After a productive weekend in Montreal, I came home for 2 days before heading to the Mile High City of Denver, Colorado. After watching the Champ Car race there last year, I wasn’t too sure what to expect. The drivers had complained a lot about how bumpy and slippery the circuit was last year but after being fast at both the Toronto and Vancouver street course events I felt confident that our setup would suit the track and we would be competitive.
I inspected the track with Jeff and Ross on Thursday. It didn’t look as bad as we had heard but we found the layout to be fairly technical and challenging to figure out, especially with the amount of different track surfaces and lots of bumps.
PRACTICE:
The Fran-Am 2000 series became the designated “street sweepers” for the weekend with ours being the very first cars on the dirty track Friday morning and the conditions were very slick. Ross and I had discussed that I really needed to be a sponge during the session, soaking up as much track information as possible and not worrying about my times for the practice. Our next session would be qualifying, so I really needed to get in as many laps as I could to get comfortable with the layout. During the first 20 minutes our session was stopped twice for cars on track and at that point I had really only figured out which way the track went. At the end of the session I was 11th quick but knew we needed to make a few more adjustments to our set-up. I also knew that I had a lot more left in both myself and the car. We then had quite a bit of downtime in-between sessions so I spent a fair amount of it studying the data and track map, figuring out just what I needed to do. Jeff and I then came up with the changes we wanted to make and I began mentally focusing on qualifying.
QUALIFYING:
For the first 12 – 15 minutes of qualifying I was still only fast enough for 11th place. I knew I could improve more but I didn’t know how I was going to find enough time to make a run for pole in the time remaining. I figured I could probably improve to 6th or 7th but then I would have a hard race in front of me. After cooling off my tires for a lap I made another run at it and went directly into 3rd spot. A few moments later I was bumped back to 4th and Jeff told me on the radio I needed to find 4 tenths of a second for the pole. I took another run at it finding about three and a half tenths and thought that should put me on the front row. At the same time, however, Andrew Ranger and Martin Ponte had also just gone faster and I was still 4th spot, only one tenth of a second off the pole. The session ended and I was quite satisfied with my effort. It would have been nice to have gone just that little bit quicker and been on the front row but I now I knew I was in the game for the race on Saturday. The session once again proved that the Fran-Am series is probably the most competitive junior formula in North America, with the top 5 being only two tenths of a second apart.
RACE:
The weather forecast was calling for rain all day on Saturday but after an early morning shower the track had dried up and we were on dry weather tires. The sky looked threatening but for once the weather was on our side and chose to hold off for the race. I got a decent start when the lights went out holding my position until turn 6 when Robert Bell got past me as my tires had not yet come all the way up to race pressures. A full course caution came out before we finished the first lap due to a car flipping in turn 5. The driver was unhurt, displaying just how safe the Tatus built Fran-Am cars are. After a couple of laps behind the pace car we were back racing and because of the slow pace laps my tires once again took some time to come in. My car just wasn’t handling the way I needed it to off the restart and I lost 2 more positions putting me temporarily back in 7th place. I didn’t let it get to me and patiently waited for my tires to heat up and gain maximum grip. One of the cars in front was black flagged for a racing infraction requiring a stop and go penalty giving me 6th place and with my car now responding nicely I was right up behind 5th placed Dan McMullen. I could catch him in the twisty parts of the track but I had a little more rear wing and he would accelerate away from me on the straightaway. Both of us then moved past the 4th place car and I was up into the 5th spot. I just kept working on McMullen and after several more laps of following closely I found a way past in the hairpin corner and moved into 4th place. My car felt really great at this point but I only had about 6 or so laps to catch the 3rd place car of Bell. I was gaining on him about 4 tenths every lap but just didn’t have enough time to catch him. If the race would have been 3 or so laps longer I might have been able to find a way past. I was still very satisfied with my race and am more determined than ever to take it up another notch at Mont Tremblant!
WRAP-UP:
The Denver weekend was probably my best weekend of the season. Besides being my best result of the season, I just kept chipping away at the track and ended up qualifying much higher than I first expected. The team and I worked together probably the best we have all season. Jeff was very informative and made some great decisions, Ross gave me some great tips about the track and Gord was all over the mechanical preparation of my race car. I am really looking forward to heading back to the fast and sweeping turns of a permanent race course at Mont Tremblant.
See Ya at the Track!
Sean
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