07/30/2007

Well I think we are very pleased to get through this stretch of the CRA Sportsman schedule that included three races in a row at three completely different race tracks. Reflecting back now, I feel a little disappointed with how we ran at Anderson and somewhat at Winchester. Some bent parts and pieces were discovered on the car after getting frustrated with its performance at those two races. Almost every piece in the right front suspension was bent or damaged in some manner. I was able to replace these pieces before the race at Shady Bowl and it paid off. We weren't, however, able to fix the bent rear end in time so we had to live with that problem one more race. That is surely effecting the performance of the car.

Shady Bowl was very gratifying in the fact that we overcame some unknown problems with the car. Shady Bowl is very unique track that keeps you tuning the entire lap. Brake balance issues become very evident at this track and we had a huge problem. After spinning very easily while racing hard in the heat race under braking going in to turn three, we investigated the brake bias between the front and rear tires. We found we had a problem and after correcting it before the feature race, the car was much more comfortable to drive and I was a lot more confident driving the car very aggressively during the race. The brake fix easily picked us up a few tenths on the track as I was able to drive in to the corners harder without getting loose.

At the start of the race, we moved quickly up to second place. The car was extremely fast and handled great. We had a good race with the leader for a lot of laps, even running side by side for a while. One a restart I attempted a pass low going in to turn one. The leader came down the track and made repeated heavy contact with the whole right side of the car, bending the right front suspension out of alignment. We briefly held the lead before being passed by the eventual race winner. The rest of the race I could not get the car to turn very well all. During post-race checks, it was also found the right rear tire was losing air due to the contact made while racing for the lead. The tire had half the air pressure of what it had when the race started which also made the car very tight.

We will work hard to get the rear end fixed before Winchester.

07/03/2007

I think this weekend went okay. We qualified a respectable 14.413 which put us 18th of 26 cars. The engine wasn't running well at all with the smaller 390 cfm carburetor we were required to use. The engine stumbled down the straightaways most of the day and night even after I made a few adjustments to it. For the most part we were running pretty well, getting up to 13th place at one point, but getting late in the race around lap 80 the transmission started coming out of gear in the center of the corners. This let the leader, Jack Landis, catch up even quicker than he was and rather than risk causing problems for the leaders of the race as I was having to drive with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the car in gear, I just decided to pull off the track.

All in all, I think it was definitely worth the hard work throughout the week to change the car over to get the experience we gained. Even though we didn't run as well as I had hoped, I hope I still left a positive impression and maybe gained some respect of the other drivers. Thanks to Terry Fisher and Jeff and Jason Shively for their help through the week in getting the items I needed to get ready to race. I couldn't have done it without them.

After the race, I learned that the right front brake rotor was glowing cherry red, but the left front was not glowing at all. I am worried we have a brake issue now that will need to be resolved before our next race as this could really cause some handling problems getting in to the corner and premature brake loss in a long race at a track like Anderson or Angola. This will be a busy week with the holiday, but also because I am going to try to investigate some of the problems we had with the car. If I can get done before Saturday afternoon, I plan on going to Baer Field to race as a test session to make sure we are good to go for Anderson.

The next race is the 75 lap CRA Sportsman race in Anderson on Saturday night, July 14. We are looking to return to this track with only one thing in mind, victory.

06/25/2007

This should be an exciting weekend. We are going to attempt to make the show in our very first CRA Super Series race at Angola Motor Speedway this weekend. I'm very excited and anxious about the possibility of racing against the caliber of drivers that compete in the CRA Super Series. Our goal is to run all 125 laps and gain experience running a wider 10 inch slick as opposed to the 8 inch tires I have ran on my entire career. A huge plus would be finishing on the lead lap, but I don't want to get my hopes too high for my first race!

06/11/2007

Victory at last! :) And what a sweet race track to win at. Winchester Speedway is quickly becoming my favorite race track. All the history and great drivers that have competed there really make it a great place to race. The weather was perfect on Sunday and the car was driving very well.

We made a few slight changes throughout the day to tighten the car up a little and to adjust to some minor changes in track conditions. We started the feature race a little too tight for the track conditions at the time, but the car slowly started to come my way as the track got slicker and the right rear tire began to wear out. At the end of the race I was driving the car as hard as I possibly could. We had a great race with Rick Reinhart and eventually I was able to get by for the lead. Shortly after taking the point, I slid a little high one time in to turns 1 and 2 and caught the wall with the right rear. The wall sucked the rest of the car in pretty flat and I was able to continue on without much problem. Then, on the restart after the yellow flag for debris, the transmission came out of gear in the middle of turns 3 and 4 with TJ Fisher right on my tail. I'm really happy that TJ was able to avoid me while I hurried to grab high gear again and keep going. Every time I'd get a little bit of a lead, the yellow would come out and bring the field close again. The race ended with an exciting green-white-checkered flag finish and we were able to stay ahead of TJ for the win.

I want to say thanks to Valvoline for their great products. We were really abusing the engine on Sunday, repeatedly turning 7,400 to 7,500 RPM with our wet-sump, long stroke engine. Winchester really puts engines to the test and our Keith Kolkman engine and Valvoline oil showed they were up to the test and abuse! That engine sure sounded great winding up that high from where I was sitting!

Everyone drove a great race and it just shows again how great of a series the CRA Sportsman class is. Thanks again go to the whole CRA crew for putting these races on... They are so much fun!