Nashville… Our First Top 10!
Not everyday you get the chance to go to Nashville. I have only been there a few times in my life and every time it has not disappointed; especially when you get the chance to race at such a historic track.
The day started early at 8AM for our team. Normally this is not an issue, but when your actual race is not until 8:30 PM, the long day is noticeable. When I arrived I got the chance to get the final touches put together with the team. We had some adjustments made to the car before it hit the track, but I got the final touches of being fitted into the car that morning. We were a bit off on where I want the car to be set up for me to drive, but nothing aggregious or unsafe by any means.
Putting the car though tech and inspection was uneventful. We only had a few minor adjustments to make to the car to make it legal. What I did note, and what was brought up to me is that I was the only driver pushing my car through tech. I found that strange that I was the only one doing that, and the other teams/drivers found it strange that I was doing that. I guess all those years running on the Dirt and taking care of all my equipment showed. It was a team effort and if the team had to move the car then I was going to be there to help move the car. As far as I’m concerned the car does not move, or is not steered/driven by anyone else but me that day. Maybe I’m old school in that regard.
The practice sessions were good and it was critical as we found a few other issues that needed to be resolved. It was the perfect time to really wring out the car on the track and make adjustments. Usually when I get into the car I have to loosen it up to fit my style, but in this case it was the opposite during practice. We actually found that every car was loose off of turn 3 so we had to make some adjustments to account for this problem. We also found a small issue with the throttle cable and the car also cut out twice on me in practice which we felt was the car jumping out of 4th gear and we made adjustments to fix the problem. All in all, I wish I had more time and more laps put in for practice, but we found out that practice and qualifying were going to be the same session right before practice started so we lost valuable time making big swings at the car, as well as, putting on fresh stickers to qualify on. For the handful of laps I did, and the changes we made to the car, it was getting better but we were still searching for the right spot and the car had now become a bit to tight. All in all we knew where we stood at the end of qualifying, placing 15th for the start of the race.
The race itself was amazing. The 200 laps seemed like they took forever, and with only one caution, it really wears you down. It is hard to describe what these races do to a driver. That long of a race, pushing yourself and a car as hard as you can will wear you out. I lost roughly 10 lbs that race, and I felt about the same as I did after I ran my first half marathon. It kicked my butt, but in a good way. The Peloton and I will become more friendly with one another immediately.
During the race, within the first 75 laps the car again cut out on me multiple times. We were trying to diagnose the issue as I was racing. I could restart the car in 3rd gear, race a bit, get it back into 4th to start pushing myself and the pace a bit more and then out of nowhere it would die again. Finally, as we started to talk about bringing it to the pits, my awesome crew chief told me to switch the ignition box to the alternate one and that fixed it. The whole time it was an ignition issue, and if we had 20 more laps in practice I know we would have figured that our before the race even began. Its racing… its what happens sometimes with high performance machines out on the track. I’m glad we were able to figure it out and able to finish the race. We did not finish as well as we had hoped, but considering all those issues… we still found a way to lock in my first TOP 10 finish!. I’ll take it!. As a team we worked really hard to continue that race, and worked well as an organization to keep pushing forward. It didn’t look that way on TV, but with everything we were dealing with it was a win for us. It tough being in the position to be running your own race out there due to some of the issues we face, but in the end we finished the race, logged great seat time on a short track, pushed hard, ran clean lines, ran decently consistent lines, and brought the car home in one piece. Hard to beat that for sure.
Bonus: we got the Reese’s Sweet Move Of The Race Award! Huge thanks to everyone who voted! In short, the one caution occurred right in front of me as the #60 and #10 got into one another. I made a 1/4 second decision to quickly react and put the car out of harms way. What could have turned into a multi-car incident, turned out to be just the #10 sideways on the track and my car coming out of it clean.