First of all, I would like to apologize for lack of race recaps for 2020. As you all know, it’s been busy and the racing season has been different for all of us thanks to the pandemic. I promise to do better next year and am really optimistic that things will be back to normal!
Let's rewind a little to talk about our steps to get into the 70's. In 2018, at our last race as a team, we decided to start focusing on figuring out how to run in the 70's over running consistently, but a little slower in the high 80's and 90's. Unfortunately, over the winter into the 2019 season, we caught a gremlin in the clutch department and it took us most of our year to find that gremlin. Right before our last race, we found out our problem was in the clutch accumulator. We went to our last race in St. Louis and got it to run in the 80's, but fell short of our 70's goal.
Fast forward to the winter before the 2020 season we spent a lot of time and energy retooling the car to make sure in 2020 we could put our best foot forward to get in the 70's. Mr. Douglas spent some time with us teaching/showing us a couple of areas that we needed to pay a little more attention to to get the car to perform a tenth of a second better. Unfortunately, our clutch gremlin decided to move into our ignition system and our best laid out plans didn't go as planned for our 2020 season. Eventually, we figured out issues and headed to the US Nationals with a little confidence but also knew we needed a few runs to get into 70's. The car responded exactly how it should but unfortunately our fuel pump started to get a little weak. We knew going into race day we just weren't going to be able to muster that 70. Following the race, we sent off the pump to get fluffed up and ready to roll.
As we headed for our last race in St. Louis, we had one goal in mind and that was to run 70's starting with the first shot. Unfortunately, the driver didn't know what it was going to feel like running that hard. In Q1 shortly after I hit the gas, I felt what I thought was the car getting ready to go into tire shake and I decided to pedal the car. Once back to the pit and Mr. Douglas brought up the run on the computer he nicely pointed out that what I felt was the clutch locking up sooner than it has ever before. I reassured me that on Sunday if it felt like that again to keep my foot down and enjoy the ride of my life. All I can say is that he was right! In E1, when I hit the gas the car felt exactly like it did the night before but this time I kept my foot down and we blasted to my career best 3.787 at 321 mph! We finally did it. Let me tell you the journey was long and took a lot of perseverance but like most things in life we have to keep our heads up and keep working hard for our goals!
Thank you for cheering us on this year. We appreciated the support from those of you watching safely from your own home and those of you that made it to the track and sent us photos and words of encouragement. We’ll see you in a few months!
