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Race #9 at Orlando Speedworld
08-13-05
Now that's what I'm talking about! I think we're starting to get things going in the right direction.
My crew chief has been doing the best he can to help get this racing thing sorted out but the truth is, he has never driven one of these cars! So, I did something last night that is so obvious that I'm almost ashamed to tell you about it. I went up to a few of the other drivers and asked them how to shift! Turns out we were all wrong but I learned what I needed to know. It worked so well I started asking them how to turn the car through the turns and what to do coming off the corners. They helped me a lot and they even came over and gave my crew chief a few tips too!
We didn't change a thing on the car since last week except to fix the oil leak. We thought that , since Bronson was more banked than Orlando, we would be tight so we were prepared to loosen the car up if we needed to. We were right! We were really tight and the car didn't want to turn so we took out a little cross and then the man that built the car asked us what springs we had in the rear and he suggested a pretty big change. We were running a very soft 120# spring on the right rear and a 175# spring on the left rear. He suggested we swap them and, since we had a 150# spring in the tool box, to use that on the left. In addition we took a little bit more cross out and went out for our last round of practice. Now the car was pretty loose so we put the cross back and got lined up for the heat race.
Lately, I've been really lucky to pull a good pill and I got the pole for the heat race again. On the start I got a little jump on everyone and lead a couple laps before the caution came out. On the restart I lead them around too slow and I was in the wrong gear so I lugged it up off turn 4 and let 4 cars get by me. The car was still a little loose so I couldn't get off the corners liked I wanted but I did the best I could and got the the 4th position back before the end of the race.
Before the feature we put back in another round of cross and then lined up for the feature. I went over all the things I had to do while I sat on the grid... 8500 rpm on the back stretch before the start, switch gear if I need to. Scrub my tires to get them warmed up . Don't jump the start. Don't shift until I hear the rev limiter. Turn the car in the corners and watch my line. When I come up on a slow car decide what I'm going to do and do it. Man, I was really pumped up.
On the start I just didn't have the pick up and I lost 2 positions on the first lap. Then, I got my rhythm and I came up on the 5th place car in turn one and just drove by him on the bottom. Next was the 4th place car and I was going to pass him on the outside coming off turn 4 but just as I came up on him he got loose and over corrected the car sending himself to the bottom of the track. That gave me all the room I needed to make the pass and from there it was smooth sailing. The problem was that the leaders had checked out and were now a straight away ahead of me. I started digging and the car was almost perfect. I could drive it off the corners as hard as I needed to and for the next several laps I was the fastest car on the track. With 5 laps to go the 33 car lost his clutch and dropped to the bottom of the track while I got ever closer to the 1st and second place car.
With 3 to go I caught up to them and was right on the second place car's tail. The first place car went high and left the door open for us going into turn one but there were 2 lapped cars just a head of us. One went high to give us room to pass but the other stayed in the groove. The timing was good for the leaders but bad for me and I had to lift to get around the cars in the center of the turn. On the next lap the 2nd place car finally got around the leader but this time I wasn't close enough to take advantage. The checkers came out with the 3 of us flying over the start finish line just a few feet apart. It was great race.
Some of the karting experienceI have helps me a lot but some of it is not good at all. In the kart I used to let the kart turn in on it's own and then in the middle of the turn I would bump the wheel a little to turn it the rest of the way in. Then, as I came off the corner I would bump the wheel again to set the kart up to come off. When I had to lift the throttle in the corners, I would pop it a couple times to get the kart going around then get back in the gas again as I came off. In the car both of these techniques are really bad things to do. After I talked to the other drivers I tried turning the wheel more and more as I went around the corner and getting in and out of the gas nice and easy. I think that is what made the difference and why the car was so consistent through out the whole race.
Well, my new motor should be here on Monday and if we can get the wiring harness figured out we will have it in the car at our next race. Hope to see you there!
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