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NASA Texas opened its season at MSRH Clockwise. Lots of hard racing, fun group to race with. Race directors are very professional and very good at communicating with the drivers what they expect.
I raced in front of my whole immediate family on Saturday, which was a treat for me. Not often I can get them to all show up at the same time especially when it was so cold out.
I decided to race the 99 this weekend even though I think the VVT is slightly better in the CW configuration. Told Chris I would turn my fastest lap of the weekend on lap 3 of the practice session and did exactly that 1.48.176 while passing a slower car, which was .7 tenths faster than anyone else managed. Been doing this a while and I am still learning. I know when there is no pressure and no expectation I can turn some of my fastest laps, now I need to be able to translate that into qualifying. Qualifying I went backward by several tenths even though I was being pushed by John Babot.
Top 5
Gale Corley 1:48.362
Hernan Palermo 1:48.408
Alex Bachoura 1:48.474
John Babot 1:48.517
MPR22 1:48.634
Track was faster and than warmup I just proved you can't force the car to do more than it is capable of.
Race 1, got a good start and put the car into P4 with a nose inside Hernan going toward the launch, he defended inside, as he should so backed out a tick and tried to widen my arc. That was a bad decision as that put me off line too much under braking and locked up and slid to the far side of the track. Gathered it up tried not to hit anyone being so far offline as I made the next turn lost a few spots but got back onto the train at front by the next lap. Fought my way up to third with the front 2 of Bachoura and Corley checked out as the 3 through 7 swapped positions a few times. Once I got to 3rd plan was to put in best lap i could and leave the others to fight for P4, built a good gap in first few turns and was well on my way until I went into bus stop and didn't slow the car enough and put it 4 off at the exit like a "Larry". That put me in p7 and that is where i finished 1 lap later.
Race 2, Alex and Hernan had other commitments so I started p5 and got a reasonable start. Babot got the lead for the first 3 laps before Corley got by him. I got to P2 on lap 4 putting down fast race lap of the weekend and felt I found my mojo again. Got on Gales bumper and he promptly race crafted me back several car lengths. He is a very good racer, extremely hard to pass. We had about 1 lap left when the race was red flagged when an engine blew and caused a grass fire that needed to be dealt with.
Qual 3. Put on some new rubber as I had flat spotted the rt rear in the previous race. Decided to take time and build up pace on the stickers and just slowly put heat into them hoping lap 3 would be the best. Plan worked and was able to get the pole.
MPR22 1:48.488
Vaughn Duarte 1:48.947
Alex Bachoura 1:49.040
Gale Corley 1:49.422
Trevor McAllion 1:49.803
Promptly drove back to the X-Factor Paddock area and realized i needed to go to the scales. This didn't go un-noticed and I was stripped of my fastest time. I might have lost all of them if i didn't have a witness who saw me never slow down and just loop straight back to the scales. This put me starting P3.
Race 3. I got a good start after a waive off on the first time by the starter, made it to the lead by the launch and then tried to gap the field on the first hot lap. Made some good progress until i got back around to the keyhole and the car pushed in the long slow right hander and let Vaughn, Alex and Gale catch back up. Same push next rt hand turn into bus stop so I decided to chill and just control the pace. Vaughn got a great run on me out onto the front straight and took the lead for laps 6 through 8. I got back by him on 9 and lead again until he got around me again when I missed a shift out of diamonds edge on lap 13. Unfortunately for Gale he was going to push me and had no place to go and was stuck when I didn't find the gear. This shuffled him behind Alex and the three of us went back to chasing Vaughn. Got back and watched for my opportunity to pass Vaughn and when he left the door open into the carousel I stuffed it inside and we went 2 wide almost the entire way around at 80 mph with mirrors touching. He did an incredible job of holding his line any small mistake and both of us would have gone off. I made it by as we turned back onto the front straight and tried to settle back down as that was some scary stuff. I managed to hold the lead as the white flag came out and i drifted inside to defend the brake zone at end of pit straight. Vaughn in the magical 1.6 stuffed it all the way inside anyways as I was not nearly aggressive enough with my line. I wasn't too worried, I would just over under him and go back to the lead, except I locked up the brakes going too deep and let Alex come by as well. All that work wasted on a weak decision to defend. Had two guys to pass now and wasn't sure how i could make that happen. Alex had a good run on Vaughn and got his nose inside coming up to the launch, i decided my best chance was to try to follow him through and I tucked in behind him. They both went as deep as they could and both locked up and slid wide. Vaughn made the turn but Alex had to straighten up and take it agricultural. This let me by with a lapper or two ahead but I had a decent gap that I managed around for the win. That was very fun and clean racing by all.
Thank you Chris Haldeman and Michael Johnson of X-Factor Racing. Thanks for keeping me moving forward even when i was down on myself for silly mistakes. Perfection is what we set as the goal and hope for excellence as the result. Racing is more than just fun, it teaches you about yourself every single time out. Thank you competitors and friends for racing clean and hard all weekend.
Thanks mom, dad, Jill and kiddos for coming out this weekend and watching me try to be better, sometimes i even accomplish it.
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