Race #2 at New Smyrna Speedway
08-19-06 - VIDEO

I don't know where to start. Did you ever have a day when you would have been better off just staying in bed? Last night was just the worst night I have ever had in my life. We have had race nights like this before and we always say we should have know and stayed home but we didn't. Now, I wish we had...

First I'll tell you about the weeks leading up to the race. We knew we didn't have the right shocks for the car so, after having such a successful first race, we decided to go ahead and get the rest of the car up to where it needed to be. We bought a set of Penske shocks and had then custom made for the car and the track and we installed a halon system that works automatically in case I get knocked out in a wreck and the car catches on fire. The last thing we did was change the right rear spring to help the car get into the corner better.

Remember me telling you that my dad had decided to give up the crew chief job? Remember me saying that he was having a little trouble actually doing it? We he's still struggling a bit with that. You see he thinks the car is tight on entry into the corner so he was the one who decided to change the spring. It's not tight any more!

The night started out with me forgetting my driving shoes so my dad had to jump in the truck and run back home and get them while leaving me and Ronnie to run the practices and set the car up by ourselves. My dad had put the spotter's radio and headset in the right side window. I noticed it sitting there but never thought about it after that. When I went out for the first practice it flew out the window in turn one and I think a couple of cars ran over it. When my dad got back with my shoes he went looking for the radio and couldn't find it. We looked everywhere and then one of the track officials came walking up to the trailer with the radio in pieces and the headset in in his hand. It still works - a little - bit but not really.

Adding to this is that I had brake trouble in the second practice. I was just about to get going and the brake pedal went to the floor . I made another lap kinda slow and the pedal came back up but it didn't feel right to me so I came back in. We looked at the master cylinder and it was almost empty. Then we started looking for a leak and finally we got back to the left rear brake caliper and found it didn't have an inside brake pad any more. My dad, who now calls himself the "car chief" decided to pull all the wheel hubs off and repack the bearing last week. I guess, when he put the brakes back on, the brake pad slipped down without him knowing it and then worked it's way out while I was on the track.

Now this would have been the perfect time to say "Let's go home", but we didn't. Someone had a pair of brake pads that fit my car so we put them on and got ready for the feature. We were thinking that the brake falling apart was making me loose because I was sure loose in the practice sessions. Then we checked the sway bar and it was loose so that would make the car loose too. Then, of course the track always tightens up a little by feature time, so we decided not to make any real drastic changes to the car for the race. We reset the tire pressures to set the stagger and then snugged up the sway bar and figured we were ready.

They had a car club at the track this evening that was going to come out on the track and do burn outs so the track decided to cancel all the heat races and just run features because the burn outs would take up a lot of time. Our feature was the 4th one and I was in the car heading out to the track when my dad asked me where I was supposed to start. I thought I had to start in the back for the first 3 races so I didn't check the line up. My dad started asking the other spotters how we were supposed to line up and it turned out that they had put me on the outside pole! Now,we told ourselves we weren't going to try to win the race. Our plan was to get some seat time and stay out of everybody's way. I was supposed to just follow - not lead! On the first start we are following the pace truck into turn 3 and all of a sudden the pole sitter decide to fire. I went with him and then he almost runs into the back of the pace truck so he has to let up a little but I kept going and had the lead going into turn one. The flag man didn't like that start so he threw the yellow flag and we lined back up again. Sure enough, on the second start he does the same thing again, and so did I, and again going into turn one I had the lead. Right behind me, the pole sitter slid up into the 3rd place car in the center of the turn and spun him into the wall and that brought out the yellow again.

On the 3rd start the pace truck was crawling down the back stretch and then came up into my lane to hold me back. Then, just as we got to the start line, the pace truck dropped to the pit road and we took off. This time I realized that I wouldn't beat him into the turn so I soft peddled it a little and then dropped in behind him going into turn one in second. The 3rd place car got a run on me and passed me putting me back to 3rd on the next lap but on the lap after that, the leader got real loose coming off turn 4 and pretty much everybody got by him so I was now back in second.

On the next lap one of the fastest car passed me and put me back to 3rd again. Now this is where it got a little out of hand. Some one told me that last week I was running laps a tenth of a second faster than him by the end of the race. My car was still loose but if felt pretty good with the new shocks so I tried to push the car really hard coming off the turn to try to stay with the car that just passed me. On the next lap I spun in turn 2 bringing out the yellow flag again. I didn't hit anything or hurt the tires but when we restarted the race I was put to the rear. Usually my dad is yelling over the radio that I need to settle down and sometime it works but his radio was not working very well and I had tasted blood when I was leading those first few laps so when they threw the green flag again I was on a terror.

On the re-start I jumped to the outside of the car in front of me and passed him right at the starting line. then, I passed another one at the flag stand. My car was so good getting into the corner that I was running all over the next car and even bumped him a little coming off of turn 4. I'm sure my dad was yelling, "Settle Down" at the top of his lungs but I couldn't hear him. I kept over driving the corner and had to jump hard on the brakes so I didn't hit him coming off the corner again. Finally, I really screwed up and drove it in way too deep and then got in the brakes so hard I slide up the track, lost all my momentum, and let the car behind me get past. I was way faster then he was and he was tight in the center of the corner so on the next lap I got under him and was going to pass him going down the front stretch. As I came off the corner my car wouldn't stick down low. I was in the gas as hard as I could be as the car pushed up toward the wall. The car I was passing wanted the position as bad as I did so neither of us lifted as we moved up toward the wall. Then, we touched and I turned down as hard as I could but we hit just in front of my right rear wheel which turned me back up the track in front of him. Then, we hit again and this time I went to the wall as he went up it and then over the rear of my car upside down. He did a barrel roll down the front stretch flipping 2 times while I bounced off the outside wall and then went down and hit the inside wall before coming to a stop just inside turn one. The car I hit came to rest on it's roof right where I hit the inside wall. To say the least, that was the end of our race for the evening.

My car is in pretty bad shape. At first glance, it looks like I've bent the frame a little bit, broke both upper control arms, punched a hole in my radiator, and tore up every body panel on the car except the roof. Worse yet, the car I hit was totally destroyed. It only took about 3 minutes to get the driver out of the car and he was not injured or even upset. I got out of my car and walked over and sat down on the wall hoping someone would come over and shoot me.

Ronnie has obviously been through this before and he knew just what to do. One of the other drivers gave him some parts so we could get the car back together enough to put it back in the trailer. The first thing Ronnie said was, "Did you tell your dad you are OK?" Then, he told me not to worry abut it because it was just a racing deal. All the other drivers came over to my trailer to see that I was OK and talk a little about the wreck. There wasn't any doubt that it was my fault but they all sort of seemed to agree with Ronnie. Then, the driver of the car I hit came over to where I was standing. I didn't know what to say, but he was just like all the other drivers. It was a racing deal. Turns out he was supposed to be doing the same thing I was supposed to be doing... Taking it easy! But, like me, he knew his car was a little off and he wasn't going to win the race but that didn't stop him from wanting to race. If either of us had lifted this would have never happened, but we didn't. We're racers.

A lot of people I talk to think that racers are rich because racing is so expensive but that is usually not the case. Most of us have everything that we have invested in our race car. I know my parents do, and so does David, the guy I wrecked. This morning I'm sore and my car looks awful. I'm worried that we may not be able to get the car fixed and get back to racing for a long time and I know David feels the same as I do only worse. But, we are racers, we'll fix the cars and come back out and do the same thing again. We'll tell ourselves that we're going to take it easy next time but we won't. Like I said, we're racers. We want to win.