This day at the racetrack had more up and downs then a rollercoaster.
Finally it all came together this past weekend at Motor-Mile, all though the finish might not reflect it. Myself and our crew chief Jody Lavender spent a bunch of time going through the car this past week and trying to make the car better after our most recent test. We wanted to improve our bumpsteer a tad, but more then anything we have been working on getting the front end to travel more, making sure there were no binds in the front end, and making sure our front end geometry was correct.
We arrived at the track and we had a game plan of changes we wanted to try throughout practice. The car ended practice being 15th on the sheets, but we never really made a qualifying run, which would end up hurting us in qualifying. but we ended up running 16.5's on our 140 lap old tires. The track slowed down in qualifying and we ran a 16.6 which put us 15th yet again. In typical USARacing Pro Cup fashion the pole-sitter ran a time of 16.3, only three tenths separated 15th to 1st, extremely close field.
The race started and we hovered right around the 13th mark for about the first 50-60 laps, but once everyone started getting laps on their tires the car just came to life. Soon we worked our way in to the top ten and then to the top 5. In-fact we were running third with 100 to go. The car was really good. During one of the restarts we got hit from behind which pushed up out of the groove and we fell back to 6th. With only ten cars left on the lead lap we decided to come to pit road and take on some new rubber to see if we could make a run to the front with it.
We restarted with close to 80 to go in tenth and I couldn't believe it, a lapped car dumped us getting into turn one. I had to slam the throttle to the mat to keep it off the wall. But I couldn't get the engine to re-fire, which put us a lap down. We battled back and got the lucky-dog and restarted back in tenth, with twenty to go. But ever since we were spun the car didn't just act the same. So we ended up finishing tenth. But to make matters worse coming out of turn four to take the checkered someone had lost a right rear axle and laid down a ton of gear grease on the track. I couldn't slow down in time and ran right through it, and it pushed the car right into the outside fence. So today we have spent our Sunday tearing apart the car and seeing what was bent. It junked the right front rim, and lower control arm. We have already had a guy over from Leavitt Racing to make for certain that we didn't bend the front-clip. I think we will escape with just a new center-link, lower control arm, and right front fender.
All in all, I think we have turned the corner on this new chassis. The winner Gordon was turning laps in the 3's and we were in the 4's before we spun. It was the first time that the car was fun to drive. We have got the car to where it will run in the top 5. Now we just need to keep working on it and get it to where it will lead some laps and start bringing home some top 5 finishes, and who knows maybe even a victory.