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Texas
By A.J. Foyt
 Everyone who knows me, knows the Indianapolis 500 is the most
important race in the world to me. But, the second most important
race is the one at Texas Motor Speedway because it is in my home
state.
I always want to run well at Texas...and we did for a while Saturday
night.
The weekend didn't start out great. We had problems (not really of
our making) on the first day of practice with the throttle response
control-Felipe Giaffone was getting only 50% throttle in the ABC
Supply Dallara/Honda. We fixed that problem and had electrical
problems in the next practice so we decided to get a head start on
our scheduled engine change and not qualify. With the problems we
had we would have probably started last anyway.
The fixes worked because he was in the top 10 in practice the next
day. He slipped a little in final practice but we were trying some
different things with the full fuel load.
We made some changes to the race set-up and it appeared that they
were to Giaffone's liking because he passed seven cars in the first
30 laps, moving from last to 12th. His first stop went smoothly but
it was slow by a couple seconds. We didn't lose a spot because the
caution came out but we missed a chance to gain positions.
In the next stint Giaffone complained of the car pushing so I
ordered a wing adjustment for the next stop which was under green.
That change, combined with his failure to reset the weight jacker,
made Giaffone believe we had made a drastic change to the car and
his speed slowed. I reassured him it wasn't that big a change and
when he got the weight jacker right, he started clicking off quicker
lap times. He was a little slower but that had more to do with not
being in the pack like he was after the first stop when we had
bunched up during the caution period.
Looking back, I should have asked him how the car was handling just
before he came in. He climbed back to 12th but the green flag racing
(and loss of the draft) caused him to go a lap down about 3/4 of the
way through the race (only nine cars finished on the lead lap).
Communication was a problem on the next stop too because I told him
we'd do just a splash and go (and correct the wing adjustment).
There was a slight problem unhooking the fuel hose but it didn't
really slow the stop.
As Giaffone was coming onto the track, the car's handling felt weird
and asked if he had a flat tire. I checked the air pressures on the
telemetry and told him the tires were fine, what he was feeling was
rubber build-up which he'd have to clean off by running. The radio
transmission was hard to understand and we misunderstood each other.
I thought he believed he still had a flat so I told him to pit.
He thought there was a penalty because of the fuel hose so he came
in. We gave him new tires. That unnecessary second stop cost us five
or six positions and I admit that I was pretty hot. He turned his
fastest lap of the race (sixth fastest overall) with the new rubber
and did gain a position but he finished 16th instead of in the top
10.
We were both disappointed, more so because we let a top-10 slip
away.
Before we head to Richmond, Va. we'll make some changes to improve
the radio (it was the worst it's ever been) so we won't make the
same mistakes twice.
Richmond International Raceway is a lightening fast 3/4 mile banked
oval where decisions have to be made in a split-second. I know
Felipe likes the track and we've had good set-ups there in the past
so maybe RIR will be where it all comes together. To find out, tune
into ESPN2 Saturday night June 24 at 8 pm eastern. |
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