After coming off a semi-final round finish in Atlanta we headed to St. Louis with some momentum. We seemed to make some progress in getting our car turned around and headed in the right direction.
Qualifying started off slowly. We didn't make it down the track on either attempt Friday. In Atlanta we were having trouble dropping cylinders and made a couple of changes in St. Louis to try and fix the problem, unfortunately the changes we made had a negative effect on the engine power level and led to the aborted runs on Friday.
After fixing the power level problem we actually made a pretty good run on our first qualifying attempt Saturday, running a 4.56 at 323 mph, a step in the right direction and that put us in the number eight position. After looking at the computer information we were pleased to see that the car responded to the changes we made and, even though we didn't really have the car tuned up, it made a good run and gave us some confidence heading into the last session.
On our final qualifying attempt we made another decent run. We had a small problem at the finish line and slowed to a 4.59 at only 297 mph but the car was showing promise. We ended up 11th on the qualifying ladder and would face Larry Dixon in round one.
Sunday morning is always a nail-biter. Race day really gets the butterflies going in everyone. Even though we were still struggling I thought we had a good chance heading to eliminations. We had started to see some progress with the cars performance and you are always just one run away from turning around your season. We ended up being the last pair of cars to run and that really builds the drama, sitting around and watching everyone else run gives you a lot of time to wonder about the decisions you have made.
As things turned out we are going to have to wait another race to get our season turned around. After building a big lead against Dixon our car lost the blower belt at the 1000 foot mark allowing Dixon to drive around me at the finish line and edge us out.
It was a very disappointing defeat. To be ahead and on your way to victory and then have the blower belt break and lose is tough to swallow. We are going to stay after the race and test our new car on Monday. It is from a different manufacturer and we have high hopes for it.
In my next report I will let you know how the testing went.
Thanks for reading,