Now that's what I'm talking about! We still can make the car better but it's starting to come alive.

When we first got the car last year we paid a guy, who came pretty highly recommended, to set the car up. He was supposed to go through the car and set all the rear end and front end geometry up for us. For what we paid him we could have bought all the tools we needed to do the job ourselves but we wanted an "expert" to do it. Well, we have been slowly buying the tools and the books to be able to do this ourselves and last week we went through the car behind him to see what he had done and guess what? Every single thing we checked was wrong! (more)

One of the things we have had to learn is there are no short cuts in racing. Everybody runs the same distance on the track and in the shop. You can do it faster but you can't skip a lap! From now on we may pay someone to show us how to do things but we are going to do the work.

Well, on to the race. Like I said, we pretty much checked every angle of every bar on the car last week. We found that, as the car rolled over in the turn, the front wheels were turning in toward each other. On top of that, as I turned the wheel to the left, the right wheel was turning more than the left so that added to the toe in problem. When you watch the tapes of my races you can see how, as I turned in the corner and as the car rolled more onto the right side tires, the car would just seem to loose grip and start to slide up the track.

We worked the whole day on what they call bump steer and Ackerman to resolve the problem with the car toeing in. Now the car toes out slightly and the left wheel turn a little more that the right. Sure enough, in the first practice I could tell the difference immediately. The car turned great in the center but now it was pushing up on entry to the turn.

The tires were getting old so we replaced the right side tires and went back out to see if it was just old tires that was causing the car to slide. The new tires helped but it still didn't want to stay down going in. On top of that the car was really loose once I got back in the gas. We decided to soften up the right rear spring and that seemed to help but it was still a little tight so we softened it up a little more.

Then, it was time to line up for the heat race. I was supposed to start on the outside pole but the car that was supposed to be on the pole dropped to the back. Now, you are supposed to let the inside line come up and stay on the outside but I thought I would just drop down and see if I could take the pole since the other guy didn't want it. No one seemed to have a problem with that so I got to start the race on the pole.

I always shift the car on the start by the sound of the engine. I don't know if that's too soon or to late so my crew chief thought maybe I was shifting a little too soon since it seemed that the other cars always get a jump on me. On the start I tried to wait a little bit longer but it didn't work and I got passed by the outside pole sitter going into turn one. Then, on the back stretch, I got passed on the inside by another car. After a spin on lap 2 we restarted the race and pretty much ran the rest of the laps in the same order so I finished the heat race in 3rd.

The feature was lined up the same as the heat but this time the pole sitter decided to go ahead and start the race up front. I got a good start this time and beat him into turn one for the lead. That didn't last long though as a faster car jumped to my outside and beat me off turn 4 for the lead. I made it 3 more laps before I got passed by another faster car and then I just settled in and tried to stay as close to the leaders as I could. Then, the caution came out on lap 5 for a spin.

I have been really getting beat on the restarts so my spotter was coaching me on how close to get to the car in front of me. I'd ask, "Am I close enough?" and he'd say, "Move up, move up!" So, I'd move up a little closer but he'd say to move up more. Finally I got the distance right and this time I didn't do too bad on the restart. Still, the leaders were about 2 tenth of a second per lap faster than I was and I guess I was about the same faster than the cars behind me so the rest of the race was follow the leader and I came home in 3rd place.

The first place car is clearly the fastest car that races regularly and is leading the points. The second place car is the second faster car and is second in the points. I am 3rd in points so I guess I am pretty much the 3rd fastest car. I've got to go back to the shop and find out how to make the car turn a little better and pick up those last 2 tenths of a second so I can pick up a spot or 2 in the points!