Virginia Shootout

Performed better than expected and had a chance for a 4th place finish until I decided to take extra evasive action to avoid a wreck and ended up spinning myself. Later on I tapped Bill Johnson (sorry) and caused a wreck. After tires cooled down I managed to take a 6th place finish.

Congrats Conor.

A win is a win, but my performance tonight was not too good. Started off really well...car felt great, then about half way through, I T-boned a car that had recently spun and left a cloud of smoke to blind my view. By this time, I had a good lead so I didn't really worry too much about it. Then, towards the end of the race, I T-boned another car (maybe the same driver, I dunno), and this really brought Kevin up to me. In the final laps, he was catching up to me and my car just wouldn't go...actually, I was surprised it was even running! I was able to beat Kevin out by half a second but he could have easily had me if the race had gone a few more laps...

Tomorrow will be interesting...

Cya guys next time!

My return to stock car racing went pretty good. I haven't climbed in one of these in like 2 years. Was pretty uneventful. Started 2ns and went down to 3rd saving tires. On lap 28 I started lapping with downshifts and started making time and avoiding wrecks. With Conor having alot of trouble I was able to get up close but not enough to make a move. I wish they would release a patch so the powerband would be larger. Or have different engine packages for the type of cars. Anyways, I digress. Was good fun.

I had a really good race, and a chance for my best shootout finish yet. I avoided all the early wrecks- Tim's spotting is incredibly valuable, really gives me a fighting chance to avoid what's coming up. I was running low 20's pretty steadily and being conservative with my tires. We were 2/3rds through the race and I was on Bill Johnson's tail, which I think means I was around 6th- I wanted to look at my position, but was determined not to distract myself with it. Anyway, I finally got caught up, as you can see in the screenshot to the right- that's me in the middle. We were all going low to avoid the wreck we knew about up high, and started a new one down low :) Couldn't be helped. I ended up facing the other way, and it took me a while to get turned around- I panicked, I should have been able to get around much quicker using the clutch (the autoclutch bogged on me), but I was very concerned about getting into some oncoming traffic. Not much to report after that, had one more minor late spin as my rears were just too stressed after the incident. Still happy with a top 10 and the knowledge I was running well enough to do even better.

Was rather disappointed that there were so many spins...this track is not that hard if you drive race laps, and not try to qual every lap. And once you spin the car, or otherwise overheat a tire, you simply cannot expect to drive the same laps you drove previously - the tire won't take it until it cools back down. Car control should be the goal.

Car felt good in practice, and tire temps suggested that the car was going to be good on tire wear. Met a car that was turned around head-on coming off T4 in the early laps, though, and never got the chance to find out.

This was a disaster for me. I'd watch the replay to know who I probably need to apologize to, but I don't even want to go down that path. I had a great start went well, kept myself clean, made a few positions, was trying to be as easy on the car as possible. What I didn't realize was, the reason I was getting too loose later in the run had to have been because I had too much rear brake. And so the race turned into a mess.

Sorry guys. I was the kind of driver in this race that makes you angry.