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View From the Driver's Seat
Tonight's race
was pretty exciting from the driver's point of view and we hope the fans
had a great time, too. We liked how the car handled the last two
weeks, but with the rains and luck of the draw on starting position, we
just hadn't been able to use what we had to full advantage.
This week the
rains held off and we started the heat race on the outside front
row. When the green flag flew, we were able to tuck in behind the
leader immediately. Midway through the 8 lap race, we ducked under
the leader and took the lead the rest of the way to the checkered
flag.
Our lap times, however, were slowing instead of
getting faster and the right rear tire was breaking loose coming out of
the turns. We decided to make a small adjustment to the set up and
replace the rear tire for the feature since this set of tires had
been on the car for the last five weeks and had a lot of laps on them.
When the line up for the feature was posted, we
were on the pole. We took the field to the green, but the outside car
didn't start with us and we had to do it over again. After taking the green
we held the lead for 11 laps and had built about a half a straight lead
on the field. Then a couple of cars tangled back in the
pack. We kept the lead through the restart and through lap
16. The #12 car attempted to pass on the bottom of the fourth turn
and ended up spinning us out when he came back on the track from the
grassy infield. His car came to rest on top of our left front tire
and suspension.
After track crews lifted his car off, we fired up,
took our place on the point and restarted the race, while the #12 was
sent to the back. From that point on, it was green flag racing to
the checkered flag. The #96 gave us a run but we held him off and
took our first feature checkered flag at Sunshine Speedway.
After the race we found significant damage to
the left front suspension. The shock was bent and locked up, but
we also found a bent spindle, ball joints, center link and lower control
arm. We'll make repairs and be ready for the 50 lap Open Wheel
Modified Championship next weekend. Even the damages couldn't
erase the team's smiles in the winner's photo. |
