South Boston Sucks

Alright, South Boston the town, track or the people dont suck, but the weekend I had there sure did. WARNING...if you want the PC or sugarcoated version of what happened then check out my "official" press release on www.michaelkiddracing.com, but if you want to know what really happened then keep on reading.

Friday was Tech day at South Boston. This day is for the USAR officials to check cars for safety, technical compliance and to check uniforms for the proper SFI ratings. Our car went through the process fairly early with little problems. We had a small issue with our lead ballast not being "white" enough. That was easily fixed with a can of white spray paint.

After we re-assembled the car we headed to the scale area where USAR does their routine pre-qualifying technical inspection. This area and process is one that we go through every race. This is where body templates are checked, wheel base and tread width measures are taken and where frame heights, crank heights and finally car weight is checked. Our car made it through without any major violations. For some reason the overall template didnt fit very well on the rear deck near the rear spoiler. I was very perplexed by this because it was the same body that passed with flying colors last year. My thoughts were if it was right last year it should be right this year. When we got the car back to the pits and checked it out we did find the problem. The nose was caught on a bolt and had it pushed out to far which cause the template to not fit correctly. It's complicated but if I showed you then it would make sense.

We did have a violation with the tread width that I'm pissed about. I measure treadwidth at the center line of the wheel at spindle height. It is the only place where treadwidth can be measured that isnt affected by camber. At the shop, I measured our treadwidth to be 60 3/8 inches which is 1/8 of an inch below the 60 1/2 rule. No problems right? USAR measures the tread width at the bottom of the wheel which is easily affected by camber. By their measurements I was 60 11/16! A difference of 5/16!! I'm going to be on the phone with Daniel today at USAR to complain about this. They need to change the way they measure treadwidth so that they are doing it right. I'll keep you posted if I have any luck changing their minds.

Now we get to the sucky part of the day, practice. USAR let us on the track at 5:30 that evening. I took our Kidd Tire/The Works Chevy on the track about 5:45 and by 6 we were trying to fix the car so that we could load it and go home. Hell of a day huh? Here's what happened, I had just started running at speed, made 6 or 7 laps full tilt and was feeling everything out when I drove it down into turn 3 and the 11 car was sitting there in the middle of the track. I slammed on the brakes and turned hard right to avoid him. Instead of cleaning his clock, I slammed the car hard into the wall. Don't worry, I'm fine and had no residual sorness. I am pissed though. I am pissed at the whole situation.

I was told by another spotter that saw what happened that the 11 car was trying to get into pit road and was spooked by the 7 car who was underneath him, he slowed dramatically at the moment that I was barrelling into the corner. Now first of all-I am sure the driver of the 11 car is a nice kid, he's only 17 years old and I am not going to get on him too much-I'm not posting this to beat up on him. What I am pissed about is that fact that USAR doesnt do a better job of vetting rookies before allowing them to compete. Last year, no one interviewed me or critiqued me or did any research on my experience, skill or character that I was made aware of. When you look at this kid's resume (a few years of go-carts, a season of 4 cyl. hobby stock and a couple years of dirt modifieds), he doesnt have the experience to race in this series. He could be a great driver and have a career that rivals any Sprint Cup star, but at this moment he doesnt have the experience to compete at this level.

What should USAR do? I think if drivers of this experience level are allowed to compete, then there should be a better rookie orientation process to help these guys adapt to the series. I would be in favor of a mentoring system where veteran drivers are paired up with rookies to help them along or a rookie meeting each week that is more informational and extensive than what is in place now. Maybe Jimmy and a veteran driver need to walk the track with the rookies and explain things that way??

Now if I'm going to point fingers here then I can't leave myself out. No matter what the 11 car did-I still had a steering wheel, brake and gas pedal in my control. I should have done a better job of avoiding the slow car in the racing groove. (I can only liken this to coming around a blind curve and seeing a deer in the middle of the road-that is the best way I can relate this to people who havent driven a race car) Responsibility ultimately rests on my shoulders and I accept that. My spotter, HM could have done a better job of warning me that there were problems in turn 3. He knows this and accepts this too. So it is not entirely the 11 car's fault-we all have responsibility in this.

Well that's what happened. I was home Saturday night enjoying time with Lisa and Ryan while my buddies battled the rain in South Boston. I think I ultimately won that one.

Thursday Test

We finally got to the track Thursday and got a test in. It was a beautiful day with temps in the mid 80's and sunshine everywhere. We unloaded about 10 am and after baselining the car (weighed the car on scales and checked heights so that we knew where our starting point was) we made our first runs at about 11:30. We worked hard through 3pm and made lots of changes.

My goal for the first test was to shake the car down and make sure nothing fell off of it and that there were no mechanical issues before South Boston. Fortunately for us, we only had one minor oil leak that was fixed by tightening up a fitting that was inadvertantly left loose.

The new engine felt really strong and it pulled really well off of the corner. We took our Laughlin car to the test and it was handling well, but I wanted to make big changes to see how it responded. The result? We took a big step forward in chassis evolution and performance. We're about 2 tenths or maybe 3 better than what we were last July for the race. The car drove well and our times were awesome.

So what does that all mean? I'm not sure. I think we will be pretty good at South Boston. The car should drive well but it will be up to me to fine tune it to make it better for race conditions. Being out on the track by yourself is one thing, but when you have 30 other knuckleheads out there with you, that kinda changes things.

I'll promise one thing, I'll be focused on getting our Kidd Tire/The Works Chevy turning and accelerating off the corners well. I promise we will be giving it our all come Friday and Saturday....

new look for 2008

Let me know what you think of our new look for 2008