Jimmy Kouba - Journal Archive

Dang-it!!!! Dang, dang, dang (substitute whatever word you like best). We're off to a slow start. The season debut at Jackson was marred both by horrible track conditions and our performance. Still we had a better night than many-- we still have our racer in one piece and the driver is whole and hearty.

OK, for the record, Jamie is officially relieved of all duties involving a random draw. (She just can't take the driver abuse for a bad pull. Who can blame her.) We pulled the third worse number of the 26 cars checking into Jackson for their annual frostbuster. This placed us last row in the last heat. After a dusty session of hot laps, we hooked the car up for the heat. If this were a short track, we'd have had the setup dialed in. BUT Jackson is a full 1/2 mile with long chutes. We haven't found the right balance for this deal yet. The car was OK and we pulled out a 6th from our heat run. Blah...

Our less than glorious heat finish, put us 17th in the lineup for the feature. Jamie and I conspired over the setup hoping to improve upon a manageable but relatively slow car. The initial start was marred by a NASCAR Daytona type wreck on the back straight. We missed the carnage, but many cars went out on a hook. Chad Meyer took the worst of it, sustaining compound fractures in his legs. Chad was air lifted to Sioux Falls for immediate treatment. All of us at Jimmy Kouba Racing wish Chad a full recovery.

The complete restart after the wreck was promising. We gained a few spots by the time we headed into turn 1. Too bad the front row didn't behave themselves. The start was called back when the pole car got on the pump too early. The "real" start didn't go as well. I pretty much fell into a follow-the-leader mode. The car was too touchy on corner entry for me to keep any momentum through the turn. Even though the car would fire off the corner well, it wasn't enough to compensate. After losing one spot too many, I decided that a new line couldn't be much worse. Well, I was partly right, I lost 4 spots after trying a high line through 1&2, but it didn't much matter at the pay window. We finished a lackluster 12th. (Why is it 12th out of 26 doesn't sound so bad when the NASCAR announcers say it???) Oh, our cornering problem... seems our left rear tire didn't want to behave (that and I influenced the crew chief again). We had 3 inches more stagger than what should have been the absolute maximum for those track conditions. Ouch!!!

What's next: Jackson Speedway on May 3rd. I promised to give the keys to setup over to Jamie. She has a plan and all I have to do is drive. (Don't think, Meat, just drive.). Should work...