| Ribs Well picture this, everything in the mod blog, the freezing cold, the poor performance, the nasty wall shot, the anger, the bitterness.Now picture the exact polar opposite and you'll begin to get what yesterday was all about.There were three problems yesterday, a flat tire, the trailer tried to eat the car again, and there weren't enough of the crew there to bask in the glow of a perfect practice session.?Now I know it was only practice, and I know things change but yesterday was the reason we do all this.The rain was falling all morning at my house, I went on to check the Thompson website early in the morning to see if there was an update, and there wasn't, so I checked weatherchannel.com, they said in Thompson it would be rain all morning, sprinkles until 6 and then it would clear up.I was never so happy that they were wrong.We got to the track to find it around 70 degrees, with a good warm breeze all afternoon.?We unloaded the car and started setup, the tires that we could only get 1.5" of stagger out of at home, came out to the magic 2" at the track.One of the new superstitions we have started since the Mod debacle is now before a car goes out for its first run of the season we take pictures of it, so I did all around the car.?We set up everything else and began the lengthy task of stuffing Mike in the racecar, this has become more of a pain because of the new head and neck restraint system, and as always this takes too long and by the time he is ready to go were already late.?The car fired up and drove down the back side of the track, which was not a foregone conclusion,?with no time on the Angell lane test track there were a hundred things that could have gone wrong.He got out back and the prostocks and late models were already on track, but they let him out during a brief caution and he settled in on track.With no heat in the tires he managed to stay in a good place on the track while he warmed up the tires and bedded in the brakes. |
| With no heat in the tires he managed to stay in a good place on the track while he warmed up the tires and bedded in the brakes.The car was in great shape, it looked stable through the turns and after a few laps that round was over.The next round which was very quick, came right up and we barely had enough time to get temps and pressures.This time, Mike starts to shake her out and that was a sight, the car looked great the whole run.He called in and said it's a little loose and we talked about how we were going to fix it, we also found the car was running a bit too cool, so we both agreed on a little tape on the nose.It's kind of funny, now that we've been doing this for about 8 years I find him saying "that's what I was going to say"?a lot, and when he mentions something, usually its right on the tip of my tongue too, we're finally getting this communication thing down.So anyway, the car comes in, we pulled two turns out of the right rear to help it center off, and do the other tire adjustments.Now the next round of practices, the car is so close,?but he says its just a tick too free now.When he pitted we were checking the tires and I could hear air leaking, as soon as he hopped out of the car he said, tire down, the left rear was going flat.?The same thing that had killed the mod a few weeks earlier had happened here.The difference was timing and location, had it been on the right front instead of the left rear, had it been a larger hole, had it been at the end of the back stretch it would have been a wadded up race car, and a very bad day, but it wasn't.I staggered up rear tires with more than 120 laps on them and he went back out. |
| I staggered up rear tires with more than 120 laps on them and he went back out.The car was still good, but a little too loose compared to the other runs, we made another turn out of the right rear and then the car was perfect.In Mike speak "extremely well balanced", I asked if there was anything we could change to make it better, and he said no, the handling was there.So the final two runs we went for times,?and he pushed her to the edge and a little bit past.The times didn't reflect how great this car is, we were 1 second off the pace Mad Dog was setting, we ran 21.57 he ran 20.50, but with fresh rubber and a carb change.We have a top five car, you can quote me on that at the end of the year, if we don't have a top 5 finish I will be VERY?surprised.?The?trailer tried to eat the car again, when we were loading up it caught the front skirt on the wheel well of the trailer and ripped it a little that was the only other negative thing that happend.?I wish more of you could have been there to enjoy the day with us, and to be as excited for the next race as I am.One more thing, we love all of our crew, but we really missed the girls this weekend, in 8 runs we only filled out one sheet?of notes.Paul and I tried to keep the information flowing but its just not easy to stop and write it down when you're going as hard as we were.We only got times on 6 laps, and only two on one other driver.?So trust me when I say this you are appreciated, all of you. |
| So trust me when I say this you are appreciated, all of you. |
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