Paying Rookie Dues. . .

            I’m starting to get excited about this racing season.  Not only about my plans for open-wheel racing, but just for racing in general.  This is the first year since we have entered the economic recession that it feels like things could be turning around.  That means more cars and hopefully better racing.  While I am not your typical race fan, as a driver, I do like seeing a lot of cars at the racetracks.

            Last week we traveled to the speedway for the first time that season for our first test day.  We unloaded our freshly rebuilt racecar and got ready for our day.  The day went without incident, but it did show me that I wasn’t the only one that was hard at work in the offseason.  There were plenty of teams with shiny new racecars, and they were faster than me too.

            The season started later that year in the end of March.  The first race was a little rough for me, I didn’t qualify all that well and was only able to muster a 7^th place finish, a far cry from battling for the win like I thought we would be.  The next couple of races went quite the same way.  I was really starting to get frustrated, I thought I would be running up front and contending for the win each week.  I look back now, and I find that so arrogant.  I was 20 years old, no real experience with stock cars and had a bunch of kids working on my race cars.  The average age of my team was just over 19 years old.  We were actually doing better than we should have been.

            Half way through the season, I was sitting 4^th in points, leading all the rookies, and had a season best 3^rd place finish to my credit.  It was near the end of July and it was particularly hot and humid that summer.  As everyone knows, thunderstorms are just a normal part of a hot summer afternoon.  This night was no exception.  We had gotten practice completed, and we were getting ready for the heat races.  They had just called us to get to the staging area, when the skies opened up.  This was before we had an enclosed trailer, so we pulled out the tarp- covered the race car and sat in the truck waiting for the rain to stop.

            I remember it was about 7pm when we pulled the tarp off the car and tried to dry our pit area up.  The track had a wonderful rule *much sarcasm inserted here* for all of the racers, if you didn’t use your racecar to help dry off the track, you didn’t get any points or money at the end of the night.  So, like everyone else, I climbed in and burned $7 a gallon fuel in a race motor that cost me a couple thousand dollars to go dry off the track.  It didn’t take real long to get the bottom groove dried out, and we had just about all of the top groove dry.  It important to state- “almost dry” is very different than completely dry.

            My heat race was called up, and I was starting 4^th.  We took our customary pace laps and got the “1 to go” signal from the flagger.  Coming off turn 4 we got the green flag and they turned us loose.  I held strong on the outside through turns 1 and 2.  Down the backstretch and into turn 3 I was still running 4^th.  Now remember that “almost dry”- turn 3 was dry up top, turn 4, however, was not.  I hit the damp part of the racetrack and the car plowed with its front tires.  I got out of the throttle and tried to get the car to turn.  I was now almost 2 ½ lanes up the track now, and there was no coming back down.  I tried with everything I had to get on the brakes to slow down, but it was too late.

            I remember saying to myself- right before I hit the wall- This is probably going to hurt, so get ready.  I hit the wall with the right front tire and it felt like all the air tried to exit my body.  The steering wheel spun out of my hand and I rode the wall down the frontstrech while I tried to start breathing again.  The car came to rest at the entrance to turn 1, and I pulled the window net down.  I climbed out and walked over to the right front.  As bad as I felt when I hit the wall, I felt worse when I saw what the car looked like.  The right front tire was gone- I don’t mean flat or shredded- I mean gone.  The upper and lower control arms were attached to the chassis, but the spindle had been ripped from them.  The radiator had a hole punched in the side of it, and the door had been ripped open.

            Just like my first race I declined the ride in the ambulance and walked back to my pit area.  I saw my guys walking over to me, and asked me what happened.  I told them the track was damp in the upper groove off of turn 4, and I tried to take down the wall.

            The rain came and canceled the feature races for the rest of the night, which was a lucky break for us.  We already had the car loaded up by the time the rains settled in for the night, and headed home.  Just like my very first race, the drive home was long and rough.  I was stiff and sore, and very upset at what happened.  We had a lot of work to do this week, and I didn’t have a lot of extra money.  Looks the credit card was going to get a workout again.  This wasn’t going to be fun.

            I appreciate the followers of the blog, and want to thank everyone that comes to read about it.  Let me know who you are, any racing you have done.  I enjoy talking racing, and I’m sure you guys have a few stories of your own.  I’ve also been in touch with our sponsors this week, and they said they have seen a rise in traffic through this blog.  I want to thank all of you for checking them out after you read the blog.  They make this dream possible for me, so continue to help them.  Next week we look at what it takes to get back on track, and the impact it has on the rest of the season.  Check me out on twitter @justinonderko.