 MGR Racing sponsors and fans
Thank you for your words of encouragement and support during the last American Stock Car Challenge race at Buttonwillow, CA.
The weekend turned out to be much more eventful than we could have anticipated. On Friday, we were at the track bright and early to use as much time as possible to set up the car. Buttonwillow is a very technical track with a variety of fast turns and slow turns combined with several quick elevation changes. To make everyone's practice sessions more interesting, the weather was cold and with intermittent rain.
Right from the first practice session, I noticed that car was a handful to drive. The setup we had was definitely wrong for this track. We were clearly off the pace compared to other competitors. No problem there; that's what practice sessions are for. Except that during the second session of the day, the clutch breaks and leaves me stranded in the middle of the track. After being towed back to the pits, Adam wastes no time to get under the car, take the transmission out, and inspect the damage to the clutch. In turns out, the center hub of the clutch disk sheered off all the retaining rivets. Fortunately, the rest of the clutch and disk seemed to be undamaged. Three hours later, I'm ready to go to practice again, however, it is the last practice session of the day. I have 20 minutes to test the clutch and try to get a few good laps of practice. The clutch is good. The car is still awful. The day is over.
After a sleepless night trying to figure out what to change to make the car better, we head back to the track at 6.00 AM on Saturday. We make some suspension changes, and now with new tires, we hope that the car will start to turn some fast laps. In the morning practice, we make just a slight improvement, but we are still up to 4-5 seconds behind the leaders. Adam and I do everything we can to make the car faster, only this time, nothing seems to be working. In the meantime, I keep driving the car harder and harder, just so I have no doubt in my mind that I'm trying 100%.
For Saturday's race, we qualified in the middle of the field, mostly because we got lucky and completed a semi fast lap before another car's accident caused the session to be cancelled. When the session was pre-empted, most of the quicker drivers had not completed their qualifying laps yet. But that's okay. I don't feel bad about it. The way the weekend is going, I'll take my share of luck anytime I can. I start the race in the third row, outside. Just as the green flag drops and under full acceleration, somebody brakes too soon at the front row and causes a ripple effect all the way behind him. All of a sudden, the car ahead of me comes to a sudden stop and I'm coming at him at around 100mph. With two other cars to my left, the only thing I can do to avoid a sure and hard collision is to take a wild ride to the infield. So much for being lucky! Now, by the time I get back on the track, I am in last place! Not wanting to give up, I start a mad chase to climb positions to the front. The car is still a handful to drive and I'm actually having a hard time racing for the first time in a long time. After gaining a few positions and thanks to other racers misfortunes, we somehow manage to finish the race in fifth place. If anyone had told me that at the beginning of the race, I would have laughed in disbelief.
While most other teams where packing and leaving for the day, Adam and I continued to work on the car. We knew the cure to our bad handling racecar was not just a matter of adding a bit of camber here and there or changing the tire pressure. This cure needed some major surgery. We actually decided to start to setting up the chassis from scratch. Corner scales, measuring tape, ballast re-positioning, shock changes, ride heights, etc. Four hours later, the racecar has a brand new setup, at least by the numbers. Now it's just a matter of waiting till morning to test it.
After a second sleepless night going around the racetrack and analyzing every inch of every corner in my mind, we are back at the track at 6.00AM on Sunday. Our first and only practice session is at 8.20AM and for sure, I hope it is a good one. "Car is ready, tire pressure set, wheels torqued, you're ready to go" Adam says. We check radio transmission, and off I go. Despite the fact that the track was cold and all the rubber washed out from the rain that fell the night before, for the first time all weekend, the car feels like a racecar and not like your granny's Cadillac. "I have a racecar,” I scream on the radio! I can go fast, the car sticks, it is predictable, I can put it anywhere I want on the track, and more importantly, our lap times on old tires are five seconds faster than the day before on race tires!
I qualify in sixth place, only this time; all top 10 cars are bunched up within tenths of a second of each other. I know I have to be aggressive at the start and stay with the top guys. During the pace lap, I visualize my start. I look with the corner of my eyes to the guy next to me, behind me, in front of me... I try to anticipate their moves and prepare a Plan A, and a Plan B, and a Plan C. We turn the last corner of the pace lap, flag stand in sight, car in the right gear, revs high, heartbeat even higher. We increase the pace bit by bit, and all of a sudden, "Green, Green, Green!!!" Adam screams in my ears! I press the throttle as hard as I can, pass the car in fifth place and shut the door on him by moving in front of him. I'm now side by side with the car in fourth place. We continue like that until the first corner, a sharp left hand turn. We go through it side by side (don't ask me how) and exit at full speed towards turn two. We reach turn two and three, a right hand turn uphill and we are still side-by-side! (Plan B is now gone...). We drag race towards turn four still side by side. Only now, my Plan C comes to effect. He's inside me (to my right) and off the clean race line. If he wants to make it through the turn in that slick and dusty part of the track he's going to have to brake earlier than me. And so he does. The corner is mine and now I'm up to fourth place right behind the leaders.
I'm still racing the car as hard as I can. Adam keeps me posted on who’s ahead, who's behind and what my lap times are. It's a long race. I'm where I want to be and there's no need to force anything crazy too soon. Unfortunately, the guy running in fifth place didn't feel the same. On lap four, while going through a section called the "bus stop", he decides to attempt a pass on me. As I turn in, his right front tire hits my left rear tire and we both spin off the track in fourth gear at close to 100 mph. After all the dust and grass clippings that are flying inside my cockpit settle, I start the car back up. I hear Adam say, "Go, Go, all clear" and off I go again. The other guy? I have no idea what happened to him. Not my problem now. The car feels "funny" after the hit so I ask Adam to take a visual check when I go through the tower where he is spotting me from. He says all seems to be okay except for a couple of bent fenders. I figured it must have been all the dirt sticking to my tires after going off track. After a couple of laps, the car was fine again. The race continues and one more time, I find myself coming from behind. I'm still telling myself to be patient, the car is fast and the race is long. The front guys are still within striking distance. But as I start closing on them again, going into turn five, I'm downshifting from fourth to third, then from third to second, when I hear a loud clunking noise right by the transmission. I feel the driveshaft is broken. I coast off track and park the car for good as I see all the other racecars go by me. I radio Adam "Sorry man, we finally had a good car. We worked very hard to be competitive this weekend. We didn't deserve this end to our story."
Racing is tough. You need a strong mind, a strong heart, a strong will to win, and sometimes, a short term memory, to be back at the track the next time after all the misfortunes you've had the last time out. We have 36 days. Team MGR Racing will have the Symbolic Ford Taurus #27 ready at full strength for our next race at Willow Springs in May. You can all be sure of that.
Thank you for your support.
Team MGR Racing
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