Countdown to Summit Point. . .

          It seems rain has made quite a few appearances at the race track this season.  The last 3 weekends in a row have had rain to some degree.  Grand-Am and NASCAR were up in New York this past weekend.  Watkins Glen is a beautiful racetrack, and is situated in an even more beautiful area of New York.  On Friday is poured at Watkins Glen, effectively washing out Nationwide practice.  The rules state, however, that you must complete at least one lap in practice to be eligible to take a qualifying lap.  Since the Nationwide Series allows for wet weather racing- Goodyear has developed a great wet weather tire for the series- the drivers had to strap in a take a lap.  Many of the drivers voiced their displeasure for needing to go out on the racetrack.  It’s a shame that the Nationwide Series has drivers with so little experience to begin with, and almost none of the drivers have rain experience.  You could tell just by watching the cars, the drivers were very tense inside of their cars.  All three races this weekend, Grand-Am, Cup, and Nationwide- were excellent races to watch.

            The countdown to Summit Point is in its final days.  At the time of writing this, 48 hours from now, we will hopefully be checked into the hotel, and getting ready for bed.  Again- I’ve said it before- but when we travel, we always stay at Holiday Inn Express- never had a bad experience.

            The car is sitting in the shop, ready to go.  The guys were able to work ahead on some things and we were able to give ourselves a cushion on time.  It’s nice not to be rushed, but I’m sure something will pop up as we load everything up.  In fact the last time we went to Summit Point, we got a very- VERY late start.  Our truck and trailer sits just outside the shop, we have a dedicated parking spot for it, so it very rarely gets moved in between races.  As we were getting ready to pull out of the shop parking lot, the truck lost all of its power.  Long story short- like 4 hours long- a groundhog had a Thanksgiving Day feast on the engine’s wiring harness, and it shorted out a few things.  Luckily, we have some people who not only are great with racecars, but are great truck mechanics as well.  Some wire, a few connectors, and a little luck- and they got us back on the road.  We made it to the hotel at 3:30 am, and had to be at the track by 6:30am- everybody did a great job and didn’t complain too much about the lack of sleep.  I’m hoping for better than that this week.

            The last time we were at Summit Point, we missed the track record by .062 seconds.  We’ve made a few changes and think we have a real good shot at nabbing on Saturday.  The weather forecast is fair, with only a 30% chance of showers and a high of 77 degrees.  Give me a little cloud cover during the race, and it should help us get a little more grip on the track.

            If all goes well this weekend, we will be qualified for Nationals at Mid-Ohio in September.  When we get back from Summit Point, we will have 2 weeks to go over everything and get back to race ready condition.  We’ve had some mechanical issues that have required some thought, and it will be nice to have a chance and see if the changes we made will work.

            Check back next week, we will have results from Summit Point and we’ll see if the changes we made worked.  Also- we’ll know if our name is in the record books or not.  We will try for updates throughout the day, so check me out on twitter @justinonderko.  Also friend me on Facebook, and we should have updates there as well.  Wish us luck- and- till next week. . .