Man, it's been a hot minute since I updated the blog. Sorry about that! Things got pretty busy there for a while. Let's see if we can recap everything that ahs happened since my last post!
After our last race we started preparing for Ashley's return to South Sound Speedway in the #92 Mini Stock on July 2nd. She had a great run, getting better and better as the night went on, and she even got in there and started mixing it up with some other cars. I'm super proud of the improvements she has made. 😎
From there we quickly turned around for our race date in the Vintage Modified last weekend, July 9th. We didn't really have enough time to properly prepare the car, since between myself and Ashley we were racing back to back to back weekends. So we returned to South Sound Speedway with the same car we left there with previously. 😕
Early practice showed that the car wasn't great, still tight in the middle like it was before. As we tried to adjust for that, it started getting loose in. So at some point we had to find a compromise. We never really could get on top of it before qualifying and we ended up 7th out of 12 cars. That's not great, but it's also not bad. The bigger problem was, it wasn't really a car I was comfortable driving. Before the Heat Race Pops decided to just go crazy on it before qualifying, putting it up on the setup blocks and changing a bunch of stuff. I think we changed both ends of the panhard bar, one end of the top link, one end of the RR trailing arm and the entire RR shock and spring. Yeah, that should make it different! 😲
We missed the fast heat by one spot, putting us as the fastest car in the slow heat. So, on the one hand, you're starting dead last of 6 cars with 8 laps to do "something". On the other hand, you are the fastest car in that field, so you should be able to put on a show!
For whatever reason, the guy who was supposed to line up right in front of me refused to take his spot on the paced laps, so I took it. This put me starting 4th, that's better, I guess. When the green flag came out the pole sitter got a good jump. I cleared the guy inside of me before the flag stand and the guy starting in front of me pushed up really bad in the first turn. I jumped under him and squirted out the other side in 2nd and started chasing down that leader. It took just one more lap to catch him and make a pass and from there it was just a smooth run to capture my first checkered flag of the season. I know, it was just a heat race, it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. But it does mean points, which we drastically need, and it does provide a moral boost to both myself and my guys, which we needed more than anything.
It's a funny thing. I heard NASCAR driver Corey LaJoie talking about it this week too. When you spend years driving a race car, having bad luck and basically getting kicked in the teeth every week, you start to question your ability, you start to question everything. Self confidence is difficult to find, but easy to lose. When things always go wrong, you start looking for where it's gonna go wrong. It's been a very long time since I had a car that could compete strongly. It's been a long time since I've had a racing evening where nothing went wrong or bad luck didn't jump up and bite me. Little things like a heat race win are where you need to focus to regain that confidence. It's a long road, but it was a firm step in the right direction.
Setting our sights on the Main Event, we lined up 5th in a field of 12, inside 3rd row. Not a great place to start, considering that the four cars in front of me were a sizable amount slower than me, and certainly slower than the bulk of the cars behind me. This field is interesting. There's four or five cars that are all within a couple tenths of a second of each other. Then there's a sizable gap of a little over half a second back to the rest of the pack. So you can be a tenth faster than that second group and look really fast, until those fast guys come out and run three tenths faster than you. That was the reality I knew between the cars in front of me and the cars behind me. I was in that "no man's land", the gap between the two groups. I had to hope I could clear those guys in front of me quickly, run like crazy and hope the car was better than it had been all day.
Things started unfolding on the pace laps, as the entire front row moved over and dropped to the back. This moved everybody up one row, putting me starting 3rd now. It also meant one less car I needed to clear before I ran for my life. On the flip side, one less car for the fast guys to clear too. At the drop of the green I set the car into turn one and the new leader parked much faster than I thought he was going to. I drilled him in the back bumper a bit harder than I would have liked to, and for that I apologize. You caught me off guard and my car was carrying a LOT more momentum. The bump sent him up the track a half a groove and I cut the wheel hard left and stood on the gas, knowing that the fast guys would if I didn't. Suddenly I found myself entering turn 3 in the lead as my spotter called out "Clear! Clear!" Yeah man, I'll take it!
From there, as I came off turn 4, I heard the magic words "Clear by 3, Clear by 4, Driving away! Now clear by 8!" I settled in to a groove, did my best to relax, find some composure and just try to run good, consistent laps. I'm gonna admit, in side that helmet I was freaking out because "Holy shit I'm leading laps!!!!" 🤣 It's a difficult thing to calm down in these moments. It's literally been since 2008 that I led laps in a racecar and had any chance of contending for a win. But here I was, setting the pace out front! I say "setting the pace", but I'll be honest, I was flat out running for my life, because I knew once those fast guys broke free of that traffic jam, they were coming for me. And eventually they did. But not before I started lapping cars. Yeah man, I was LAPPING CARS!!! 😎
Lapped traffic is interesting. You never know how hard they are gonna fight you. This day, they chose to put up a bit of a struggle, not exactly stepping aside but not exactly blocking either. It took me a second to find an opening and drive underneath to clear them, and as soon as I did, they just rolled over and let everyone else by. Dang it! Why can't you hold up the guys chasing me like you did me?!?!? This put the fast guys right on my bumper, and setting the car into turn one I made the mistake. I was far too worried about them being right on me and I put it in way too deep, causing the car to push up in the middle and when it did, they darted under me. Once the train had gone by I settled back in, now in 4th place, and tried to get back to a good smooth rhythm. My spotter was telling me to keep an eye on those guys, because they were getting a little pushy. Almost immediately, they crashed and one of them went around. I made it through the wreck unscathed and found myself restarting 2nd. Restarting on the outside isn't great, but at this point I was just looking to bring it home respectable. The fast guys had caught me, now it was a matter of finishing this thing out with a decent finish.
On the restart, I got a decent jump off turn 4 and my spotter almost immediately called out "Clear!" From there I settled into 2nd place behind the leader and got back to running laps. I will say, somehow during the caution period I managed to shift my position in the car and from that point on, nothing felt right. I don't know what I did, but my hand and arms just weren't right. Whatever, just drive the car Tim. It didn't take long for the other fast guys to start making their way by me. Luckily there wasn't that many laps left, and in the end I came home 5th out of 12, right where I started.
I think the caution period was just enough to let my air pressures get a bit off and they never really came back to me. The car was getting tight in the middle the longer the race went on, but the caution period really exaggerated that and once we went back to green I just couldn't hold them off the same way I could before. Several drivers told me "If it hadn't been for that caution, I'm not sure I would have got you."
In the end it was a great run for us. I'm super excited about it and we needed it. It was also a good points day for us, but to be honest, it's hard to make any in-roads on the standings because even if you have a good day, the guy you are battling with in the points was only one or two positions behind you. Honestly, the bulk of the points work is done in qualifying and the heat race, the main events mean very, very little. On this day I managed to gain a little ground, but not a lot. I gained 7 points on Eric Lee in the 18L, pulling me to 42 points behind him now. I also gained 7 points on Logan Cole, moving to just 3 points behind him. We still sit in 9th place in the overall standings, Eric in 6th and Logan in 8th. We're also 166 points back of the points leader from our previous 148, for those keeping track. I think we only have 5 races left, so we're seriously running out of time. I'm beginning to reconcile myself to the fact that we're simply racing for a top-10 trophy at this point. Rookie of the Year is probably not going to happen. But to be honest, I'd like to snatch a win if possible.
We have a week off this week, then both me and Ashley return to South Sound Speedway on the 23rd where we both have dual main events. We will take this weekend to prepare both cars. It'll be a crazy busy day, come out and watch on the 23rd! 😎