Martinsville

I am always excited to get to go back to Martinsville because it is where I raced my first Craftsman Truck race.

It started out in the morning raining pretty hard and changed the schedule around a little bit. Instead of getting 2 practices and a rookie practice, we only got one practice that was 1hr and 20mins long. The truck was very tight in the turns so we adjusted it and made it better; at the end of practice the truck was still tight in the middle and loose off the turns. We ended up 14th on the speed charts, but we knew we needed to make a major adjustment to get us to where we needed to be.

We qualified the next morning and the truck was very very loose…we ended up qualifying 21st. At that point, we knew that we probably adjusted the truck too far and would have to spend the first of the race adjusting it back where it needed to be. At the start of the race the truck was still very loose. We came in on the first stop and changed 2 tires and made an adjustment. We made the truck a little better but it was still loose. The truck was still horrible at that point and we were running somewhere around 25th place. We still knew we had to make some pretty major adjustments to get it even race able. On the next caution we changed right side tires and made our final adjustment. After our final pit stop, we actually made the truck a ton better. It was still a little tight in the center of the turns, but not nearly as bad as it was. We were coming up through the field and passed a lot of trucks. We made it up to 9th with 10 laps to go and there was another caution, making the finish a green, white, checkered. Everything was good until the final turn when my teammate got spun out. He came back up in front of the field and trapped us against the outside wall. I got the truck in reverse and got around the wreck and ended up 14th. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. We were 300 feet from getting our 2nd straight top ten!!!

All in all it was a good day. We made the truck a lot better and kept the rookie points lead.
Thanks for all of your comments and well wishes!!