After leaving the Bristol race I thought we had made some strides to getting our car on track, we ran some very impressive half track speeds and then first round made a really good top end charge of 330 mph. It showed the car was making good power and I hoped that the Topeka race was going to be the start of our turnaround.
I hate to be wrong.
Qualifying started and we had a bug in our car. It wouldn't idle properly on the starting line. It wouldn't do it in the pit area on warm up but once we went up to run and the car did a burnout and backed up it would start going crazy. These cars are very finicky and when the slightest thing is not right it affects everything. With the idle higher than it was supposed to be it starts to affect the clutch, it removes the neutral position and starts heating up the clutch which is very bad.
With the problem on Friday we basically threw away both qualifying runs. We made some changes to address the problem and got ready for Saturday.
Saturday's qualifying was no better. While we addressed the idle problem the car would still not run. If the car ran good early in the run it would either drop cylinders or drop cylinders and throw the blower belt off, as evidenced by our recent string of 4.80 elapsed times at 240 mph.
We ended up qualifying in the 15th position and would face my former little league teammate Cory McClenathan first round. To say we weren't feeling confident would be an understatement. As our season has gone this year our day ended in tire smoke first round. To say we are frustrated would also be an understatement!
After the race we decided to give up on the new combination we were trying to run. We just could not make any headway into developing it something consistent, it would throw us a bone on occasion but that's it.
As we head toward the Chicago race we have decided to return to the combination we ran last year. While it was very hard on parts at least it ran very good. We are going to put it back that way and try and fix the volatility problem. We have about 10 races left before the cutoff to get into the countdown for the championship and we can't afford to give any more races away.
I also want to say to all the UPS employees that have asked about our team merchandise and apparel. It is now available on the UPS Oasis system. It has been up and running there for the last couple of months and has been moving very steadily. Thanks for all the people who have supported our program by purchasing from the site.
On to Chicago ...
Thanks for reading,