Oh, boy…
What an awesome weekend with the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge series. Where to begin?!?! For our 3rd and 4th races we found ourselves at Barber Motorsports Park for a Double-Header weekend. Being the 45th Anniversary of the Ford Mustang, the place was packed with fans and SO MANY Mustangs and guess who was the main attraction? We were! The Ford Racing Mustang Challenge was "The Place to Race" and "The Races to Watch" at Barber! Needless to say, Barber is one of the most beautiful racing facilities I have ever been to, the whole compound is awesome. Ranging from the rolling green grassy hills to the weird spider statues holding motorcycles, it is just amazing. The track is so much fun to drive, with so many little intricacies, it's just awesome.
THURSDAY
Thursday was a rather uneventful day... Birmingham, Alabama is just a short two and half hour trip from Lawrenceville, Georgia. We arrived at the track and I think my Dad, David and I were all in shock at how many Ford Mustangs we saw. The place was packed! We pulled into the paddock and set up the trailer and got everything ready for practice on Friday. After scoping out the track we decided to head back to our "hotel" for some rest and relaxation for the big practice day on Friday. We checked in to our awesome condo on the Coosa river right outside Birmingham and called it a night.
FRIDAY
Our first on track excursion was at 8:00 am and we were ready to go... or so we thought. I got in the car to fire it up just to make sure everything was in working order before heading over to pre-grid and noticed a little bit of hesitation with the engine. David, my Dad and Jeff from Ford Racing were all digging around under the hood to try and get things straightened out. They tried an Oxygen Sensor and we thought that got it going better so off to the track we went. Nope, not any better. The car just had no power and was limping around the track. I pulled in to pit lane hoping something would pop up on the computer when Jeff checked it out. Nothing we didn't know already... so my Dad popped the fuse box open and found a blown fuse, replaced it and lo and behold it got it running in 100% shape. This left me with about 10 or 15 minutes of track time. Ryan Eversley, my coach, helped me get used to the track and setting some decent times. After practice, Ryan and I went over the video, determined to get quicker.
The second practice went much smoother than the first. No engine problems what so ever, the car was running great. This gave us the full hour to work on lines, braking points, feeling out the track and letting David tweak the set-up. We set some decent times and gave us a good feeling about throwing some brand new BFGoodrich tires on the car for qualifying the next morning and throwing down some huge fast laps.
SATURDAY
Saturday morning brought another 8:00 am track time for qualifying. With a new set of BFGoodrich tires on the car, I was ready to go out and run some great laps! We pulled out and had some great clean laps and ended up qualifying Position 12 with a 1:40:161 out of 23 cars! Man, I was stoked for the race with such a great qualifying time like that.
Race time! The start of the race goes great, everything seems to be in order... I hold my position up until turn 13, up and over the hill on the backside of the track. This is where things go bad. The rear end of the car lightens up and kicks out just enough that I start to spin and head towards the inside wall. Both feet in on the clutch and brake and the car comes to a stop on the inside of the track out of harms way. I waited for traffic to clear out and put the car back on the track knowing I had some work to do to catch back up to where I was since no caution was thrown. I decided to just push my way forward and not let the spin affect me too bad. Unfortunately for me, there was no cautions the entire race so I had no chance to close the gap up to the front runners. I pushed and pushed and pushed and ended up in P17 at the end of the race. One mistake on the first lap cost me quite a few positions but it did teach me quite a bit so it wasn't a total loss.
Saturday also brought one of the coolest things ever for me... an autograph session! All the drivers lined up at our tables at the Mustang Challenge trailer and signed fans autographs for an hour or so. We signed posters, hero cards, shirts, hats and anything people brought up to us! It was a blast getting to meet all the fans of the series and of Mustangs.
SUNDAY
Sunday morning brought a practice before qualifying. Sunday morning also brought rain... that was fun! We slapped on the BFGoodrich rain tires and went out to see what the track was going to be like. It was slippery but fun! I was P3 on the board for quite a long time out there during practice until it started to dry up and the boys with slicks picked up some better times. This left us hoping for rain for qualifying and the race.
By the time qualifying rolled around the track had dried up and the sky turned blue... no clouds to be seen. Another new set of BFGoodrich sticker tires and off to qualify we went. The car felt great, but we couldn't seem to get and super quick laps out of it, this left us starting in position 16 for the race. Not too bad, I'll just have to work my way up.
Race time! This time I told myself I wasn't going to spin it on the first lap and keep it going straight so I could start picking off positions as I saw able. The car was feeling great and I just kept pushing my way forward. I picked up a few positions throughout the first half of the race until we had a caution thrown when a car ahead of me hit the wall on the backside of the track. This brought the pack all together and proved to be quite a good opportunity for me. Soon we all saw the green flag flying and everyone barreling down the front straight right in to turn 1. I saw an opportunity to huck it in to turn 1 super hard and overtake some cars gaining two positions before turn 2 was even complete! This put me in position 10 which I just had to hold off until the end of the race. It was such a great race and I was super happy with finishing in the top 10 after Saturday's disappointing race.
THANKS!
I want to give a big thanks to all the Ford Mustang fans for coming out, my Dad, David O'dell, Ryan Eversley, Bruce O'dell, JC Concrete, Jacky Jones Ford, all the FRMC crew, Ford and Barber Motorsports Park.
