Wednesday – My Dad and I decided to drive to Illinois rather than take a quick flight so we left relatively early and made the drive up through the endless fields of corn from Georgia to Illinois in about 12 hours. We checked in to our hotel and promptly searched for a delicious Chicago style pizzeria or restaurant… and ended up at Applebee’s. That seems to be the case with us and I see no problem with that! Knowing that the next morning was going to be a pretty early one we headed back to the room and turned in for the night.
Thursday – This was my first day on track and even though I had watched videos and studied the track map it takes a few laps to learn 3.56 miles and 21 turns! For the first session we tried some pretty drastic setup changes on the Mustang and combining those with learning the track really gave me a handful that left me disappointed. We made quite a few changes to the car getting it back to the setup I was most comfortable with and went out for the second session. Session 2 went much better than the first one and I was happy to learn the track some more and feel a little more comfortable in the car. After a long day at the track we had a fun night at the event kickoff at Harrah’s in downtown Joliet, Illinois. Good drinks, good food and good people at the party.
Friday – Moving onward to the second day of practice we continued making changes to the car to nail the setup. In the first session I was struggling with over-driving the car and being too aggressive which was leading us to think the car wasn’t setup as well as it could have been but the times weren’t TOO TOO bad at 2:45.602 but I knew I still had a ways to go to catch the front runners. After the first session I talked to Scott Maxwell extensively about the track, went over some data, video and the track map. This led me to go back out for the second session with a few new tips and tricks to try. Apparently it worked because I picked up half a second of time from the first session at 2:45.108. We were all super pleased with how the day turned out and looking forward to qualifying on Saturday. Dad and I decided to go to a local restaurant and after driving around for a while ended up at Nick and Vito’s Italian restaurant. It’s always good to head to local places and see what they have to offer.
Saturday – Qualifying was at 4 in the afternoon on Saturday with nothing really to do before hand so we just took it easy all morning, had some eggs from McDonald’s and headed in to the track around lunch time. I had several things I was going to try on the track after talking to Beaux Barfield the afternoon before so I was pretty excited to get out there and set a quick lap. I guess the advice I’d been receiving all weekend from the super talented drivers and coaches ended up paying off as I lowered my time even more and set a blazing fast (for me) 2.43.981. That’s a whole second and tad off from my times in practice yesterday. AWESOME! This put me starting P11 which we were all pretty happy about since that put us super close to having a top 10 finish for the first time all season. We went out to celebrate at Aurelio’s Pizzeria… Talk about some good Chicago style deep dish pizza. I’d recommend it to anyone in the Chicago area.
Sunday – Oh boy! Race day! The plan was to take it easy and be super aware the first couple of laps just to make sure I didn’t get caught up in anything in front of me since I was starting a few rows back in P11. Good thing I was paying attention because two cars collided about two rows up from me going in to turn 2 on the first lap which put us under caution for about 15 minutes. At this point I was in P9 closely following Andrew Hendricks when the green flag dropped again after they had cleaned up the track. With about 20 or 25 minutes left to go in the race I knew I had to be smart and just work on making clean passes as I saw them pop up. A few laps after the green I saw a perfect opportunity to duck under Hendricks going in to a sharp 90° right hand corner. I stuck the car in on the inside and really drove it in the corner hard and made the pass stick. This put me in P8 following Pratt Cole. I was on his tail for the majority of the rest of the race until Hendricks got his chance and passed me back. His lead over me didn't last too long though, going in to the same turn where I passed him the first time he ran in a little too hard and went off track thus putting me back in P8 albeit a little bit back from Cole. There wasn't too much time left in the race at this point so I just kept my sights on Cole and tried my best to catch back up. Finally the checkered flag flew and I was in P8! BEST FINISH OF THE SEASON!!! Not only did I finish well, but I picked up another second from my qualifying time (2:42.950). I'm fairly certain that if I had qualified with this time and started a few positions up I could have been up there racing for a top 5 finish.
It's all about progress though and I really feel like I've progressed so much this season in my driving capabilities. We'll be running at full force in Miller Motorsports Park in September!
I'd like to give a big thanks to JC Concrete, Jacky Jones Ford and My Dad. David O'dell, Bruce O'dell and Billy O'dell for all the help. Scott Maxwell, Beaux Barfield and Ted Anthony Jr. for the on-track tips. And last but not least all the FRMC crew, Ford and the workers at Autobahn for making this event happen!
