The People Want Green Racing - Part 4

By the time you read this I will be in the midst of a 2 month road trip that will make up the second half of the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta Cup Season. In the last instalment of The People Want Green Racing I was coming off an excellent weekend at Miller Motorsports Park, where I had qualified on pole, finished 2nd and taken an 11pt lead in the championship. Unfortunately, the last two events haven’t gone as well and I head into the second half 4th place in points, but still with a great chance at taking the championship and the $100,000 payday.

Unfortunately Round 4 was the beginning of my run of bad luck. A broken right rear shock absorber, led to qualifying 16th for the race at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course. Thanks to the hard work of the Volkswagen mechanics we were able to diagnose and fix the problem before the race, which I knew would be challenge coming through the field. At the start, a glitch with the lights caused absolute chaos at the start as the field spread out 5 wide into turn 1. I managed to come out of the first lap already a couple spots up from my starting spot. From there, I continued to battle and managed to move up to 11th by the time a full course caution came out mid race.

The yellow was exactly what I needed, a chance to calm my head down, while it bunched up the field and put the leaders back in sight. Like lap 1, the restart was chaos and I was able to take advantage moving up to 9th going into turn 2, and then getting a run on the 8th place driver down the straight and into turn 3. I managed to pull right alongside his door going into the turn and thought I had the pass made. Then, as I exited the corner I looked over to see he was still on my outside, with the preferable inside line for the next corner. Going into Turn 4 I ran out of room and ended up off in the grass and back to 11th where I would finish. I learned a valuable lesson that you can never assume a pass is made and I needed to assert myself a little bit more under braking and through the apex.

Unfortunately the disastrous weekend dropped me back to 3rd in points with 5 long weeks to think about it before Round 5. For me, this was an extremely difficult period mentally. For the first time all season I began to doubt my abilities to run up front. Despite the mechanical problems in qualifying I couldn’t help blaming myself. This is dangerous for a race car driver as confidence is as important as anything, and I knew I would have to get my head back in the right space.

Round 5 of the series took us to the 3.5 mile, 22-turn, Autobahn Country Club outside of Chicago Illinois. I was looking forward to practice as I chance to get my head back in the right place, so I charged out of the gate in practice, trading fastest times early on, until I pushed too hard and cut a tire going off track. Unfortunately, the cut tire cost me half of the practice session, and on a track that long practice would prove invaluable. Heading out for qualifying, I was able to do just one hot lap before I had another tire go down as I spun in Turn 1. Not only, did this cost me a chance to better my qualifying time, I once again lost almost the whole session to learn the track. I ended up a disappointed 7th.

Going into the race I had only done about 5 hot laps, while most of my competitors had done 15-20. Early on in the race I dropped back as I tried to come to terms with the track, but in the second half I was finally able to find a groove and chased down the lead pack. With two laps to go, I was making a move around 4th & 5th place, when a full course yellow froze the field, leaving me with a 6th place finish. Although it was my second disappointing finish in a row, it was a much different feeling from when I left Mid-Ohio. Despite a multitude of problems I had managed to run competitive times and race with the lead pack. I knew I was back, and when I get to Road America this weekend I have my confidence again and plan to get back on top of the podium.
Till next time...

-Jake

www.jakethompson.ca
www.actionarmada.com