getting enough RPM at the end of the straight aways. Hey, I was busy! But, it was still really fun and I'm happy with a 5th place finish.

I looked at the points for the year and it turns out that, no mater what happens in the last race, I will finish out the year in 4th place. Actually, that looks a lot better than the year we actually had so I'll take it though had things gone a little better I think I could have finished in 3rd. The good thing is I can race in this series until I'm as old as my crew chief, or at least until we get it right, so I'll never get discouraged.