After a week off, it’s back to preparing for our next race at the Barber Motorsports Park this weekend. Well, it actually wasn’t a week off. Immediately after our race at Daytona, I went with the Ganassi Cup team up to Road Atlanta to help them work on a number of things for their road course setups in preparation for the Watkins Glen race in a couple of weeks.
One thing is for sure, after spending July 4 in Daytona and then a few days in Georgia, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for the heat and humidity we’ll see in Birmingham. With all the issues we face over a race weekend, it may sound strange, but the biggest issue at Barber is the heat and the weather. It’s an issue with the drivers, the car, the grip and the horsepower. It affects everything we do. It’s further complicated with the rain we’ve had there in the past.
Outside of the weather, Barber is a great track for both the fans and the drivers. It’s a very technical track – both uphill and downhill with about 80 feet of elevation change over the course of the track. There’s no real time to rest there with 17 turns. You are always working the car, so it’s very physical before you even take the heat into consideration.
Barber is probably one of the best tracks in America for the fans that attend the race. There are so many viewing areas that allow you to see a great deal of the race track. It’s almost like a stadium view where fans are elevated above the race track, but in a beautiful hillside setting. And if the sun gets to be a little much, the huge pine trees that surround the track provide a nice alternative in the shade. When you add the motorcycle museum into the mix, it’s a place I think any road racing fan would enjoy.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t been a place that our TELMEX Lexus has enjoyed very much over the past five years. For the Ganassi team, this has consistently been one of our most difficult tracks. Some tracks you know you’ll have a good car when you roll off the truck, but we’ve struggled some at Barber. We just haven’t done as well year after year at there. On the bright side, we did win here a year ago and, hopefully, we can build on that.
Now that we’re officially past the Fourth of July, it basically begins the home stretch for us with just five races remaining. It’s been a crazy first half of the season. We came out of the box with a strong showing at the ’24 Hours’, then we had some rough going at Virginia and New Jersey, then we had three straight races where we finished in the top two (a second at Laguna and wins at Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio), and then back down last race at Daytona. It’s a season like I haven’t experienced before.
Our view right now is we have to be consistent, if we can keep our TELMEX Lexus up front and stay on the podium, we’ll be in great shape in going after the championship. On the other hand, while all of the leaders have struggled at times, we’re getting to the point in the season where you just can’t afford a major problem.
Keep your fingers crossed and thanks for checking in. I’ll update you next Monday on how our weekend in Alabama went.
