Jan 23

Written by: host
Monday, January 23, 2006 7:38 PM 

I was really looking forward to getting things going on Sunday for my first race, and I think our team had everyone ready to go when the command was given to fire the engines. After fellow Riley Chassis runner Pablo Donoso crashed in morning practice, the starting field was cut down to 11 of these new USAC Silver Crown cars. This pushed me up to the 8th starting spot right behind longtime USAC driver Dave Darland.

USAC did look at a few cars pretty hard over the weekend and didn't like some of what they were seeing. USAC also had to hand out different wheel nuts on Saturday because the angles on the old ones were wrong.

By looking at the cars, you would think they have alot of downforce, but that is not really the case. These cars still like to dance around underneath power and you can control them with the gas. The main thing I kept trying to get used to was the way the driver sits in a USAC Silver Crown car compared to a Supermodified. I sit very upright over the drivline with my legs at a ninety degree angle vs. almost laying down in the super. This will take the most getting use to and comfortable inside these new cars.

The first few laps I was really careful not to push the car too hard off the corners. Unlike a supermodified, these cars really take alot of finesse with the gas pedal and you can't simply mash the gas. After a few laps, it appeared that we were having some kind of fuel pickup or injection problem. I would stay with the pack in the corners, but on the straights, the car felt like it was starving for fuel possibly. The car was very racing in the corners and the crew from Patermoster Racing had a very quick setup under me. When I did get to the starightaways, the cars ahead would pull away due to our fuel injection problem. I really beleive if the motor was at 100% that we would have been able to draw right in on the top 5 runners and get really racey. I could really ut the car anywhere it wanted to go in the corners, but unless I got a real good run off, the cars just continued to pull away.

The crew has a handle on what the issue was and will be working on that and tweaking the setup for next time. Running close quarters with Dave Darland during the race was alot of fun, and I even gave him a little shot in the bumper the last lap trying to get by off turn 4. He was making his car pretty wide, and I could pull alongside but couldn't quite pull ahead. The more seat time I get in the cars, the more comfortable I will feel down the road.

I really want to thank Ferris Industrustries, National Parts Peddler, and all of our sponsors and the Paternoster crew for a great weekend. I also want to thank all of my friends and fans who logged on to the new website and listened in on www.usaclive.com to see how things were going. I wish the next race was next weekend, but until then keep hecking back to see when I might host a LIVE Text Chat for my egistered members.

Thanks again, cya soon!

Greg

Tags: