Deja vu all over again…again…

Posted on February 28, 2016 by plutoe — 4 Comments

Well this weekend seemed like a serious shot of deja vu.  The weekend, qualifying and race, played out the way several did last year.  Car was strong in qualifying, but we had our worst run in round 3.  Car was strong in the race, we lead some, and ran top 3 for most of it, before a late race caution followed by a bad restart resulted in a 7th place finish.  I don’t really have a new way to spin that story I’m afraid.

The pros are that we ran a little better than I’d dared hope.  Coming into this weekend I would have taken a top 10 all day.  That’s what we got, but with laps lead and one of the better cars all day.  Plus we learned a lot about this new for 2016 package, with less downforce and softer tires.

I apologize to anyone who watched today (I heard the race was boring…), that’s not the race we were expecting at all.  I was expecting a caution every 10-20 laps for someone blowing a tire, or spinning out.  I thought we were going to be out of tires by the end of the race, and the strategy was going to be what cautions not to stop on.  I was wrong.  That was a record setting green flag run to start the race, 210 laps.  Part of me is happy about that, there is data I can collect on green flag stops that I can’t on yellow flag stops.

So on to the next one.  We race in Las Vegas next Sunday, this was a really fun weekend last year.  This year it gets worse (or maybe better?) because we will be there testing all day Thursday, so maybe I will get a little more black jack time?  It just means this week is shorter, one less day to prep cars.  Though we have an advantage over the NC based teams, in that Vegas is a much short trip for us.

That’s about all I’ve got.  Anyone got any particular suggestions on what they’d like to read about?  I’d like to write more about my time in Denver, but that’s not really a thing that exists right now.  I will keep you posted.

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A buck short…

Posted on February 21, 2016 by plutoe — 6 Comments

Wow.  Dammit.  I don’t know what to say.  I am ecstatic we finished second, but I’ve wanted to win that race since I was a kid.  I really want that ring.

I think that covers pretty much everything I have been able to say for the last 2 hours or so.  Since the 500 ended.  The one that we almost won.
I don’t have a title for this.  Or a body really.  I don’t really have anything else to say.  We almost won the Daytona 500.
It’s been such a long week.  Long couple of months really.  Been so much work getting switched to Toyota’s, aligning with JGR.  I spent almost 3 weeks of the 8 week off season in North Carolina at JGR, working on the pit box, meeting people and establishing relationships.
And then this week started so badly.  Didn’t run great in the Unlimited and then crashed.  Were unable to make a qualifying run due to a technical thing.  Then ran ok in the qualifying race before getting wrecked on the last lap.  Started from the back today, and that’s a terrifying place to start a race at Daytona.
But the plan worked.  On Friday, we discovered that our car and the 4 JGR cars were very fast when we were all lined up.  And we managed to find each other pretty early in the race, and were able to get out front and control it.  We were hoping to head down the back stretch on the last lap in 2nd, and then see what could happen.  And it almost worked.  I can’t believe how close it was to working.  We had him covered for most of the time from Turn 4 to the start finish, he just had the part that mattered.  Rubbish.
But I am ecstatic we finished second, it’s a great start to the season, and a great way to build the relationship with our new team mates.
Dammit.
PS – does anybody read this?
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