CLERMONT, Ind. — No matter what the time of year, it’s always great to be “Back Home Again in Indiana.”
But last weekend’s trip to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park had extra significance.
As my father said last Friday night before my tripleheader at IRP, “Tomorrow will be the most important day of racing of the entire year.”
He was right.
It would be the culmination of this year’s excursions at IRP and the experience I’ve gained in midgets, sprint cars and Silver Crown machines.
My dad said from the beginning of my racing career that if I can drive a midget competitively at IRP and be successful, I can drive anything anywhere.
I’ve also had my own conclusions about IRP after having raced there a few times now. It’s the Indianapolis Motor Speedway of short-track racing. It’s such a challenging track and requires everything to be perfect to be successful.
Every time you enter turns one and three it feels like a “Hail Mary” of high-speed commitment. You need full confidence in the car every lap to repeatedly throw it into the corner and hope the track and car catch the entry speed you’re carrying.
Over the course of the two days of testing before Saturday’s races I got to experience what a truly competitive midget feels like around IRP. Bertrand Motorsports gave me a shot to drive the No. 47 Beast chassis/BB7 Esslinger engine combo. Todd Bertrand and I did not want to let the team down. Bertrand has driven it at each event this year.
I was fully focused on taking advantage of the test days and opportunity as a result was able to run my fastest lap around IRP in a midget on Thursday.
Kody Swanson was my teammate with the same chassis and parts as my car and was instrumental in building my confidence. He even hopped in my car at one point during Thursday’s test day and achieved a lap time half a second faster than mine.
After that, I was able to lower my best time to only .3 seconds off his best time in my car. He pushed me to be better both test days and it translated into success on Saturday as I entered race day with more confidence than I’ve ever felt at IRP.
The schedule included two rounds of practice for sprint cars, midgets and Silver Crown. In the first practice for each car, I focused on maximizing laps and sorting out the cars. Practice two, the focus switched to scrubbing in new tires that I would be running in qualifying and the races.
My newfound confidence around IRP significantly helped me determine what I needed/wanted from each of the cars to go faster and qualify better.
I ran my fastest lap time around IRP during each respective second practice round. This made me very happy and gave me a lot of confidence but also increased my anticipation heading into qualifying.
Historically, my track record in short-track qualifying is not very good because I struggle to get up to speed and run on the limit within a two-lap period. This is despite generally being among the fastest in practice leading up to it.
This time was different, though. I needed to qualify well in each car because of how important it is to start closer to the front in a short-track race.
Every time I qualify poorly, I just end up burying myself in the middle of the field, surrounded by cars that I’m faster than but are difficult to pass. This makes it almost impossible to have any chance at a top-five finish. That has been our goal all year at IRP and will continue to be our goal heading into next year.
When I broke my own previous bests in each car during qualifying, I was very pleased with myself, despite the fact that I still felt like I could’ve gone faster and had room for improvement. Even so, I still ran my fastest lap times ever in each car and matched my best time in practice, and improved upon them, which I almost never do.
As a result, I qualified 11th in the sprint car, seventh in the midget and eighth in the Silver Crown car. It was my best day of qualifying in my short-track career.
The sprint car race came first and it was a solid 40 lapper. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say about that race because despite our promising look in qualifying we went out and became a victim of a left-rear tire which grew substantially more than expected.
That reduced the desired stagger of the car by about three-quarters of an inch, which is a lot. This caused the car to become very tight and outside of the competitive window for the setup. I finished 15th, which wasn’t too bad.
The midget race was next and it was pretty crazy.
I started seventh and was barely able to avoid the craziness that happened in the first trun. That’s when a couple cars got into each other ahead of me with one of them ending up flipping in front of me.
I got through without any damage and ended up in fourth place on the outside of the second row when the race restarted.
I got a pretty good restart and was able to pass for third place. The car felt really good and I was feeling very confident with it. I had to fend off a couple of challenges from Kody Swanson, my teammate, who ended up qualifying just behind me in eighth, but eventually he stopped challenging me.
I was starting to understand where I was losing time to the cars ahead of me and where I was gaining on them as well.
Just as I was beginning to track them down, my visor was covered with fluid. I thought the car in front of me had sprayed some sort of fluid and was spinning out in front of me, so I braked and turned left to make sure I didn’t hit them or the wall. I also couldn’t see anything, so as I wiped off my visor with my gloved hand, I got passed by two cars.
I kept going and accelerated down the backstraight and braked into turn three and was sprayed in the face again with the same fluid.
This time, I knew what had happened. My car had betrayed me and sprayed me in the face.
I couldn’t see anything once again, so I got on the brakes hard and turned hard left so I wouldn’t hit the outside wall. I barely avoided hitting the wall. Another car missed me when it was passing me on the inside.
At this point I had no idea what was wrong with my car and decided that I better come into the pits before I became a danger to myself and others.
I told the team the situation and they determined we wouldn’t be able to continue.
It really sucked because that was the most competitive, I’ve driven in a professional short-track race and I truly felt like I had a winning car underneath me. If I had just been able to finish the race, I would’ve finished second, especially after the car in second dropped out because of a mechanical issue.
I believe that our car was good enough to challenge Bobby Santos for the win. It would have been amazing for multiple reasons had my first short track win been in a midget at IRP, but it wasn’t meant to be this time around.
My final race of the night was the 100-lap Silver Crown race. I had a pretty good starting position in eighth but had quite a task ahead of me if I wanted to finish in the top five.
To make a long 100-lap story short, we ended up barely missing on the ideal setup of the car. We were a little too high on stagger which made the car too loose mid-corner and exit. If I wanted to carry more speed to the center of the corner, I wasn’t able to because the rear would break traction too soon.
If I wanted to get the power down on the exit of the corner any earlier or harder, I wasn’t able to because the rear would break traction there, too.
I was essentially stuck trying to manage the slight looseness of the car throughout the entire race. If I didn’t do so properly, then I would end up burning up my right-rear tire.
I finished eighth on the lead lap. My pace throughout the race was very competitive with the leaders and the cars immediately in front of me.
Overall, it was an amazing day of racing and I was glad to prove to myself and everyone else that I have what it takes to be competitive and even win at the top level of pavement, short-track racing.
It means a lot to me to have the opportunities that I do, and I thank God for it and his blessings every day.