So we started out our race night at South Sound Speedway with some issues. Then things started getting better, until it all went horribly sideways. 😕
The first thing I have to say is, I changed just about everything on this car before this race, from where we were the last time out. I think I changed three of the four springs, we changed the sway bar preload, we changed the cross weight, it was basically a brand new car. The car unloaded with one major issue that I suspected we might run into. One of the things I had done was to try and soften the car up some, and sure enough, that meant that the sway bar was hitting the track going into the corners. When that happens, you're basically just hanging on, the car just shoots up the track, there's not much you can do.
So, first thing on the agenda was to get the car up off the track. This is where I start freaking out because generally speaking, to do that you have to raise the ride heights, which means messing with your weight jacks. You can do your very best to adjust that and NOT change the corner weights, but you're totally guessing here and my experience from past attempts at this has not been positive. We went as far as we could and then also did what we could to raise the sway bar mounts as well. Again, you're messing with your sway bar preload there and again, you can try your very best to NOT mess up the amount of preload in it, but past experiences and all. 😟
After getting the car up off the track, it seemed to have a slight push right in the center of the turn. We made some adjustments to try and fix that, eventually running out of practice sessions and still having not gotten it fully cured. No worries, we're not here for points, this is just one giant test session really. South Sound Speedway does group qualifying, you get 10 minutes and everyone goes out at the same time. Okay fine, another test session. I think we shook out 6th of 11 cars in qualifying, not a bad effort. We weren't "slow" but we weren't "fast" either. Looking at transponder times we were half a second off the fast time, that's not terrible all things considered. We'll make one more adjustment and get ready for our heat race.
I lined up third for the heat race, inside second row. If I'm being honest, I was a bit nervous here because the guy on the outside of me was the guy who totally plowed me under yellow the last time out. I really didn't feel like being anywhere around him, but history has also proven that you can literally be ion the other end of the track and he will still find you. So there's that. 😒 He was also irritating me a lot on the warmup laps because he was running clear down in my lane, forcing me way down low. Dude, get in your own lane! Luckily, he can only run you so low in the corners, so when the green flag dropped I scooted him up a half a grove right in the middle of the corner and then ran like crazy! Settling into third, we all played "follow the leader" for eight laps and took a checkered flag. Not a bad run, but that last adjustment seemed like maybe we went too far and now the car was feeling a touch on the loose side, like I was chasing it all the way down the straight and into the next turn. A little unsettling, so let's take half of that last adjustment back out.
Main event time now! I'm still not sure why we even ran a qualifying session, because they lined the main event up by points. 🤷♂️ Since we only ran one race this year, that put us last on the grid. Okay fine, not a bad place to be I guess. I'm just trying to feel this car out and get some notes here anyways. The green flag drops and we go down into turn one and the guy on the inside of the row in front of me totally punts the guy on the outside, sending him spinning. The guy on the inside managed to keep going and I followed him through the mess, leaving the spinning car behind us. I knew immediately that the spinning car got going again, because no yellow flag came out. there was also no black flag for the guy who spun him out, which I don't really understand because it was pretty blatant. these races tend to go flag to flag quite often and I know the speedway was also looking at a long might with the schedule they had, so I'm sure they weren't quick to be causing delays. Whatever, my focus now is to run him down and get by him without having the same thing happen to me!
Took me a couple laps, but I finally ran him back down and it became clear that I had the faster car. But here's the catch, these guys really don't like to let you pass. most of them really drive in their mirrors and they also protect the bottom like crazy! That means you have to go outside if you want to even attempt to pass someone. Two things with this plan though; first of all, going to the outside is tough! It's not an easy road out there, it's farther around, there's little to no grip, the exit off of turn four gets REALLY tight out there and a lot of things can go wrong in a hurry! Secondly, this means I'm putting myself on the outside of the car who just punted that other dude, and he might possibly do the same thing to me! Yeah, it's one of the things you start thinking about when faced with that situation. So now I'm nervous, but what choice do I have here? To the outside we go. I sent the car out there and started going to work, it's a lot of work to go there so you really gotta be on your game and just ignore that part of your brain that keeps saying "oh boy, here it comes, he's gonna punt you..."
I was really rolling through the corners better than him, but he was pulling me hard down the straights, so I couldn't quite clear him before he would stick it back in there a bit. Knowing that if I crowded him any I would probably be the next victim to spin, I chose to leave him more room than I normally would, which wasn't helping me any. Sometimes you have to err on the side of caution and hope for the best, this was one of those times. We started really gaining on the guy who spun on that opening lap, and he seemed to be running right in the middle of the track, so I wasn't totally sure which way this was going to go. I wasn't clear of the guy I was trying to pass yet and we're gaining on this slow car. Unfortunately we came on him going into turn three, the worst possible spot to catch him. He was still running in the middle of the track, not in the low groove, but not in the high groove either, sort of right in the middle. I chose to go to his outside, thinking maybe he would stay in the middle like that and sort of block that guy I was trying to pass for the last two laps.
Just as I reached that point where you really wick it up coming off the corner, he must have seen the guy coming to his inside and panicked, because he moved up the track a half a groove, forcing me right into the turn four wall. The track gets really tight there, like I said before, and sure enough, he drove me right into the wall. I'm honestly not sure if he just got spooked from seeing that other car diving to his inside, or if maybe he thought I was the one who dumped him on that opening lap and was trying to enact revenge. The end result was, it ripped the upper ball joint, nut and all, through the top of the spindle. So now we have yet another broken spindle, an upper a frame that is shaped like a pretzel and yet another DNF.
At the end of the day, I feel like I made a terrible choice to go to his outside. It is becoming more and more apparent that these guys will not let you pass to the outside and you are taking a massive risk out there. I'd like to just race, I'm not asking for much, I'm just asking that you leave me a lane and don't do something stupid. You stay in your groove, I'll stay in mine and we'll just see who has the fastest car. What I'm learning is, this class is more about who has the most mirrors. Sadly, my car doesn't even have a mirror in it.
I take that back, not sadly at all. I don't need a mirror, because I'm not racing behind me! 😒
Comments