MADISON, Ill. — After two weeks off because of a fractured pinky finger, I was back in the race car for the USAC Silver Crown Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Driving the No. 11 for Davey Hamilton Racing, I had some nerves going into the Friday night race because it had been more than two weeks since I had driven any type of race car.
Getting up to speed quickly and being competitive in the race were concerns, as well as how my hand would react to high-speed oval racing. That is why the goal for the first practice was getting up to speed quickly, while not taking any unnecessary risks.
The Friday format was unusual because it was practice, qualifying, another practice session and the race. Indy Lights and the NTT IndyCar Series were also in action.
That meant I had to be up to speed by the end of the first practice in order to be ready for qualifying.
My first laps in practice were a little slow, but after getting passed by Justin Grant, I decided to “wing it” and use his braking point for entering turn three.
There was a moment where I wasn’t sure if I was going to crash into the wall or not, but then nothing happened besides a little wiggle in the rear end. I realized braking that deep wasn’t a big deal and the car could easily handle it.
By the end of first practice, I was eighth out of 22 cars, but a full second behind Kody Swanson who led the practice session.
There were lengthy breaks in between each session to discuss the car. We didn’t make any changes in qualifying because a cross-weight adjustment we made in practice loosened the car a little bit mid-corner and exit.
But in qualifications, I managed a 32.084-second lap of the 1.25-mile track. That was good for 14th starting position out of 21. I struggled in qualifying because of the increased grip from the new tires as well as how light the car was with very little fuel.
The performance increase of the car was much more than I expected because to these factors and I simply didn’t have enough laps to properly maximize my braking zones and entries.
Despite having only 12 laps of practice before qualifying, it was still a disappointing result. I was bummed that I potentially could’ve had a really good result if I hadn’t buried myself in the back of the field.
Nonetheless, final practice went fairly well. The reason why they had a practice after qualifying was for the purpose of establishing a race setup. It made sense because at no point during the entire year has any car needed to run twice the amount of fuel that we run at the second biggest track of the schedule.
That meant every car would have to go out to the race locked and loaded with 400 pounds of fuel behind the rear wheels. The final practice session was designed to help teams prepare their setup for this.
I liked the feel of the car with more weight moving around. We put our old tires back on and that didn’t stop me from matching my qualifying effort and only being a tenth of a second off my best time in first practice. I ended up sixth fastest in final practice, only three and a half tenths slower than Swanson.
This pace was encouraging for the race, but unfortunately, I still was going to have to come from the back to try and make it to the front of the field.
I started 12th instead of 14th, because a couple of competitors who qualified in front of me dropped out before the race even started.
I managed to hold my position at the start as the driver behind me made multiple challenges for position from the inside line. This allowed me to discover the high line was the right line for me and I used the high side several times to make passes.
It was a long 80-lap, 100-mile race, so to make a long story a little shorter, I got destroyed by all the cautions that came out because I couldn’t do anything with the car when the tires were cold and the tire pressures weren’t up.
However, on long runs my car was dominant, as I raced my way from 13th all the way to fourth. I set my sights on Bobby Santos III, who was in third, when a caution came out.
The ensuing cautions hurt me probably more than anybody else given my setup and how the car was reacting to the cold tires and low pressures, but nonetheless I still managed to pull out my best finish so far, while remaining in the hunt for a podium finish.
At one point I was up to third after Santos was forced to the pits.
I fell back to seventh at one point, but clawed back to fifth at the checkered flag.
I had pace at the end for better than fifth, just not enough laps to do it.
In the end, it was probably the most competitive I’ve been in a short-track race in terms of my overall pace combined with the level of competition. I was annoyed at the cautions that potentially cost me a shot at the podium, but fifth is my best Silver Crown finish.
I had one wish when it comes to Silver Crown racing, it would be that every race that isn’t at IRP or Winchester happens on a track that is a mile or longer, because it was so fun to race at World Wide Technology Raceway.