We knew The Thunderbolt racetrack was not going to favor the Mustang and our strategy going in was to play it a little conservative and get a solid finish. We were hoping for better than an 8^th place finish, but if that’s the worst we do this year, we’ll be pleased.

 

The track was more challenging than anticipated. This was primarily due to the addition of a chicane and a combined ST/GS field. The chicane aided to take away a passing zone for the Mustangs and the GS cars in general.

 

We struggled with the car most of the weekend. Ever since Daytona, I thought there was something wrong with the car. It felt like something in the driveline was binding and holding the car back. The engine seemed fine, and pulled well on the straights. Our lap times and straightaway speeds seemed okay too. However, upon review of the data after the first practice on Friday, we found that our straightaway speeds were down 6mph over our team cars. We only had an hour before the next practice and 4 hours until qualifying. We decided to change the engine at the last minute. We knew we were not going to make the next practice, but were hopeful that if everything went well, we’d make qualifying and not have to start from the back. We decided to go with a brand new Ford Racing engine right out of the crate instead of our already dressed spare engine. This was going to add a lot of time so we right to it. We made qualifying with 5 minutes to spare. I rolled out from under the car, ran to the washroom to clean up, ran back to the trailer to get suited up and in the car and made it to grid early as I was one of the lucky 5 front qualifiers.

 

As we rolled onto the track, the windshield started to accumulate a few sprinkles. I thought I needed to get right down to business in case the rain came. Well, as I came out of turn 6 and headed down the short straightaway, I saw it… It was a wall of rain. Woosh! It started coming down like GM stock. I drove as fast as I dared, but watching the engine vitals while trying to drive in the rain (on slicks) was challenging. The rain started to subside so I started pushing harder because I knew the fastest laps were yet to come from everyone. I was P2 at one point near the end of qualifying, but knew it wasn’t going to be enough. I was trying to push hard and be conservative at the same time. An oxymoron, I know. I had pointed the 61 car passed and gave myself a gap so I had room to run. On my final timed lap, I was pushing pretty hard and lost a little bit of time in the chicane. I knew it wasn’t a great lap and I thought I had another one to come. I pushed, but I didn’t run a qualifying lap. I had one spooled up as I ran through the esses onto the front straight and was ready for a flier. Unfortunately, I was one of the first few cars to catch the checkered flag and didn’t get to run my “qualifying” lap. When I crossed the stripe, I was P4 on the grid, but as the final few cars came across, two cars jumped to the front of the pack (2^nd and 3^rd actually). I was relegated to 6^th on the grid. When I saw the qualifying times, I was pretty upset with myself. I was less than 0.40 seconds off pole and knew I had another 0.50 seconds in reserve. I should have pushed harder!

 

At the start, I was right behind my old co-driver Jack Roush Jr. in the 61 Mustang. We got a good start and I jumped from 6^th to 5^th. It was a pretty crazy start, but clean. The front 5 changed a few times before we crossed the stripe for the first time. Problems developed for us on lap 3 when another Mustang was moving a little slow on course through the chicane. Jack misjudged the timing and ran right up on the back of the slow car and had to check up at the exit of the corner. I saw it coming and timed it well. I got a huge run coming out and when the slower car moved right and the 61 car was tracking out of the corner, I started up through the middle of the two cars with a head of steam. As I got up around the door of the 61 car, I got the hatchet job. As sudden change of direction of the 61 (into my left front wheel) sent me straight into the side of the slower car we were passing. I immediately lost a position to the 80 BMW and he was going around the 61. Then, he got the run off the track by the 61. Meanwhile, I was under pressure from the 32 BMW. He got by me and I got him back in the next corner. At this point, I was hot! I was on a mission to catch back up and ran my fastest lap on lap 6 when I caught up on the 80 and the 61 doing battle. I think the 61 car tried running the 80 car off track at least 4 times before the 80 finally got by. Now, I was up on the bumper of the 61. I must have radioed back to the pits 3-4 times calling deliberate, textbook blocking by the 61 car, but nothing was done. I was pretty bent. It was all I could do to not punt him off. Since nothing was done about his driving, I knew that I would be the one called for the penalty in the event of contact. Then came the icing on the cake. On lap 23, the caution came out. It had been out for quite a length of time (20 seconds) and four corners. We were stuck behind a VW when the 61 car passed the VW (UNDER CAUTION) in plain view of the corner worker (as seen on my in-car). I called it in. Yet again, nothing was done. The VW took it upon himself to correct the situation between turns three and four. Why the change of position under caution didn’t raise a red flag to the guys in timing and scoring baffles me, but… As we restarted, it was another exercise in self control. More blatant blocking followed and I just decided to ride around and make the best of it. I’ll let Kenny work on the 61 later. I was just going to get a penalty if I didn’t get control of myself. As the race continued, we watched to see who was doing what for fuel. Everyone was going to need to stop for fuel before the end. Are we going to get another caution? What do you think? It was a game. Although, the 99 car must have refueled out on the track like an F-15 because it went about 25 minutes longer on fuel than most of us. As we toiled over the strategy and whether or not to pit early for the splash or pit late for the splash, we were watching the lap times. Kenny wanted to come in, but since he was ruining faster than most of the field, we stayed out. We stayed out until we had enough cushion on the 61 car to be able to come in for a splash and get back out in front of them. I thought we’d be able to come out in front of the 37 car too, but we were just a few seconds too long in pit lane. We finished 8^th and maintained the points lead going in to Laguna Seca. We should have a better chance at a good finish since Laguna is better for the Mustang than NJMP. We also just got a 50-pound weight reduction for the next race. It should level the playing field for Laguna, but it won’t nearly be enough to give us a chance at winning at Lime Rock the following week. One race at a time… We’re just going to keep our heads down and keep the car reliable. I’m going to focus on capturing the pole at every race and try to keep the BMWs and Porsches behind me. We’ll see how it goes. 

 

 

Drive Fast,

Take Chances!

-Dean