Page 118 of The Champion
“My rear end is in turn four...well, kind of. Most of it is in turn four, my shock mount isin turn one. My rear axle is...” Iglanced over my shoulder toward the track. “in turn two.”
Hell together we broke every piece on the cars. It wascarnage out there.
Tyler came rolling by on the back of my dad’s 4-wheelerholding a shock mount in one hand and his helmet in the other. He held it upwhen he walked past, “This was the only salvageable part on the car.”
I really didn’t want to see this parts bill tomorrow.With these cars leaving Sunday morning for Cottage Grove, we use the back-upcars brought with each team but it didn’t matter, I still had to pay to havethese three fixed.
That was racing. You could easily dump a hundred thousandin a motor alone just to have it blow up on you in hot laps.
Speaking of engines, they seemed to be our biggestproblem this year. With grandpa Casten passing away last year, the future ofCST Engines, was unknown. CST Engines was what almost every team on the outlawtour used for engines along with most of the national sprint tours.
When grandpa died, his partner Rick Denton had no cluewhat to do and neither did we. Grandpa built the engines while Rick merelyacted as the sales associate. Old Casten had no business conversing with thepublic.
Uncle Randy and my dad ended up taking over ownership ofthe business but had to hire Harry, my engine specialist on the cup team tobuild the engines until they found someone. Harry tried, he really did butgrandpa knew sprint cars. They were his specialty. In turn, he could build usan engine that would usually last the entire season.
After a few months, Dad and Randy ended up having to hireanother engine specialist, Kerry Andrews, and let Harry just concentrate on thecup cars. I think it was more along the lines that Harry actually told him he’dquit if they didn’t.
Eventually things got better and the engines were closeto what grandpa was providing but it took nearly a year of trial an errorbefore we found a design that worked best for us. As you can see, this put alot of stress upon every team.
It’s always something in racing, no matter what form. Ifyou’re not fighting with the engine, the shock package needed attention.
But hey, that’s racing.
On Saturday night, I found myself in Richmond for thelast race before the chase.
“You have about four more laps until we stop.” Kyle toldme around lap one eighty of the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 race.
I loved Richmond, but not tonight.
It seemed like my luck for breaking cars wasn’t going anybetter than it had Friday night at Skagit.
“We have to get this packer out of the right front.” Itold him knowing he’d make the adjustments.
Instead of relying solely on the spring rubbers to adjustthe suspension and handling of the car, we add shock packers, which allow theshock to absorb a fair amount. Instead of a shock compressing, let’s sayseventy-five percent of its potential; we would put in a packer to decrease theshock travels. This allowed it to only half-way. Shock packers, combined withspring rubbers could make the car react differently and give us more room toexperiment with set-ups. We either use one or the other, or together, dependingon how the car was handling and the track we were at.
With Richmond, you start in the daylight and finish underthe lights. Those races are always tricky because of how temperature sensitiveit becomes. One minute you’re loose and about to kiss the wall and then nextyou’re so tight the car won’t turn.
“What’s your water temp?”
“210—215,”
“We’ll put a piece of tape on it this next stop. Threelaps.”
“Pit road is open.” Aiden told us when it was time topit. “Four thousand second gear. The six will pit in front of you, you’ll needto come around him to get into your pit.”
We made our green flag stop along with most of the field,which took us from our sixth place spot to fourth. It wasn’t good enough—Ineeded to win tonight.
Currently Paul, Colin and I were right on the bubble tomake the chase. For the first time in my five-year cup career, I may not makethe chase. I’ll spare you my thoughts on the chase format; I wasnotafan of it. I’m sorry but the other sports can keep their playoff format. Ididn’t like it. I didn’t like it because if I was running strong all season andrunning in the top five with a comfortable lead and did shitty those last fewraces, I still had a chance. In the chase that wasn’t always the case.
“Where am I at in points?”
The format had been modified from the previous years andnow included the top twelve in points. Even though I hated this whole “chase”shit, this new rule was in my favor this weekend.
“You’re eleventh if the race ended right now. Paul isstruggling mid pack right now, something about a vibration.”
This helped my chances tremendously.
After another fifty laps, nothing improved. The car stillfelt like it was lifting when I entered the corner, not something I enjoyed.
