Daron's weekly racing blog

Thursday - May 8, 2008

-Well folks the start of the year hasn't been good at all. Its really hard to sit yourself down in front of a computer and highlight everything you want to forget happened over the past month of racing. I have been qualifying great transferring through heats as expected. However when it comes to the main event I'm not sure if we have been changing too much on the car or not enough because I've had the backup lights on just about every feature event this year. Which drives me crazy i have always gone forward held my position or at most lost a few spots. Now I'm backing up all the way to 15th.
 
So were pulling off the sway bar, putting pro shocks on and "getting back to basics". So we will see how this works out  at B-Town Friday night. I was hoping we would be able to test this week but weather got in the way once again, its gonna be nice once we don't have to worry about watching the weather channel on the weekends... Meteorologists have a pretty simple job, learn where to point on the green screen. Being accurate must not be in the job description, It does no good to watch until raceday and by then you can look at the sky and tell what's gonna happen...
 
I have definitely got an all new respect for RV adventurers since getting one of my own, even though it is a '90 it is a "Grand Villa" lol. I can just about tell you anything you need to know about one now that i had my month long crash course in the mechanics of what makes such a fine piece of equipment tick. Surprisingly enough the hardest task so far that had me stumped was putting water in the hold tanks. Took me an hour at the local Flying J (wished that was a sponsor plug!) to find the valve to let the water in. I read everything in the book, which left this little detail out, i traced the fill line underneath, opened every compartment still no valve... finally nestled at the bottom rear of the closet in the bathroom i find a valve that says "open to fill hold tank" WOOHOO! I was pretty excited with myself if i must say! Just ask the wife who was equally impressed i hope?
 
So i have the new t-shirts out now they turned out pretty nice i thought, the design crew was probably ready to charge me double but i wanted it nice and special thanks to Dusty Kemp @ Arizona Race Shirts for a great job.
 
My thoughts on Terre Haute... The infield pitting was really neat to associate with fans, but not as great of a turn out as i expected. Day race, fine. Dust, Nothing new. Setting sun with dust, terrible idea. You know it all boils down to making sure the fans get a good show, fans pay the track the track pays us for our entertainment. I got $80 for driving blind at 120mph into turn 3 bouncing off the wall twice and never seeing it. That is great bang for your buck entertainment but even the FANS couldn't see it! After the sun dropped the fans definitely got their money's worth but my luck ran out too soon or it might have been an even better show. I am just glad that we are racing at Terre Haute again and when the USAC race rolls in you can bet ill be there (hopefully under the lights)
 
Fans i'm trying my best to keep these updates coming there is no excuse for letting you down I'd just like something good to write about and I'm sure you like good news to read about so that's my weekend project.
 
-Daron

Thursday - March 13, 2008

-If you’re not doing anything Saturday @ 12 come out to Fast Times. Shane Cottle called me last night and invited me up I had no idea it was even going on, but apparently were doing a 2 Hr endurance race for the injured drivers fund this season. Each team has 4 members to run a 30min balls to the walls race.

-So tell everyone you know to come out and support the drivers and give some extra change if you’ve got it, if not no worries just come watch us vent some early season frustration on each other… It’s gonna be classic I’m sure.

-My team mates are Cottle, Coons and Stanbrough…. Yea, ‘nuff said. I was definitely surprised by the invite from those guys and I’m looking forward to kickin’ some ace with them.

-Other than that folks, not much going on yet, I will update the blog every 2 weeks now since we aren’t racing and I really don’t have enough quality info to inform the public about. Once we start pulling tear offs April 5^th (FINGERS CROSSED!) I will have plenty of things to either complain about or brag about hopefully. I don’t like to brag but having the option is always nice, means you’re doing something right!

March 3, 2008 - Well first off hope everyone likes the site. I told the man with the plan to make it original and it turned out great, as
long as you're a rocker! The player will have 10 New songs every two weeks that i pick out. So if you're not feelin' it
just hit the skip button.
 
As far as this season starting i am definately in the zone chief! I'm ready to ride these new Trucker cars. Roger
Tapy has stepped up the program this year these cars are gonna be d*mn fast and good lookin in the winners cicle.
Were in the process of getting the rest of our parts in from INDY Race Parts. I'm gonna take my "adult proof" digital
camera to work monday and get some pictures of the cars were bolting together. Looks like i will pilot a yellow
chassis black body and my team mate Thomas Meserall will have white chassis on black body.
 
We decided as a team to run DRC chassis since me and T.M. are both farmiliar with these cars and have a great
baseline to start out our season. We're going to be doing some R&D work for AFCO shocks this year which i'm
really excited about. We're setting up a couple days to do some testing with the cars on telemetry. So we can see
what range these cars really work in and tune our package accordingly.
 
March 25th-27th i will be heading to Charlotte to test and ARCA car from the Eddie Sharp stable, along with 3 other drivers
in the sprint car league. It's been an opportunity i have waited for for a few years now, so hopefully the fenders wont slow
me down too much! Then i will be heading down from Charlotte to Homestead for the IPS/IRL race the 27th-29th with John
Barnes of Panther Racing.
 
So with all the new things going on i enrolled into Pit Fit for some personal training. I've been
good turning left but gotta get upto par for the righties, dont want my head hangin out of the car! If things work out with
sponsorship there is a good chance i could be piloting an IPS car at indy in May, which is the best opportunity to date
i've been given, fingers are crossed nothing is written in stone.
 
My personal ultimate goal is Formula One, to be able to represent my country in the ultimate race cars period. Not sure
how that group would take this american though... Think they know what spurs are? :) Well folks stay tuned i plan to update
this blog every monday after my weekend and tell you all about my views on situations that arrise.
 
-Daron