Although it's always present in the back of each driver's mind, every once in a while, something happens in our sport to reminds us we need to be thankful for each day we spend doing what we love. Unfortunately, three weeks ago that reminder came in the form of an accident in New Hampshire that took the life of our good friend Adam Petty. It was odd to look around the garage in Charlotte last week and not see the black and red hauler from Petty Enterprises. We're headed to Dover this week, and it will be good to see the #45 back on the track, with Kyle Petty behind the wheel.
With the way he talked, joked, carried himself and had a bright comment for everyone he met in the garage, Adam Petty let everyone know that he understood how lucky we all are to be able to drive race cars for a living. Now that he's gone, we each need to take a little bit of his attitude and make it our own.
While I have the column this week, let me just say "Way to go, Lyndon Amick!" Lyndon won the ARCA race in Charlotte with an Adam Petty paint scheme, and dedicated the performance to Adam and the Adam Petty Memorial Fund. It was a pretty special weekend, and I don't think they could have written a better script in Hollywood.
Of course, if they wrote a script about the Rayovac Maximum team's trip to Charlotte, it would have plenty of suspense, more than a little drama and an ending I would have like to have had a part in writing.
For the first time in Jarrett / Favre history, we took a Chevrolet to the race track. After struggling at track of more than a mile in length because of the lack of downforce present in the Pontiac, we received a Chevrolet during the NASCAR "off-week" and the crew spent the week working even harder than normal to get the car finished for the trip to Lowe's Motors Speedway.
Although the first test for the car was Charlotte, the decision to make the change had been under consideration since our test in Richmond over a month ago. Actually, the change is part of an overhaul of a "clean sheet" we've decided to break out to help set-up the cars to my individual driving style.
After a long talk with my dad and granddad following our DNQ in Richmond, we're setting up the cars much tighter right off the truck, so that I'm able to get a better feel for what changes we need to make to run faster. The key to flattening out the learning curve for a driver who has a little less experience is communication. By setting up the cars "tight," they aren't necessarily going to be fast right off the hauler, but they will be comfortable enough to where I feel like I can drive aggressively, especially on tracks where I've not run, like this week in Dover.
Although the Charlotte test was the first place we put the theory into practice, it actually benefited the #11 in our run at New Hampshire. On flat, fast tracks where you only have one shot at qualifying, communication is crucial. The car was OK in the first practice, but I was able to drive it hard enough to give Wes Ward (crew chief) feedback that would be really important later.
In an effort to win second practice (there's no money in that, by the way), I drove the car a little too hard into turn 3, turned it around and slapped the driver side hard enough to make us pull out the back-up car. During our time in the garage, Adam's wreck put an end to practice without us getting out on the track again.
So there we were, no laps, new car, young team and no realistic shot a provisional. Based on the information we collected in the first practice session, the guys set the car up for a qualifying run on best guess and sent me out as one of the last cars, needing to pick up about three-tenths of a second to get in the field. I nursed the car through the first lap, feeling out the new set up, and stuck it into both corners on the second. It held and we started the race 31st.
I can't tell you what the attitude of this crew means to a driver that is trying to get the seat time necessary to move from competitor to contender. They NEVER panic. Talladega, Atlanta, Loudon and Charlotte...they just get the job done.
Anyway, back to the Charlotte race. We drew an early qualifying spot and Wes nailed the set-up with a prediction that the sun would break during our run. We held the top-20 on the board until late in the session, but dropped to 32nd when the clouds came, the track cooled, and 12 of the final 15 drivers beat our time. We still felt good about getting in the race, but it's so much easier when you lock into the top-25 on day-one and remove all the stress and math involved in waiting for the end of second-round qualifying.
Although qualifying provided us with a little suspense, the real drama came during the race. I will tell you now that on or off the racetrack, I've never felt as ill as when the decision was made to call in Mark Green as relief driver halfway through the Charlotte race.
The problem was the new car, and our unfamiliarity with the air flow through the Chevrolet as opposed to a Pontiac. The air ventilation system on the Chevrolet didn't mesh with our normal devices to keep the car cool, but we didn't find that out until about 30 laps into Saturday afternoon. I've been hot, and I've been in hot cars, but I've never experienced anything like Charlotte.
About 30 laps into the race I noticed my body was really hot, and that I couldn't find fresh air circulating anywhere in the car. Having run each of the practice sessions under heavy clouds and just two qualifying laps in the sun, we just didn't know what I'd be facing when the race started. As always, there were a number of cautions early in the race, and it gave me a chance to cool off with ice bags and water during stops. We were running on the tail end of the lead lap, avoiding early trouble and setting the car up for the long run in the middle of the race that really decides who's running well in Charlotte.
Unfortunately, by the time that run started, I realized that the heat was sapping my strength. As a driver, I'm hard-headed and competitive and when I started to feel the effects, I didn't get worried, I got mad. I've had a pretty rigorous workout routine this season for the first time in my career, and I knew that I was in better shape than a lot of the guys walking around that Busch garage. I certainly knew that I was in better shape than the first time I drove a Busch car, and with the way our season has progressed, I wasn't about to give up that seat for anything.
Fortunately for me, there were cooler heads in the Rayovac pit box, and when I stopped sweating and my fingers and feet started getting numb, I knew it was time to get out of the car.
You see them in action all the time, but I just want to take this opportunity to thank the people who provide medical assistance during our NASCAR events. The medics were right there in the pit box cooling me down to where I could move to the care center, where they pumped about three bags of fluids into me and sent me on my way.
More thanks go out to Mark Green for jumping behind the wheel of the Rayovac Chevrolet and enduring the heat for the last part of the race. He looked pretty overheated sitting in our hauler after the race, and I appreciate him bringing the car home in one piece so we can run it in Dover after resolving our airflow problems.
It's strange to be almost halfway into the year and talking about "turning a corner," but that's how we feel. We'll be running a combination of Pontiacs and Chevrolets for the remainder of the year and we're pretty excited about the prospect of moving from competitor to contender as the Busch Series heads to the stand-along events. No doubt, we're going to take our lumps like every young team does, but we're continuing to get better and we haven't made the same mistake twice.
I'm looking forward to my first visit to the Monster Mile this weekend and getting back to a little short track racing on the bullrings in South Boston and Myrtle Beach.