Matched perfect and staggered special

The two month break since the my last race at CMP seemed to take forever. My spring had been consistently full of track time making the time off seem almost out of place. Fortunately, it gave me the time to make the repairs that were needed after the last event. In went another gas tank, a large amount of 2000 degree heat reflective tape, and some replacement BMW heat shielding. Additionally, a replacement axle was installed. With any luck, the issues seen at CMP will never repeat themselves.

This round of the NASA Southeast racing season took us to Charlotte Motor Speedway (formerly Lowes Motor Speedway). The race was held on the "roval" at the track, which combined the infield road course section with the D-shaped track the NASCAR boys race on. I have previous roval experience at Rockingham Speedway, but that is a much smaller track overall and has a much different infield configuration. Regardless, I have felt what it is like to drive on the high banks of an oval, an experience I hoped would pay dividends while learning another new track.

CMS has several strange and strict rules for using and entering track, starting with the fact that everyone had to be out of the track by 6:00pm on Friday. No other tracks on our schedule have a rule like that. I really wanted to get the car and trailer into the track rather than having to leave them in the hotel parking lot all night. We set out early enough for us to get to the track somewhere between 5:15 and 5:30. Of course that was with the assumption/hope that traffic would cooperate. We were cruising along just fine until we reached the Kannapolis area. Traffic came to a standstill and we watched our time window fade quickly away. As we exited off I-85 at the speedway exit a fellow racer called me to tell me that track security was ushering everyone out of the track. It was 6:08pm. All that planning and 3 hours of towing just to miss our deadline by a few minutes was pretty frustrating. The only thing that could cure my frustration was Mexican food and beer. Fortunately both were easily obtainable within a short drive of the track and all was right with the world again. I spent the rest of the evening at the hotel reviewing video of last year's race taken by two fellow racers. They talked me through the course and I felt confident I could get up to speed without too much trouble on Saturday.

We arrived at the track at 6:15am on Saturday. I wanted to make sure we were near the front of line at registration since I knew many others had been in the same boat as myself the evening before. Registration was in a ticket both directly under the new video screen at the race track. It is the largest HD screen in the world. 200' by 90'. It's quite amazingly huge, but dwarfed by the size of the track. We went through the tunnel into the infield and headed toward garage #33. I made the decision to rent one of the NASCAR garage bays a couple of weeks before the event. It turned out to be one of the best $65 I ever spent. We got the car and truck unloaded and set up our track home in the garage. The weather was bearable at that point but we knew it was on its way to 98* before the end of the day. I had installed a cooling system in the car a couple of days before the event. I was going to get lots of opportunity to try it out.

First up was practice. My garage-mate agreed to lead me out and let me follow him around a little bit (just like he did at Road Atlanta). I was immediately struck by the generally crappy condition of the infield pavement. It was cracked and bumpy. There was seam sealer everywhere. There was even grass growing through some of the cracks. My car was very unhappy on the washboard-like surface, especially under braking. The banking was daunting at first, but not too bad. NASCAR turns 1 and 2 are no big deal. Since you hit them after just coming out of the infield, you are flat on the gas and don't really have to worry about them very much. NASCAR turns 3 and 4 are quite different. You reach turn 3 and well over 100 mph and just have to turn the car into the banking knowing that it is going to stick. Once into the banking, the G-forces press you down into the seat more than pushing you toward the outside of the turn. It's a wild feeling and a total rush every time. As usual, the 15 minutes of practice seemed to end far too early and I didn't feel like I had gotten a hang of the track at all. My best time was a 1:33, about 7 seconds from where I needed to be, but surprisingly only 3 seconds behind first place in GTS-2.

Qualifying at a track I haven't been to before continues to be one of the most challenging things I have had to do during my track experience. The first hot lap went pretty well and I felt I was able to push the car harder than I had in practice. Every lap after that found me running into some amount of traffic. Even though I knew those laps would be slower, I kept making laps in order to run the track. I came in better about my knowledge of the track and hoped it would be reflected in my times. But then I got the time sheets. I had improved, down to a 1:28.8, but the first place car had run a 1:25.5. His time was almost 2 seconds faster than the lap record for GTS-2. I almost couldn't believe his pace. I knew I wouldn't have anything for him during the race.

As usual, the different classes were split up into two different groups to start the race. I found myself gridded right behind cars that were a second or more faster than me and in front of cars that were a second or more slower. The start saw quite a bit of jockeying around throughout the infield portion of the course. Things settled down once we got onto the oval and everyone fell into line. As I expected, the cars in front of me pulled away and I pulled away from those behind me. This made for a fairly boring race as I spent most of the time making laps with no one around me. With about 10 minutes left in the race, the first and only full course caution came out. I went off track on next to last infield turn just before the FCY, allowing 4 cars to get by while I gathered things back up and got back on track. I was hopeful that we would see a restart and give me a chance to regain those positions. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be and we got the checkered flag while still under yellow. This was certainly not my best showing. I knocked off a little more time and got down to a 1:28.1. I picked up 6 total positions and came in 14th overall and 2nd in GTS-2. At the awards BBQ that night, my name was called for first place. After getting my trophy, I found out the class winner was disqualified for passing under yellow. Not exactly the way I wanted to get my second win of the season. I felt as though I didn't deserve it since my performance had been so bad, but a win is a win. I got a celebratory Cook Out peanut butter fudge milkshake on the way home.

Winner winner, chicken dinner

We spent some more time reviewing video on Saturday night. This time I had my own video to review. My buddies and I went through it and looked for places where I could pick up some speed. It looked like I was leaving quite a bit on the table in the turn into the infield and the turn coming out of the infield. I didn't think it would be enough for me to catch the first place car, but I felt confident I would find speed on Sunday.

Sunday started off with another one of those weird CMS rules. Apparently Cabarrus County doesn't allow any race engines to be run until after noon on Sunday. Therefore our qualifying session was scheduled for 2:15pm, a stark contrast to our normal 9-10:00am starting time. We decided there was only one way to kill the extra time in our day...with a huge breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We got to the track around noon and started getting things ready for the race day. While checking over the car I found that my right front tire had worn itself down to the cords during Saturday's race. Metal showing through the rubber of your tire is not an ideal situation for racing. I replaced the tire and determined everything else was ready to go. For qualifying I decided to go out directly behind the first place GTS-2 car. My hope was that I would try to follow him and allow his pace to increase mine. Much like Saturday, we only got one clean lap before traffic began coming into play. That first lap ended with me still on the bumper of the first place car. Either I sped up, he slowed down, or a little of both. The truth would be revealed in the time sheets. I ran a 1:25.8. More than two seconds faster than Saturday! My pace pushed the first place driver to go even harder, and he cranked off a crazy time of 1:24.9. He still had more overall speed than me, but we were much closer now. I guess all the video analysis from the night before had paid off.

Sunday's race video is really the only video from the weekend that is worth watching, so here it is, in two parts.

Part 1


Part 2

Part 1...I started one position behind the class-leading car, so he was in the right side of the row in front of me. I needed a good start so that I could get up to him and put the pressure on him early and before he drove away from me. However, as has become my habit this season, I didn't get a great start. I immediately dropped two positions before reaching turn 1, another in turn 2, and another in turn 4. Four turns into the race and 3 cars had gotten by. Not that good start I was wanting and needing. I got back by two of those cars on the second lap and set off after the first place car. He was gone and flying. I was stuck in the midst of two battling Honda Challenge cars. They were both faster than me, but their battle slowed all three of us down. They eventually got things settled and I kept pushing hard. A full course yellow came out after about 14 minutes of racing and the field was bunched back up.

Part 2...the restart was a bit strange. Since us faster cars had begun lapping slower cars before the yellow came out, there was a lot of traffic mixed in with us and lots of out of position cars. As a result, the line of cars was so long that I couldn't see the lights on the pace car or the flag stand as I entered the end of the oval. All of the cars in front of and behind me were very spaced out when the yellow lights along the wall went out. The spacing of the cars and the pace of the restart meant that making up any meaningful ground at the jump wasn't going to happen. Everyone knew we would only have a few laps of racing left after the restart and things got a little crazy. The first couple of trips through the infield saw cars hitting each other and going off track. I worked my way through the carnage and slower traffic and tried my best to keep with with first place car. I was never able to get up to him and finished in second. I picked up 16 overall positions and ran a best lap of a 1:25.5. I was happy with my time as it was quite a bit faster than the old lap record. The new lap record was set by the first place car with a stupid fast time of 1:24.2.

My win on Saturday and second place on Sunday put me solidly in control of second place overall in our season points championship race. I'm going to need more of Saturday's luck to draw me closer to first place.