American Adrien Bertin Greg Degani has a very direct approach when it comes to constructive critisism.
So, yesterday I did the T4T race at Thunder Alley, and managed to steal the TQ away from Cody King and Adam Drake. To me that’s a huge accomplishment, because those guys are so fast here on their home tracks! This one feels better too because I don’t practice at TA as it is quite far from where I am staying, and it’s a very US style track, and very difficult for me. So all in all very good qualifying. But what I need to do now, is translate my new found speed in qualifying to speed in the main. Here are a few points.
- At US races the main is almost always very different to qualifying, because it’s run at night, so the track is different. This is one hard nut for me to crack, but I think more mains at night will help. Get used to racing at night, and learn what to do to the car for those conditions.
- I actually have relatively little experience racing really good drivers head to head. So I need more wheel time racing for the win of these sorts of races, against good drivers like Adam and Cody. I need to be more precise with my driving, be more aggressive, and take advantage of their mistakes, as well as not give them opportunities to get by me, or punt me. Actually I was already a lot better this time than the last mains I have been in.
- Normally it seems that in the main, the top guys step it up, and find some extra speed. I need to be able to do that. I need to be able to get more comfortable, find a groove, and go even faster than in qualifying. I have to push myself more at these races to get faster.
I love it when tracks get rough like this!
As for what I could have done differently at this race, I think I should have run different tyres. Something in super soft instead of the soft impacts I ran. My car also faded at about 15-20 minutes, and I made some mistakes and lost time, before I adjusted my driving and was ok again. I think my diff oils were too thin. My engine was also too lean, I noticed it in warm up but I figured it will be ok and didn’t want any drama just before the start. It ran ok, but was a bit lean and it was harder to drive towards the end, and get all the timing right.
All in all, THECar and my racing has been heading in a positive direction over the past few months, and what I need to do now is gain the skills and confidence to do my best in the mains.
THEQuagraine 