Discovering Disappointment

The Road America racing circuit, Elkhart Lake Wisconsin. Chilly, rainy, pretty miserable. The circuit is over 4 miles and laps seem to take forever. Being in a park setting, it is quite a beautiful track with areas to camp and enjoy on nicer days.
The practice sessions were typical, no surprises there. Nelson was getting over being sick and gave his best effort in qualifying, but the weather didn't cooperate with our setup.
Dan and his engineer made a great gamble during Friday's qualifying session. The track was quite wet, but the rain had subsided and the driving line was drying off. Having just had an off track excursion, they decided to change from their rain tires to run a set of slicks. The crew nervously put the new tire set on and sent him on track for the end of qualifying. After a few laps the gamble payed off for Dan, having run a lap 2 seconds faster than anyone else! The time allotted for qualifying ran out and he was on top! Charles Zwolsman was the only other car to follow suit and run slicks. He also had favorable results and ended up 2nd.
Our team had been selected through ChampCar to be part of a new Discovery Channel television program about jobs which have significant risks. We had the host of the show, and all of the behind the scenes personnel following the crew and interacting with us all weekend. The show begins next January, and the episode filmed with the team should air sometime in February.
Dan drove well, but through course of the race fell back to 6th place and couldn't regain positions. Toward the end of the race, a horrendous looking accident by Katherine Legge caused by a rear wing failure brought the cars to pit lane and caused a subsequent 15 minute red flag. We are glad to say Katherine walked away from the accident! After the restart, and with only 3 laps left in the race, 6th place is where Dan would finish.

Our engineer and strategy team had developed a plan for our less than desirable 16th place starting position race day. Through this plan and some opportune yellows Nelson was able to get to 3rd place. Nelson drove extremely well and kept his opponents at bay after he got up front. This all would change during what would have been the final pit stop. The stop went well except for the outside rear tire changer had a problem that I did not see. As the airjack operator, you must observe the tire changers and make sure everyone is finished with their duties before dropping the car. The tire cannot be tightened with the car on the ground, as the tire is not aligned correctly and won't pull up fully to be completely tight. Needless to say, the tire wasn't tight and I dropped the car and it was sent on track. Nelson made it to turn 5 before the tire came off the car. He was able to limp back and get new tires to finish the race, but this error cost us a lap and sent up back to 14th position. A devastating error, costing not only damage to the car but moving Nelson from 4th to 5th in the points behind Paul Tracy.

Quite a sickening and humbling experience, but we'll do better 'down under'!