New Teammate John Bosch

A few things have changed since the Mid Ohio race weekend. Chris Brown, my former co driver decided not to finish out the season with us so I was racing with another one of the guys that has run a few races with us this year, John Bosch. We had three cars this weekend; Peter London was co driving with Boris Said and Ted Giovanis was co driving with Shawn Dewey.

We arrived on Wednesday night and low and behold, no hotel issues! That seems to have been the start of my last few race weekends. We arrived to the track on Thursday and missed the 1^st session which turned out to be 2 laps. They had an issue on the 1^st lap, black flagged the session, sent everyone out again, and then black flagged the session again. We didn’t miss much at all. The 2^nd session went well and I ended up driving the full session. The track seemed to come back to me and I was pretty satisfied for my first session on track. John and I split the 3^rd session and we decided we needed to make some changes. The car was oversteering quite a bit and was pretty unmanageable. Every time I tried to get on the gas the rear end stepped out.

Friday morning we had some alternator issues with the car which was causing other issues with the car. Since we had made a set up change, we were trying to get a feel if we were headed in the right direction. John and I both took 2 laps. The team put a new alternator on the car and I went back to the hotel to do a little work and stay cool. The temperatures were in the mid 90’s with horrible humidity and it was just unbearable. We still had some looseness in the car for the 2^nd practice and I just didn’t feel like I drove well. The heat was taking a toll on me and the lack of track time affected my confidence. After the day I went over all of my data with VJ, my coach and he said that I had made some improvements on the turns that I had worked on. We discussed with Jeff and Johnny and decided to change springs and the rear sway bar for qualifying. We had been on old tires the last 2 days so this probably contributed to the looseness.

The team had a lot of work to do on the three cars and were there at the track working until about 9pm. Peter and Taryn went into town and came back with pizza and beer for everyone.

Boris and the entourage.

Trying to avoid getting hit by all the GS cars

I arrived about 10am on Saturday for qualifying and felt really confident and good about the changes we’d made. The qualifying session went well and I had clean track. I went out with my teammate, Shawn Dewey, and tried to keep up but couldn’t. I ended up shaving off about 2 seconds from my previous times and drove really well. I felt really good about it but it but we were still close to the back of the field. Shawn ended up qualifying 6^th so it was very exciting for the #64 car. Peter had some issues with his car and only got a couple laps and ended up behind me.

We generally qualify the day before the race but it was kind of nice to have a qualifying the same morning as our race. I was feeling pretty confident and excited about the race. The start went well and I was able to avoid the usual 1^st lap chaos but about 4 laps in, I got a large splash of power steering fluid on my windshield. Fortunately it hit my windshield (and a it in my face!) before I noticed it in the steering wheel. I was prepared and just muscled the car into the corner. It let loose just as I was entering a very fast corner. I made my way back to pit lane and the team took a look at it. I thought a line had broken but it was actually the cap that had popped loose. The team refilled it and put the cap back on and sent me back out. When I re-entered the track, I was right in front of all the GS cars. Definitely not the place you want to be on your first lap out after an issue like that. I still had some air in the line and was having intermittent steering issues. I just held my breath and tried to stay out of their way and point them by. I was lucky and made it without any contact. About 4 laps later the power steering blew again. I came into pit lane again and they pushed me back to our paddock. The team ended up  having to replace the reservoir as it appeared the heat had melted the threads and that was why the cap kept blowing off. They were very quick but we still went down quite a few laps.

When I got back out, everything seemed just fine and I focused on just driving. I had been in the car (part of it just sitting while they fixed the power steering reservoir) for about an hour and 20 minutes and was just hoping for a full course caution so we could do a driver change. It was so hot and I was definitely getting tired and overheated. Finally, I saw my Delphi light come on and had three laps until the team brought me in to do our driver change. I am not sure I could have driven much longer.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful for John. He did a great job, set fast race lap in lap 54 and brought the car in for the finish. Unfortunately, our teammates were not so lucky. Peter got hit fairly early in the race and also cut a tire. He was running in 9^th place and went back a few positions because of this. Boris did a good job in the race but due to the earlier issues, there just wasn’t time to make up the difference. He was running one of the fastest lap times in the class at the end of the race though. Shawn (and co driver Ted) had the worst of the weekend. Shawn had gone off course mid race and was waived back on by a corner worker right in front of the #09 Sunoco Camaro. The Camaro t-boned him and ended the race for both cars. It was a hard hit and bent the roll cage in the #64 car. Shawn ended up going to the hospital with a broken hand.

It was a very long and extremely hot weekend and not pleasant racing conditions. I’m looking forward to Trois Rivieres next month and hoping it won’t be as hot and humid.