WEEK 3~2nd

I ended up with a pretty good finish this last Saturday, second place. I say pretty good because the expectations are high this year, wins! We had a shot at winning the race as there was a caution late in the race, but the car was too damaged from an earlier incident.

Practice.
We had a decent car in practice. This year, I am running on previous weeks race tires for practice. After studying lap times at the end of the week prior I want the car to be in the same range on the clock because it's on the same tires. If the car is quicker on the same tires as previous race then I know we did some good stuff in the shop that week. This week the car was decent in practice, but I wanted it better, as always. The guys went to work.

Qualifying.
I thought we were really slow for qualifying, but we qualified 3rd, about .080 seconds off the pole. When the car is tenths off, it's the car, but when it's hundredths off, that's the driver. I left a tick on the table, we will get it next time.

Heat Race.
I started outside row one. I got a horrible start. Seriously, I lost 2 positions in the first lap and was 4th, but there was a caution early. We had a complete restart, yes! On the second restart I was better, but still lost one spot. After another caution we had a double file restart. I was able to get from 3rd back to 2nd for the finish of the heat. That was a good thing, and built my confidence that we were going to be real good in the main.

Main Event.
In the main we started 3rd row outside because of the 6 car invert. This year the outside stinketh. It really does. It seems, with these tires, you can't drive it in an make it stick, so early in the race I gave up 2 spots. After Naima and James got by me I got right with them. The three of us were marching to the front of the 9 car field.

At some point I was following James underneath another car. James cleared the car, but I was still coming with a head of steam. When we got to turn three the gap closed really quick. The car James had passed came down into my line. I checked up, but it was too late, we hit. I hit him with my right front wheel, immediately the cars handling changed from fast to scary unpredictable.

We had bent the lower control arm, tie rod, and spindle, not to mention broke the fender and right side of the nose. The car was "towed-in" about 1 inch. So imagine driving your street car as fast as you can, but your not sure which way it will respond when it hits the bumps on the road. Sometimes it goes left, sometimes right, but you can never be sure.

Well, that's what it is was like. Coming out of the turns wide open the car would just change direction, unpredictably. Sometimes it would head to the wall, sometimes the inside of the track. Either way it worked the seat of this guy pretty good. We brought the car home in second, and I was pleased because it was hurt. I am very confident a win is right around the corner.

One comment about Evergreen.
It seems like the lap times are getting closer together. There are some guys running some good laps, all through the field. The racing seems good even though there isn't as many cars as all of us would like. But hey, to win at Evergreen a driver has to beat some fast cars. No matter what week it is. My win is coming soon.

Thanks to my guys for another fun weekend. It's always fun to be at the track.