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2004-06-12
It was a great evening and an excellent turnout for Saturday night racing at Irwindale Speedway. There were 5 divisions scheduled to race including the always-popular demolition derby.
The King Taco Legends were the second scheduled race after the Napa Auto Parts Super Trucks. Freedom Racing was anticipating a great race after finding a fast set-up during Thursday night practice. Although the setup was very fast in the coolness of the evening with air & track temperature about 20 – 30 degrees cooler than what it was going to be for mid afternoon qualifying on Saturday we felt we had a handle on the setup and could adapt fairly easily to the change in conditions.
Upon arriving at the track Saturday morning we found the schedule for the night was exactly as we had hoped. We were second up which put us racing around 8 -8:30pm. Perfect! We had a setup were very happy with for a late evening race. As long as we could stay out of trouble and race a clean race Kenton felt very confident with winning his first legends race.
After unloading the car and preparing for our first practice at 12:00 o’clock the mood was light and the strategy was to run the car with same setup we had from Thursdays practice. Kenton wanted to see just how different the car would be. It was different. Although Kenton had a couple fast laps the car was really loose. This was expected. We made a slight change to the setup for the second practice, which didn’t give us the results we had hoped for.
Now we knew we only needed to find a setup for qualifying because we already had what we needed for the race. Kenton wanted one more change for the third practice to tighten the car up even more. The change was good and our times were quick and consistent but not quite enough for a front row spot.
For qualifying Kenton chose to tighten up the car just a bit more so he could carry more speed through the corner and still maintain the forward bite on exit. It worked.
Kenton qualified second just one one-hundredth of a second behind number 71 Evin Powell. We were all smiles and sitting strong. Evin rolled a number four die for the invert, which put us on the inside of the second row. Great! This was completely fine and we had an excellent starting position and a very strong car.
After qualifying we had to change the right front tire due to a problem with it. This was not what we needed right before the race with no opportunity to practice on the tire to see how it would perform and affect the current setup.
Normally in other types of racing a tire change would be no problem because you are always using new tires. Not so in Legends. Legend cars use regular treaded tires that are cut at specific angles for oval tracks and are only at their best after being run several times. Some teams will run the same tires for a whole season without changing them.
For the race we just crossed our fingers & hoped that the tire would be okay. Not so! The race started just as Kenton had planned. Kenton said after the race, “I intended to just watch both Tom Landreth who was sitting on the outside pole & the 4th place car of Larry Meredith that was sitting on the pole due to the invert. I knew that the 85 car of Larry Meredith was a few tenths slower than I was in qualifying but I didn’t know how he would run in the race. As we went in to first turn I noticed the car in front of me wiggle a bit in the apex and as we began the exist he was a bit loose & went wide. This pushed Tom high & I seized the opportunity to go low & pass him for first place going into turn 3. “Ah this is great I thought there is no one in front of me. All I need to do is maintain a solid line & I should have this one in the bag. We ran 4 laps before the first caution came out. On about the beginning of the fourth lap my enthusiasm became that sinking feeling in your stomach when you know something isn’t right. I thought I either just blew my marks in the last turn and went in way to hot or the car is developing a push.
“Sure enough one lap after the restart the car was pushing from the center off. The heat in my right front tire was building up and over the next three laps it just got worse. I couldn’t maintain the speed I wanted & I wasn’t going to be able to hold off Tom Landreth who was right on my bumper. I chose to try and out drive it, which only made it worse. I had to let out of the throttle & go wide to get the car to grip & Tom drove under me to take over first on lap seven.”
Kenton tried to regain his line and his position. “This is a lesson from Jeff Gordon” Kenton mused after the race. “I learned reality that if you find your car has a problem, you’ve got to relinquish the spot and fall back to a position you can hold and ride out the race.”
“On lap eight the car was really starting to push from the center of the corner off and I knew if I didn’t find a line that the car could hold I would have to fall back & run a slower lap to keep from getting into trouble. Well trouble found me one corner after that thought. Coming out of turn two I went a bit wide to get the front tires to grip & when they did I feathered the throttle to get back up to speed. I was about 1-2 car widths away from the line I had been running so as I started my turn into three I headed for the inside lane again and about that time I heard the rear end crunch & felt a nice jolt as the car started to spin around.”
“I have a complete blind spot on the left side of the car & had no idea anyone was even close to me. The idea of not having two-way radios because of the cost is absurd in my opinion. We spend thousands of dollars on other equipment and a two-way radio should be mandatory. The cost savings in fewer wrecked cars would offset any cost incurred. Having a spotter could really help in staying out of trouble.”
“After seeing the race photos I couldn’t believe that Austin would have just smacked into us & taken us both out. I was told that I was cutting down, which I was but I wouldn’t of if I had known the 72 car was charging for the inside as well. It was a rookie mistake on both our parts. It started in the pits for us with the tire change & not having a left side mirror.” In my experience, this track is so open even if someone does cut down in front of you there is plenty of room to get out the way. I have had to do it on several occasions. Saving your equipment and finishing the race is most important, not being over aggressive and pushing a bad position that could result in you or another drive to wreck. That’s just poor race craft.”
We learned several lessons this race that will not happen again.
“The ‘school of hard knocks’ is not our idea of fun. We have what it takes to be a championship-winning team we have done it before. It has just been silly little mistakes and getting used to the idiosyncrasies of these Legend cars that have kept us from a podium finish.”
We are already very anxious for the next race & expect to be right back in the fight come July 12th.
We’ll see you all at the next race.
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