ROSEVILLE, Calif. – After coming off a difficult weekend in the F1000 series, I was looking forward to switching things up and going back to a modified on an oval.
Lately, I’ve done very well in the modified in terms of practice and qualifying, but have gotten taken out or been the subject of misfortune during the race. My main goal going into the race weekend at All American Speedway was to get up to speed as fast as possible, improve over the course of it and have a good race.
I first needed to get comfortable with the new track as well as the car because I hadn’t driven the No. 61 modified since the beginning of the year.
It wasn’t too hard of a track to learn and in the first practice I ended up fifth quick. I was pretty happy about that and just kept chugging along for the remaining practice session, dialing in the car and testing different setups to see what worked best.
This was all in preparation for race day Saturday, where we would be qualifying and racing. I left the track that evening feeling pretty good about the car and my ability, but a little anxious to see what the track conditions would be like on Saturday. In the SPEARS Modified Series setup is everything and I knew that we had a really strong car that could contend for a podium or win if we could read the track conditions well enough and nail the setup.
Race day rolled around and the first session of the day was practice. We were a little frantic during practice because we had to test out the car first and then slap on some new tires to scuff them in.
They didn’t get me out on the track with the first group of cars, so that didn’t help with the potential time crunch. However, all went according to plan. The car felt tight, but that wasn’t anything a little setup adjustment couldn’t fix.
In qualifying I was just focused on not overdriving while also pushing the limits. It seems like every time I qualify in the car I’m getting more comfortable getting close to the limit without overdriving. For example, if I was at around 95 percent when I qualified third at Irwindale and 96 percent at Kern County when I qualified fourth, I was probably around 97 percent this time around and I ended up qualifying fifth.
However, the gap from my time to pole was only 13 hundredths, which is around the same gap, if not a little better compared to my previous qualifying attempts. The competition is pretty tight and unfortunately in the top-eight redraw I ended up redrawing seventh. I’m convinced the only reason I didn’t redraw the eight like the previous two times is because someone beat me to it.
We definitely had our work cut out for us starting seventh in the 60-lap main. The silver-lining at this point was that I was starting on the inside row and not the outside. I lost one position at the start of the race, but when things settled in I was matching pace with the guys in front of me and pressuring them.
It was nice because I wasn’t getting any pressure from behind, which is becoming a welcome trend in my oval races. A caution came out after some contact and a spin happened ahead of me, so I gained a couple of positions.
However, this also meant I was restarting on the outside lane in sixth. This is when things started going downhill. In the two to three laps after the restart I got stuck on the outside and got passed for four positions, falling to 10th by the time I was able to slot back in.
I actually felt like I could make passes on the outside of these guys with the car that I had. The car felt really good and I had better entry and mid-corner speed then most of the guys I was racing against.
However, it was impossible for me to attempt these outside passes because every time I had an outside run on either the front straight or back straight none of the guys I was trying to pass would leave me enough room on the outside. In order to avoid making contact with them and potentially spinning them out, I had to back out multiple times on the outside lane, which cost me a ton of momentum and ground to those behind me.
Once in 10th I knew I had to make up ground as quickly as possible if I wanted any chance to podium. There were a couple of guys who were battling pretty hard in front of me going side by side for multiple laps. This time, while they were going into turns one and two, the outside car decided to back way off mid-corner and come down on my right front, presumably attempting an over-under maneuver, while I was simply trying to fill in the inside lane and keep him from coming down.
This caused him to spin out and bring out a yellow. I ended up getting penalized for this and sent to the back of the line to restart ninth or so. I had a good restart where I maintained my position and actually succeeded in passing one guy with a textbook, multi-lap maneuver a few laps later.
Another caution came out and handed me a position or two. At this point there was only a couple laps left, so it was theoretically going to be the final restart if everyone managed to keep it clean for the remaining laps.
I was restarting on the inside row ins sixth I believe when I hear over the radio that the No. 29 car was starting behind me. This didn’t really mean anything to me in the moment as I didn’t realize it was the guy who I helped spin out earlier in the race.
It turned out he was holding a little bit of a grudge as he pummeled my rear a couple times coming back to the restart and then going into turn one absolutely launched himself into my left-rear quarter and got me all sorts of sideways and out of shape.
I guess he wasn’t happy that I had better car control than him and managed to keep myself from spinning out because he hit me again as I was trying to get the power down and exit turn two. This got me out of shape once again, but I recovered as I got passed by him and another car.
The next time I passed the start finish line the white flag was waving. For a split-second I contemplated going for a pass on the slower car in front of me, but there wasn’t enough time or a good enough opportunity so I settled for an eighth-place finish.
This was really frustrating to me because I knew my car was easily a top-five car and I felt like things would’ve gone much differently if I had gotten a better redraw. If that was the case, I feel pretty confident I would’ve been able to hold my own and finish in the top-three.
If I had started on the pole, I feel like I maybe even would have been able to stay in the lead and keep the competition behind me since it is so tough to pass at that track. Unfortunately, without a better redraw it’s hard to say what could’ve been.
I felt like I did some of my best racing that race and felt the most competitive than any time before, which was a major positive takeaway during the race. However, it would’ve been nice to get a result reflective of my recent performances and abilities.
Nonetheless, running the modified is always a great time and I know that whenever I’m with Dave Arce, Eric Brucker, Jimmie Dickerson and crew that I always have a chance at a really solid result, so I’m definitely looking forward to the next time that I race with them.