Knowing Enough. . .

           What a week it has been.  On Sunday I was on “Pretending to be on TV with Glen Tickle”- had a blast with those guys.  It was set-up just like a late night talk show, and Glen is a really funny guy.  Thanks to him and his staff for having me on.  We will have the show up on our youtube account very soon for everyone to check out.

            The racing world was busy this weekend as well.  On Saturday, the Rolex Grand-Am series was at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama.  The race was exciting enough, but they had a 3 lap sprint to the finish after a late yellow in which The Spirit of Daytona Team gave Corvette its first ever Daytona Prototype win as well as their own first win.  On Sunday the INDYCAR series was also at BMP and we saw a much better race than last week.  The passing was fantastic, with many overtaking attempts which actually led to some contact.  Will Power made up for some bad luck in qualifying to win a very solid race.  Team Penske is 2 for 2 this year.  I also thought the race was broadcast much better as well.  The teams of NASCAR were down in Virginia this week at Martinsville.  Jeff Gordon was the class of the field ever since they unloaded on Friday.  He led over 300 laps, but failed to win after a green-white-checker disaster.  As a driver, I have always disliked this rule; I shouldn’t have to run 503 laps of a 500 lap race to win it.

             Last week, we learned how fresh paint and fancy looking racecars do not necessarily go fast.  We hung a new body over the winter, and did all the right stuff to the engine and transmission, but devoted little time to the geometry of the car.  Over the next week, we tried to cram 2 months of deliberate measuring and adjusting into 5 days.  As you can guess, that is just not possible.  I think we made the car worse than it was when we went to the track for the first practice.

            You may have heard a saying that racers use- “Races are won and lost in the shop”.  I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this before; I have even said it to people myself.  There is another saying that I learned from Bobby Gerhart- “Sometimes you don’t even know, that you don’t know”.  This was absolutely the case once again.

            The first couple of weeks, we were chasing our tails at the track.  I was able to get a couple of good finishes, but I was not happy with the car.  We were certainly not capable of competing for the championship.  I kept making changes on what I though the car needed.  The only problem was that I never had a good baseline to start with.  I was too busy making the car look good, that I never spent the time I needed to, to get the information I needed from the car.  I kept making changes on feelings, and whims instead of good data.

            Once again, I was throwing money and time at this sport and was getting nothing but discouraged.  My fiancé was planning our wedding and spending money as well.  It boiled over on more than one occasion.  I was getting frustrated with the racing and trying to deal with her needing extra time from me.  It was getting further and further into the season, and I seemed to be getting further and further away from where I needed to be.

            My crew was starting to get unsettled as well.  I can’t say I blamed them, who would want to keep spending their weekends banging the heads against a wall.  I just kept throwing changes at the car, and at this point I was just hoping they would work.  I have a feeling that Chad Knaus (5 time NASCAR Champion crew chief) would be very disappointed in me.

             I needed something to get me back on track.  I needed someone who had some experience, someone who had been around the sport for a while, to guide me in what to do.  I also needed someone to help me out in planning a wedding- or at least help her plan a wedding.  I think at this point in my life I was to young to understand what was happening to me and how to effectively deal with it.  I was having less and less success with my racing, and it was taking a heavy toll on my relationship with fiancé.

            Thanks for stopping by this week and checking in with us.  I appreciate all of the support and all of the positive comments as well.  My email is justinonderko@verizon.net, drop me a line if you have any comments, either on the blog, or about racing in general.  I love all kinds of racing and would love to hear what you guys have to say about it.  Follow me @justinonderko on twitter, we will be hitting the track soon, so we will have lots of updates coming.   Justinonderko.com is also a place to catch up on us as well, don’t forget to check out our youtube account (accessible through our website) we will have some race footage up when we get back on track.  Don’t forget to check out my sponsors on this page as well, their help in very important to us.  Let them know we are worth partnering with this season.