INDIANAPOLIS — One of the great things about racing are the connections that you make along the way.
Flinn Lazier, my driver coach at Arrive Drive Motorsports and the son of 1996 Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Lazier, is among those relationships.
Lazier was instrumental in my development and growth over the weekend of May 19-22 at Alabama’s Barber Motorsports Park. It was another weekend of F1000 and F2000 racing and it was absolutely awesome.
We used Thursday as a test day and ran both cars. In the F2000 practice, I got in three laps before the left rear CV joint gave out.
I was “beached” in the runoff and unable to get back to the pits. They had to black flag the test, so I could get towed back to the pits.
It went a lot better in the F1000 car.
The car felt pretty good and I was only a couple tenths off of Shane Prieto, who had the fastest lap of the session. Lazier and I debriefed afterward and figured out what I needed to do to improve for the next day.
Friday’s F2000 practice went much better because it couldn’t have been any worse than Thursday’s. I was able to get up to speed very quickly and knew where I had time to gain.
When an engine overheating issue force me to pit early, I was in P1. I ended up second in the session.
This time, it was the F1000 practice that was rough. The car felt considerably looser than the day before and didn’t inspire confidence in the high-speed, high-commitment corners. We tried a couple setup changes to try to fix the problem, but it only slightly helped.
I had just enough time to do a quick debrief and hydrate before I was back in the F2000 car for qualifying.
F2000 qualifying was probably the most intense and challenging qualifying I’ve had so far in my career.
The competition was very stiff, I had a teammate to outperform and I needed to put together a near-perfect lap to secure the pole. I overcame all these obstacles and secured the pole by .3 seconds over my extremely talented teammate Ayrton Houck, who was making his F2000 debut.
On Saturday morning, it was back in the F1000 car for qualifying and that meant racing against Shane Prieto. He was the fastest on Thursday and Friday.
His car is crazy fast and he had just dialed in his setup even more heading into the weekend.
However, with new tires, I was able to go out and work my qualifying time down to a 1:21.121. That time beat the former track record by .2 seconds and I won the pole by .03 seconds, barely edging Prieto.
I had a definite chance of sweeping the weekend again, like I did at Carolina Motorsports Park and Mid-Ohio.
Race one was in F2000. Starting on the pole, I knew it would be difficult to maintain my lead.
I pulled away at the start of the race, getting a decent 10 car length gap to Houck behind me, before he was able to reel me back in with the help of my draft.
Houck was eventually able to pass me in the turn five through seven section.
We ran nose-to-tail for the rest of the race before taking the checkered flag, within half a second of each other.
That evening the Arrive Drive Motorsports team formulated a plan that might just get us over the line in the next race.
When morning arrived, we were expecting an overcast day with a high chance of rainfall throughout the day. This weather forecast was severely mistaken, as the entire day was bright and sunny, with few clouds in the sky.
I was hoping we would race in the rain because I love it and believe it gives me an advantage.
I started on pole in the F1000 race and was prepared to battle Prieto, but he was unable to get his car on the track and Steve Hamilton started on my outside.
Going into turn one, I held my lead and proceeded to run away from everybody, building a 41-second lead. I broke the F1000 race record with my fastest lap of 1:21.561.
F2000 Race No. 2 followed. The Arrive Drive Motorsports guys worked hard the night before and the day of, planning and making the changes to me and Houck’s cars that was necessary to compete with J.C. Trahan’s Global Racing Team car.
With a P2 start this time right next to Houck, I was halfway convinced that I’d take the lead in the first lap or two of the race.
However, things didn’t turn out as expected.
On the pace lap my engine seemed to be experiencing some misfiring or fuel-cutting issues that were bogging down the car in the low RPMs. I refused to take myself out of the race as the issue seemed intermittent and not constant, but it caused me to have a terrible start, which allowed everybody to pass me before turn one.
I passed two cars back in turn two and passed for third place in turn four.
I knew immediately that unless Houck and Trahan had any big issues, it was unlikely my pace would match theirs.
I made some progress on them, early, before they settled into the race.
My focus was to run as hard as possible and keep my personal mistakes to a minimum.
I finished third.
The F1000 race two was the final race of the day and scheduled to take place just 30 or so minutes after the conclusion of F2000 contest.
It was the craziest race of the entire weekend, and perhaps, my entire career.
I had the fast lap in race by one-tenth over my teammate. I was starting on the pole again.
The green flag waved and I seemed to have gotten a good start. As I was looking over to measure my progress in a straight-line, I glanced to the left and saw Tim Pierce almost fully alongside me.
That was unexpected, as it had only been about one second into the race and I was already getting passed.
It was confirmed after the race that he had jumped the start, but to me that didn’t matter in the moment because I was focused on not crashing in turn one.
We came out of turn one unscathed and I passed Pierce on the inside of turn four, diving late and deep on the brakes.
I held my lead from there and for a few laps went unchallenged before Prieto with his crazy-fast engine came charging up behind me. He passed me on the outside of turn five after I had defended against him as much as possible.
A few laps later, with my left two wheels on the track and the other two on the grass I was unable to save the car from spinning. However, I remembered the old mantra I learned from both the Lucas Oil Formula Car Race Series and the Skip Barber F4 Race Series, that “if you spin, you put both feet in.”
That means one foot on the clutch, and the other on the brakes, to slow the car to a stop while protecting the engine from rolling backward in a forward-driving gear. I came to a stop on the outside of turn four, facing the oncoming traffic.
I tried to get rolling, but my car was half-beached, leaving my left-rear tire spinning freely in the air. However, using my side mirrors it looked like my right-rear tire was still on the ground. I almost gave up, but before I did, I tried to throttle even harder, and to my surprise my right-rear tire was able to drive me forward, and I was back in racing action.
At this point I was substantially in last place, but I definitely wasn’t giving up.
My dad informed me over the radio a lap or two later that a podium finish was still within reach.
For the rest of the race, I ran the F1000 car on the ragged edge, doing my best to make up the ground that I lost from my mistake.
I was up to third with 10 laps remaining in the race and was two-seconds a lap faster than Pierce, who was 20 seconds ahead of me.
I had a goal and I chased after it.
For the last laps of the race, I broke my own F1000 track record, lowering it five times in a row before I passed Pierce for second with three laps to go.
I finished second, only 13 seconds behind Houck in what was probably my best race.
The car was just slightly too loose which made it fast but also a handful to drive on the limit. Had I not made that mistake, I’m confident my pace would have taken me to victory by the end of the race.
Overall, the weekend was great. I finished on the podium of every race after qualifying pole in both race cars. I broke track records and got to race against high-level competition. I met the challenge with high-level performances and that’s really all I can ask from a race weekend.
And I can thank Flinn Lazier for all of his help and guidance in getting me through the weekend.