Prelude to the Dream
Hi, everyone,
We are in Indy this week to race in the Prelude to the Dream dirt race on Wednesday night at Eldora’s famous one-half-mile dirt track. The PPV will start at 7 p.m. Eastern time and they just told us that SPEED Channel is going to have a one-hour special prior to the race as well at 6 p.m. ET. So tune in on Wednesday night if you can. Should be a great event to watch and all the proceeds go to a great cause.
We had a bit of a disappointing weekend in Chicago. Rain storms were constantly moving through the area, so it was really putting a lot of pressure on the teams to make every run count as we only ended up getting one run on Friday night. By the time we ran it was almost 11 p.m. The conditions were great, but the big topic in the pit area with all of the crew chiefs was that NHRA was changing the track prep procedure a little bit and, while they usually spray the sticky stuff down on the track pretty frequently, on Friday night they didn’t spray any of it down during the Funny Car session. It is probably something that we are going to see in the future, especially since in cool conditions you have to remember that NHRA has a tough position to make sure the track is safe as well as being as good as our Nitro cars need it to be. It is an especially tricky spot for the track prep people to be in because Pro Stock cars and the Sportsman cars are still running the full quarter-mile track, which needs to be sprayed the full quarter-mile for them. That first session on Friday night only had three Funny Cars make it to the finish line under power, so there was even a little more pressure for a lot of the teams because the forecast was for rain all day on Saturday.
The communication on small things like that between the NHRA and the crew chiefs only make for a better show for the fans and I will put the NHRA’s Safety Safari up against any track prep and safety crew in any other form of motorsports. After the rain that we got over and over last weekend, they worked their tails off to get the cars back on the track as soon as they could. We woke up on Saturday and, even though it was overcast, the intermittent sprinkles stayed away long enough to get both of our runs in and the crew chiefs knew what to expect with the track prep and made necessary adjustments. And, while the last session of qualifying was pretty dramatic for a lot of the teams trying to get in the show for Sunday, Ace and the NAPA team did a great job and put us sixth in the qualifying order. So, considering what the weather forecast was, it was a great day.
And just to give you an idea of the what the difference in prep meant, after the torrential rain came before the semifinals, they sprayed and prepped the track like they usually do before the semifinals and again before the finals and, as you saw, both records were broken in Top Fuel and in the Funny Car class.
On Sunday we saw the sun actually come out and we missed the tune-up a little and, when our clutch tried to lock up at half-track, it was too much and it spun the tires and we lost a close race. Our teammates made great runs in front of us.
It is always great for any of our DSR teammates to get a win, but Matt Hagan and I have become pretty close and we were sure proud of his team. Did I mention that in winning, they also took the national elapsed-time record away from our NAPA team? I can already see the extra fire in Ace’s eyes and that is a good thing for the NAPA team. It is also what is great about having teammates, because it really pushes each of us to get better.
We are headed to Englishtown, N.J., this weekend. It is a race that is on one of the more historic tracks on our schedule and we always look forward to racing there. It has been run by a great family with a bunch of passion for our sport and we always have great crowds there, so we are looking forward to it. Hopefully you will tune into the Prelude on Wednesday night and cheer for our NAPA car. If not, then I’ll see you in Englishtown.
RC