Waking up in the motor-home to the sounds of 700 HP beasts chasing each other around a 1.5 mile track, saying to myself "I love the smell of Ethanol in the morning!! That smell, you know that E85 smell. Smelled like 1st place." Well that is what happened in my head at least when I sat down and got ready to warm-up for the race LOL. Tuesday night, I got into the practice server to get a good fuel run in order to come up with a good strategy and more than likely different that what every other person would have. I did a full tank run which let me know that the right side tires really took a beating and when they finally dropped off, they dropped off quick. So I came up with almost the same strategy that I had for Miami, which I did not post a blog about (and for that League Members I AM SORRY!!). That strategy was for this race 34 laps pit add fuel to give me just 13 gallons and 4 tires, 13 gallons would give me about 34 laps. So I was looking for a 2 stop race each time going into the pits with about .4 gallons left. Now the strategy was a gamble and that would be what I would have to do cause I didn't have the speed like I had at Michigan and Homestead. During practice myself, Anthony Lurcock and C.C.M (Chris Miller) were doing practice qualifying runs. Now definitely not to brag, but if my memory is correct I qualified ahead of C.C.M for the first 2 races. I knew from Official Series races that he was a great qualifier, so I thought I would be at least close to his Q time. Not even close. The best I could do in practice runs was .8 away. So I knew I had to come up with a strategy that would hopefully let me pit early enough so that "when" a caution comes out I could be lucky enough to be on 1 or 2 lap tires with the fuel I need. However the downside to not practicing on Monday or with a lot of people in the servers, no pack running. So with the help of Anthony Lurcock just telling me it has aero push behind another car and it can push you to the wall, I knew I would have to either lift at turn in or pop out some of the car to catch air, like in NASCAR when they are pushing the car in front of them and have to get air on the radiator.
Sitting in the car, at pit exit, I had my pitting strategy that me and my engineers came up with (okay okay the voices in my head told me it would work with cautions LOL). Qualifying was about to begin. Starting with this race, in order to over come the issues with so many people filling up one room and having to build quickly another room, the admin came up with what I think is a great idea. We would have a Top Split room and a Bottom Split room. The basis of which came down to the top 20 in points would be Top Split and the rest would be Bottom Split with the exception of a Last Chance Qualifier race that took place on Tuesday night where the top 5 would move up to the Top Split. So I had run a 24.690 in Tuesday's practice session, I said to myself "you can good enough, smart enough and you can do better slacker!" LOL. Anyway practice Q and real Q has always been different, 24.729 put me starting 12th. I was where I had never been before starting outside the top 6. So then the aero push popped up in my head. How bad was it? When did it start and when did it end? Is it faster to lift get down then wide open? Or is it better to pop out and get air on the front to bring it down? Yep my friends this is what practice is for!!
Starting 12th mid pack, I already set tires to be replaced and put in my 13 gallons already to be put in. Settling your button to these settings makes it so much easier. Push one button and BAM 4 tires and 13 gallons. Now if you get caught up in the racing and don't stay up to date with what is going on you will pit and start putting in 13 gallons ON TOP OF WHAT IS ALREADY IN THERE! I learned that last race so as we started I would remove 1 gallon at a time to do the math. Now if you remember what I said earlier, the strategy , to me, would work IF there were cautions. Yep you guessed....NOT A SINGLE ONE!!! Which made for some great quick racing but messed my plan all up. After just a couple of laps I saw someone go mow the front straight grass and I thought to myself, nice caution. NOPE!! So then I heard Joe Hassert say "I tapped the wall" again I thought, nice caution. NOPE!! So first stop was going to be at lap 34 under green. By the set rules, I would pull off on the back straight go on the apron of turn 3 to get to the pit. Now pitting has always been something I need work on, cause every time I have needed to pit there has been cautions. Again never ASS-U-ME there will be cautions LOL. And don't DON'T NEVER pull off half way down the back straight and slow to almost pit speed by the middle of 3, stupid move Jeremy. I had to speed up to get in the pits. However when I pitted I had 13 gallons still in the tank, so I unchecked the gas button and just took tires. In and out in no time, back up to speed and out on the track. Now like last recap I will not go lap by lap, but I will say my strategy gave me false hope. About 10 to 14 laps later all the other racers that didn't pit with me or Joe (again for the wall touch), started to pit. When I came out I was 23 2 laps down. Once the other racers pitted I was 12 on the lead lap. So I had only 16 or so laps on my tires and had burned by then over 6 gallons of the 13 I had left. Tires were fresh and I was lite, which mean I was running down people. I just kept saying to myself come on I need a caution, but that last just a couple of laps cause as I got close to having to pit again if one came out then everyone would be the same. So in the pits I go again, 12 gallons to equal a little over 13 total 4 tires and 2 laps down. I had only about 22 laps to go, now time to power it down and watch the other racers start pitting. While I was waiting for the pits to start me and Dennis had some great racing. He was a lap ahead of me but I knew I was faster just cause of newer tires. It took me about 4 laps or so to finally get around him. I mean I tried high runs, low runs, over/unders, under/overs. And finally an over/under out of 2 and staying low got me around him in 3. That is what is so good about this League and the Top Split. I was not worried about racing Dennis so hard. So on to waiting to see the leaders start pitting. Each lap as it got closer I said come on start saying "pitting in". Come on let get started, Come on pit. START PITTING DANG YOU GUYS. Nope it never happened. They went to fuel conservation mode and made it on 1 stop. If the race was about 2 laps longer it would have been an amazing strategy. Finished 17th 2 laps down. 2 laps down is exactly how many laps I went down by pitting. What a great race and NO CAUTIONS WHAT SO EVER!!!
What to take away from this race. THE ADMIN DID IT!! All bugs were worked out, the rooms worked great and it was great fun exciting racing. AND I KEPT MY SPOT IN THE TOP SPLIT FOR AT LEAST ONE MORE WEEK. Next up for me is the Indy 500 Friday night with my Teammate Jon Carrigan then get ready for Monday and Tuesday practice for Indy 250 with the Lionheart IndyCar Series on Wednesday night!!!
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TOP THREE IN THE TOP SPLIT:
1. RICHARD BEHR
2. ANTHONY LURCOCK
3. JEFF YORK
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TOP THREE IN THE BOTTOM SPLIT:
1.ZACHARY TRULL
2. BRIAN SULLIVAN
3. JORGE ANZALDO
GREAT RACE AND JOB GUYS!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment