After a winter break of uncertainty and changes the Oliver Gravity Separators-Denver Seminary #00 Chevrolet Monte Carlo team was not only happy to be at the first NASCAR Grand National Winston West Series race, but very pleased with the results compared to last years crash and last place finish. We Qualified 15th and finished 9th and brought home a clean car this year, had an opportunity to visit with car owner Geoff Burney and family as well as entertain several guests of the Denver Seminary.
Friday we arrived at the track to cool but sunny conditions where soon the temps soared into the 80's which all of us from Colorado enjoyed. We have a new engine configuration this year and our Dave Capriotti engine held fast all weekend, we have a lot to learn but feel strongly on our way.
We could never quite find the sweet spot for the cars handling and changed more springs and bars and did more adjustments than we have in the past few races. We truly expected the car to come around during the race, which it did during the middle of the race when we were actually catching the leader, Ken Schrader but after our last pit stop the car just went away. At that point I had to just hang on in the turns drive hard but smooth to keep the car on the track and in one piece.
The race had 8 cautions several of which occurred just ahead of our car, we were lucky to avoid the accidents and spinning cars. The crew was eager to be back and did a great job all weekend getting the car ready, keeping it running strong and doing great pit stops, thanks to all of you that helped to bring our Oliver car home 9th in our first race of the year.
We flew home last night into 28 degrees and blowing snow but at least we had a sunny weekend.
See you all in Las Vegas April 12th...
Scott Gaylord #00
