Kansas Speedway
Kansas 100 Inaugural race
NASCAR Winston West
After having engine problems with about 10 laps to go I was able to nurse the #00 Oliver Gravity Separators Monte Carlo home to a 15th place. We moved to 6th in the point standings. We had problems with tires blistering and equalizing, chassis set up, the car was very lose having no rear grip, engine overheating and then during qualifying I spun the car going into corner one but was lucky to keep it off the wall.
We started the weekend with high hopes when right off the trailer we were pretty quick, however we were using the tires left over from the Fontana race earlier this year. I was very happy with the car and not wanting to make changes other than minor fine-tuning; this all took place during an optional test day on Thursday.
When the official race weekend started on Friday we put on the tires required at that track and the car slowed way down went totally unstable, the tires we were told were not to be that much different but to our car it made a major difference, the difference between having a good feeling fast car and feeling like I was just hanging on. Many teams were concerned about the tires, blistering seemed to be the talk in the garages.
The new facility is very nice, the track is great and fun to race on, after the practice on Friday a few of us in the garage area still getting ready to leave thought we might experience a Kansas tornado first hand. The rain was heavy and blowing sideways, we waited it out for nearly an hour before leaving the track, feeling secure the hauler would be there when we returned, at that time in spots the puddles were up to 6 inches deep.
Never did quite get the car back to what we had on Thursday, it was a little discouraging when we had such a good car then it slipped away from us with only the tire change. We worked and worked and finally got as good as we could in the time we had. I was the first car to ever qualify on the Kansas Speedway and the first car to spin out during qualifying on the Kansas Speedway. On my first hot lap I went into turn one and the car just broke loose on me, I worked it to keep it off the wall through the corner and on the exit it finally spun around on me. I did everything in my power to keep it off the wall/walls, which ended up being a couple of 360’s, and flat spotted tires, so my second lap was NOT GOOD either.
Started the race dead last, but was able to move up into the top 10 on the race track, we pitted early under the first yellow and did a four tire change to check tires and they looked pretty good...on the next caution we pitted again and pulled off shredded right side tires, we went with only right sides that time, we decided at that point we should take a more conservative approach and make sure we didn't end up in the wall like a few other drivers had up to that point. We made one final pit stop at lap 70 ready to go to the end and we started to have engine problems, unfortunately we had to just coast around and nurse the engine at half throttle to just to get a finish in the race.
We ended up 15th 2 laps down, and went to 6th place in points. Our next race at Evergreen Speedway, Monroe WA June 30th will be here before we know it.
Hope to see you there.
Scott
