Archive for the ‘Chevrolet Silverado’ Category

Week 10 – Worst Truck Race Ever!

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Chevy Silverado Race Results

My Chevy Silverado

Ouch… just had my worst oval race ever. I really excelled at Bristol and picked up 16 incidents, in a total of 4x car contacts.

3 of them by the same guy who, judging by his recent Bristol races, scores 20+ incidents per race! Man, I’m used to picking up a 4x here and there when it’s ‘not my fault’ but this race was a new record that I wasn’t interested in claiming.

Here’s my therapy/frustration venting video :

Annoyingly the last hit spun me round with just 7 to go while I was battling for 3rd. In then end I nursed the broken truck home for 7th. I want to forget this race! It has also eroded my stable 4.99 oval safety rating, taking it down to 4.54.

Week 9 – Trucks back to Phoenix for the second time

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Chevy Silverado Race Results

My Chevy Silverado Phoenix International Raceway

Given the sorry state of my shifter (which Logitech appear to be willing to replace) the only options to race at the moment are ovals and so I joined a race at Phoenix this week. I had a great result here earlier in the season (133 points).

This race was a bit tougher. I had the same sort of pace as before but a stronger grid had me racing for 9th – 10th for the majority of the race. My pit stall was in a bit of a tricky spot in pit lane and I managed to make a fantastic error and overshoot the box entirely!

Still, the race was good and I was doing a good job of saving tyres until late in the run when I could use them up to take spots.

I even thought I was going to finish the race incident free until I picked up my mandatory 4x hit on the very last lap from a wreck ahead that I couldn’t slow down enough for. The fact it was on the last lap really hurt my result so I only finished 10th for just 63 points.

This hurts my chances at finishing second in my division but there are still three more racing weeks to try and improve. Back to Bristol next week…

Week 7 – Trucks @ Lowe’s (for the second time in 09 Season 1)

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Chevy Silverado Race Results

My Chevy Silverado

The Chevy Silverado (Truck) series returned to Lowe’s, which was good as it meant I already had a setup made from earlier in the season. I joined a three race split and was rated 7th of the 15th entrants (decent SOF then!)

I took my usual approach of keeping out of trouble whilst still trying to hang onto the lead pack (e.g. I took two tyres on an early stop for track position which worked well) and generally the race was going OK. I still picked up the inevitable 4x incident points from a spin in front of me but luckily it was a ‘ghost’ hit, i.e. I didn’t hit the car so my car wasn’t damaged. Still took a 4x though :(

My broken sequential shifter reared its ugly head on a restart near the end of the race – accelerating from 1st my truck immediately shifted into 3rd. Obviously that screwed my progress and I almost caused a huge crash behind me (luckily we all managed OK). Gonna have to seriously think about sorting this out, it’s affecting a lot of races now….

I also had a potential disaster in pit road. I was on the outside/fast pit lane line and there was a car immediately inside me. My pit box was approaching and I thought all cars in the pitlane were ghosts (i.e. you can drive through them) so I turned into him, to try and line up with my pit crew. Completely unexpectedly I nudged his rear quarter panel which took me by surprise! Minor damage, but could have been much much worse. Not sure I understand how the pit lane ghost cars actually work after this incident, can’t make any assumptions I guess.

Race was going well at the end, and I was holding on for a 4th place finish. Inside the last 20 laps things started getting very tight and aggressive and there was a moment when we were getting 3-wide. I was the bottom car so hugged the apron as much as possible but looped my truck exiting turn 4. Luckily no damage or yellow but I pottered home for a 5th place finish, which is my best Lowe’s result to date. 112 points.

Amazingly I find myself in a very strong position in division 3. Currently holding second position, and that is with one or two poor results in my season which I am hoping to improve upon in weeks 8 – 12. I might be looking good for a second place finish in my division this season :)