The story of CMC #50

[Sook]

Sunday: It wasn’t supposed to rain on Sunday, but this is Houston so it did. Skipped warm-up in lieu of more sleep. Head out in qualifying.

Qualifying: This time around there’s quite a bit of trouble. I go out behind Mosty. He spins off track in T1 on lap 1, I make sure not to follow him. I catch up to Jerry but he’s not letting me buy. I’m still new to all of this, but it was my understanding that we don’t race that hard in qual, apparently not the case when it comes to the #55. I get a bit of the red mist and I really want to get by this guy so I can set my own lap. I get frustrated and let a few other cars by me – maybe they can make a move. Turns out it doesn’t matter that much, now there are cars off in diamond’s edge, so we’ve got a yellow flag from the front straight all the way through diamond’s edge. Still frustrated and feeling like the car is down on power because I can’t pass anyone in the few passing zones left. “It’s probably just the weather and being angry” I tell myself and don’t think anything of it. Qual gets black-flagged and grid is set based on fast lap from R1. I grid second, should have been third but Mosty voluntarily moves himself to the back.

R3: Track is decently dry at the point, everyone is on slicks. Take the out lap and get ready for the standing start. Green flag flies and I get a good jump! Here we go, trying to repeat R1. I get to T1 and am absolutely freight trained as half the field goes by. I can hang in carousel, but the time I get to the straight the rest of the field goes by. OK – I have an issue. Check my gauges everything looks good. Stay out for a lap and let everyone go with a point-by. Besides the car not going past 4500RPM there’s no other symptoms. Pull off and immediately being diagnosing in the pit. Under hood fuel pressure is only showing 25psi. Before the race is over, we have the fuel pump out and a new one on the way. Not the finish I hoped for but I’m glad we have a smoking gun. In my limited experience, its quite rare to have an indication of what’s actually wrong on these tired old cars.

Driver’s meeting: While pulling the old fuel filter out, gas in my mouth and arm-pit, Marshall comes over and asks us to attend an impromptu driver’s meeting. OK, I head over. Daniel Records and I are honored with an acknowledgement of both of our first wins, and we pose for a picture. Turns out there wasn’t a picture, just ice cold water on a rainy day. Great ritual, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

R4: Starting second. Jerry is in front of me; apparently, he pulled off a lap before I did. Stupid me, I should have come off immediately. Mosty is behind me, I guess he had a problem in R3. Green flag flies on the rolling start. Track is completely dry now so you can make a lot of lines work. Jerry, Mosty and I battle it out on the first lap trading positions all around. Mosty gets in front and puts some ground on Jerry and me. This is the point where I start to do a LOT of learning fast, talk about drinking from a fire hose. For the next few laps, Jerry makes his 73.75” track-width limited car about 200” wide. I can’t get buy him at all. I’m trying to make moves all over but can’t quite put it together. I’m making compromises on all of my corners and getting shut down, losing ground, making it back up, another bad move, lose more ground. This dance goes on for quite a while. To make matters worse, my three best passing corners (carousel, diamond’s edge, and the sweeper) all have standing yellows. I’m limited to the tight section, the launch, gut-check, and the front straight. At one point, I make a brave move near the wall with no luck and almost get a face full of concrete. OK, I need to make a real move now. I take the next lap easy and execute my plan. Hang back in the tight section and get a run over the launch. Stay in the throttle all the way to sugar and spice and dive under Jerry early. This is MY LINE NOW DAMN IT. I control that corner and complete the pass. That pass was almost as rewarding as my race win! I settle into a fast pace to try and catch Mosty, but it’s futile. I finish second in the most intense track session I’ve ever had.

I had an excellent weekend and can’t thank the AI/CMC group enough. I started hanging out with you guys a couple of years ago and never expected to get this far so quickly. Special thanks to Dan Allford for his instruction, mentorship, and helping me with a car to learn in last season, sorry for burning it and going through all kinds of parts. Craig Wiseman and Chad Shultz both helped out on the car before and during race weekend. OIF guys have helped me out more than once with late night t56 rebuilds. Records was offering all kinds of parts on Friday. Tyler graciously worked with me on buying the car.

Biggest thanks of all to Richard Pedersen. He’s been my driving coach, crew chief, spare parts loaner, and best drug dealer I could ask for. We met when I moved to Houston permanently, and he made sure I never had extra cash to get in trouble with.