Day Two of Qualifying
WOW, what a
day today was! We saw a super high speed
track become very bumpy and there was also quite a bit of dust on the track
today making it very loose. The bumps
were really the hard part of the track today with most of the bumpy
sections being right in front of jumps.
This was making it very difficult for drivers to get over them. It is one thing to have tons of bumps in a straight
line but when you have to go through bumps and still make the obstacles it is
nearly impossible like we saw today. I
think the other challenging part for most of the drivers when it came down to
mistakes is not losing your cool and make five more because of it. It’s hard for a driver on a track like this
to make two or even three big mistakes and still feel like he could have a good
run, but as we saw today you can have tons of mistakes and still have a good run due to everyone making many mistakes. The track got to a point in the last round
today where some drivers decided to roll some of the jumps, with the feeling
that if they had less crashes and did slower laps their runs would be faster. This strategy worked well for some.
The team is
very upbeat and ready for tomorrow. Adam Drake has been very consistent and sitting on the bubble to be in or out of the
semi-finals come Saturday. I have a
feeling we will see a stellar run from him in the morning to lock him in. Dakotah Phend had a rough day trying to find
his way around this tough track like many did. He was really looking good in the final round and had loads of confidence
in the car until he had a run in with a crashed car that he couldn’t avoid, which
damaged his servo putting him out the race. He
will need a really good solid run to make the semi-final. I will say I was relieved to see Darren come
around today not getting the best of runs but looking much faster and more
confident in his driving. He will need
to punch it tomorrow to get the best possible points he can. I had a chance to spend some time with one of
our German driver s,Hannes Kaeufler, as we went and watched many of the races
together. He is a great driver but as many here, he is just having a hard time like everyone
else with the super rough track conditions.
After the first four rounds Hannes was setting 54th overall. I am so pumped for
him! Our Floridian driver JR Mitch is the man!! I wish everyone could have seen him wheeling
his TLR 8IGHT around the track in the final round today. A 10th in round 5 today will keep
his semi final hopes alive going into the final round of qualifying tomorrow.
At this
point there is not one driver standing out over anyone else. The track is getting rougher by the minute
and all the drivers were so up and down all day. After our team meeting this afternoon we have
a pretty good game plan going into the final round. Hopefully our game plan for tomorrow will work for the team.
