This weekend was one of the first few “off” weekends in our sport. I got to spend a very nice day with the family celebrating Easter. As usual I ate too much, and hated to drive back home, but the down time was a bit of a recharge.
Our season took another step forward this past week. The licensing board over at NASA (National Auto Sport Association) granted me my provisional competition license. It was definitely weird to be told I’m a rookie once again. I’ve been racing for 15+ years, but its true I guess- I will have to run the dreaded “rookie stripe” on the back of the car. There are worse things though.
Last week I was telling you about how the season was progressing. Although I was sitting second in points, it was due more to the fact that we were consistent instead of battling for the wins. I just needed a little bit of guidance to get back on track. My crew was getting tired of all the work and not really seeing the spoils of success.
I was in the shop the other day, and I was digging through some of my old notes. I wanted to see where I was at back then with the car. June 19 2004- It was a perfect day for racing. Sunny and warm- it was 73 degrees when we went out for practice. From what I can tell- I wasn’t happy with the car. I remarked the car would not turn on corner entry and then I was really loose coming off the corner. This condition only got worse as practice went on. There were a couple of all capital letter words that might not be appropriate for this setting.
I would love to be able to go back and tell myself what I should be doing to the car. I guess thats all part of it though. We ended up leading a part of the feature that night and finished 2nd to the guy who was leading the points. It was a good run, but I still lost points in the championship. That is one of the most frustrating things in racing, when you just get out and out beat by your competition. I was not a happy person on the way home that night.
I started reading all I could about set-ups for asphalt racing. I was determined to figure all this out. By all accounts I was having a decent season, but I had set a goal of a championship before the season started. I was trying to sort through all that I was learning, and trying to pick out the things that I thought might work for me. The only problem was that I had to go to the track to try different things out.
It was getting to be the middle of July, and it was getting hot now. Still second in points, but still no wins either. We were coming up on a weekend off, and I think we were all ready for the break. After Practice was over, we had our driver’s meeting and the nights activities were discussed. At the end, we were told that we would no longer have the next week off, and that due to a rainout earlier in the season, the track management was going to use next week as a make up race. I went back to the trailer and told my crew about not having a week off. My crew took it pretty well, but my fiancé just about lost her mind.
She told me she needed next week to meet people about the wedding. She had scheduled her meetings around the racing season, and that she needed a weekend to take care of details. As you can imagine, it was not a pretty sight as we discussed (a term I use loosely) what to do about our new problem. I was mad at the track for canceling our week off, she was mad at the track for the same thing, I was mad at her for taking it out on me, and she was tired of being dragged to the track to spend a Saturday night watching me get aggravated and spend more money we didn’t have. Without checking- I think we led some laps and finished 3rd that night, but it didn’t matter. We were going to the track next week and nobody really wanted to; we had invested too much time and money to throw it away now.
Racing is tough on so many levels, and it can take so much out of you sometimes. I still enjoyed getting in the car, and being out on the track. It was just coming at such a cost, a cost I hadn’t really anticipated on when I got involved in the sport. I started spending a lot of time at the shop, which really didn’t help the home life all that much. It was 2 months till the wedding by that time, and I still didn’t really know where I was going to get the money to pay for that and finish out the season.
It was about that time that I was introduced to Bobby Gerhart. As far as I am concerned, Bobby is one of the best restrictor plate racers I have ever met, and he did it on his own. I took the job; though it was cut in pay- I thought it might help my racing effort. As you can imagine, it did not go over all that well at home- not that I blame her looking back at it.
Next week we continue with the season, the new job, and the wedding. If you get a chance, take a look at www.peerbackers.com. Type “Onderko Motorsports” in the search bar and check us out. Forward it around to those you know who might want to be a part of it. Check me out on twitter @justinonderko and all of our sponsors on this page. Our season starts in May, so the countdown has begun for us, stay tuned for updates. Thanks for dropping by this week- till next week, stay safe.
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