This past weekend the koni challenge series raced in the Alabama heat at Barber Motorsports park. We rolled off the trailer with a good car and only made some small changes to the car over the course of the weekend. However, the 95-100 degree heat took its toll on our cars. We were constantly fighting heat related issues with our motors. The whole TRG crew did a good job diagnosing these issues which payed off in the race. Peter qualified the car 17th out of 31 and in the race he managed to gain some positions early on up until lap 8 when another competitor hit us in the left front which lead to a flat. Steve, Derek, and all the crew did a good job making a quick tire change and got him back out there. Peter stayed in the car for 44 laps (1hr 13min) and then I got in to finish the job. I got in the car in 16th spot and started gaining positions up to 9th. After roughly 25 - 30 min in the car I realized that my rear tires were loosing more and more grip every lap. This was the result of 100 degree weather and an all green flag race with not one caution. Although 9th is obviously not what we want i’ll take a top 10. In the race we had the 4th fastest car overall with a best lap time of 1:39:7 only 2 tenths of a second off the best.
The next race is at Iowa speed way where I will have Andy Lally as my co-driver. Andy and I drove with each-other at this years first race at daytona, and I look forward to driving with him again.
