- St. Pete Recap
St. Pete had it's ups and downs for me. Between racing incidents and mechanical issues, I am still looking at St. Pete as a positive. The race weekend started early Friday morning with our first practice session, and then later that afternoon was the second and final practice session. Finishing the day a solid 7th was encouraging being only a few tenths out of first.
Qualifying started at 11 o'clock Saturday morning. With the skies turning black as we pulled out on track, I knew that I had to get my lap done early. After the first couple of laps there was a red flag for a car in the wall in turn 12. With half the session already gone, the track was green again. After two or three laps the car started an intense misfire, killing all my straight line speed. This issue carried on throughout the session. I posted a time that was only good enough for 13th, which was going to make the races more difficult to make it to the front.
Race 1 was a bit hectic even before the start of the race. After rainy weather changed the schedule for the day, we were rushed to the grid so the rest of the events could run as well. Racing in the wet is a challenge in itself, but on a street course makes it even more interesting. By the end of the first lap I had already gained three positions. As the cautions fell, they presented more passing opportunities on the restarts. I was in 9th when the green came out on the final restart. I was ready to get closer to the front. Just as we had made it through the first two turns, the car directly in front of me started spinning in one of the fastest turns on the course. I had to check up. Now in 7th, I had caught back up to the pack that had blown me off down the straightaway. Determined to get back up to where I was, I had already set up a pass going into turn 8. I went to the inside on the corner entry, making it two-wide. Near the middle of the turn the car on my outside started fighting for room. He was crowding me down until his front tire hit my side pod. The hit spun me around as the rest of the field went on by me. I was able to loop it back around and come back up to an 11th place finish.
Race 2 was dry and presented better opportunities for a good finish. I still had to do a lot of passing if I was going to do so by starting 12th. The green flag flew, and I had already passed three cars in turn one. I had closed the gap on a group of five or six cars coming out of turn 3. The cars in front of me were doing a lot of dicing around heading into turn four. Before I had even started to turn, cars were spinning in all directions. By the time I had found the way out, the car in front of me slammed on his brakes in order to miss a car. Too late to be able to react, he was already halfway up the front of my car. It took two laps for the safety crew to get it all sorted. With a broken front wing, I had to make a pit stop. My Pabst Racing guys did a great job with a quick stop to get me back out on track. Being two laps down, all I could do was run laps and practice my racecraft. Beside the fact that my race was over, I was having fun. I was running laps as quick as the leaders and was running down fifth place on the last lap. I was able to salvage a 10th place finish.
We didn't quite get the results I was wanting, but there are many positives to take away from St. Pete. We were fast, we improved the car, I continued to prove my racecraft, and most importantly I had fun! I am looking forward to better results and good racing at Barber in a couple of weeks.