Adirondack July, 28th 2007

Adirondack July, 28th 2007

The day of the most corrupt race in history.

It’s a day that most of us on the team still can’t even talk about. A day, in which hard work and perseverance paid off, only to be ripped away by one man and his dying regime.

The race weekend started just like they all seem to do; a long ride to a hotel, catch a few hours sleep and be ready to be at the track before the sun comes up, another day in the life of the traveling circus.

When we go to Adirondack it’s almost a “home game” feeling for our team, we know that we are going to be one of the ones to beat because of our past success there.

Any pre race swagger that we might have had was eliminated before we even practiced. An oil tank fire, a separate broken fuel pump incident and off and on rain showers allowed us to have very little practice time and we ended up fourth in final practice.

Luckily qualifying was rained out and we’d be able to start second because of the point standings. With qualifying rained out that put the 2 fastest cars, Bryon Chew and Sean Caisse behind us and Logano on the pole. Joey was really struggling to get a hold of the track and we knew that we’d be able to take advantage of that right off the bat.




After all the pre-race stuff, it was time to get the green flag.

When we went green, we got the lead from Joey by turn 2 of the first lap and took off to a good 5 car length lead by lap 5. Right about then, I told Matt that Mike Olsen was coming hard, Olsen started 3rd but got held up by Joey for a the first few laps. Our game plan was to be very easy in the early going and Olsen was just going a lot harder than we were ready to go at that point. On lap 7, we gave Mike the room he needed to take the lead and we were just content on following for awhile.

Mike got by us and took off to a strong 10 car lead and still pulling away. I actually was thinking at this point that we were all in trouble and that Olsen was gonna run away with this race……..but…….just like that, Olsen’s car got super tight off of turn four and we began to run him down like he had an anchor attached. We caught him and got by, to get the lead back on lap 20, and then it was on.

As we drove to a comfortable lead and lapping cars, I’m also keeping my eyes on whos running fast and how Joey doing, because he is the guy we are chasing for the championship. During the green flag run, Sean Caisse had secured the 2nd spot but still wasn’t catching us, and Joey was really struggling to even stay in the top 10, we were feeling pretty good about our chances of having a good day.

Over the next 50 to 70 laps, we would dominate, leading by as much a half track over 2nd place and lapping all but the top 13 cars. Also during this time we encountered had a handful of cautions, in turn also had a handful of restarts as the leader of the race.

East series restarts in 2007 had become an absolute crapshoot to this point. The series uses a cone as a restart line and the rule is “all restarts must begin in the VISINITY on the orange cone.” The week before, at Thompson, Caisse beat us on a couple late race restarts the he jumped by 15-20 car lengths before the cone.

So is that the vicinity rule? No one ever knew, because the ruling regime never had anyconstancy on their calls and it was in their words always “a judgment call.”

On every restart we had from lap 20 to lap 142, we took off within 3-5 car lengths of the cone. Restarts that were so good in fact, that the race director said over the radio “OK 40 and 44 lets have another good restart like we had before” as we came to the green.

Then on lap 142, the tower decided that they needed to decide who wins the race, rather than have a legitimate competitive finish.

Bryon Chew had gotten by Cassie and was now restarting to our outside for the lap 142 restart. It was the first time Chew was to our outside and we really had no problem with it because we had the dominant car and didn’t feel any threat from anyone.

As a spotter, I’m more of a cheerleader than a help on restarting. The driver knows when its time to go and I’m just there saying “go,go,go, green, green” until I can clear him.
As we came to the cone on lap 142, Matt took off 4 car lengths before the cone, as was shown on TV, but this time Chew was really lagging and we had him clear by the start finish line with Caisse still on our ass.

Then the most absurd thing I had ever heard in my life was being said to me.

The race director said over the radio “40 car, give it back”………..

Now at this point my spotter official, is pulling on my shoulder saying the same thing to me that I already heard on the radio, as I’m still trying to spot us from Caisse’s charge into turn 2.

“Give it back”!?!?!?

Give what back? ……We are the LEADER….how do WE give the LEAD back to the SECOND place car?!?!?!?

It doesn’t even make sense.

But despite all that, and all the confusion…..we did what they asked and allowed Chew to come up the outside under green and he lead lap 143, check the record books and video, Chew lead the next lap.

So we went back to the lead by turn 2 of lap 143 after “giving it back”….when I heard the 2nd most absurd thing I had ever heard in my life.

“40 car….. stop and go, jumping the start….didn’t give it back in time”

Didn’t give it back in time?!?!?!

We are doing 16 second laps and you think we didn’t give back in time?!?!?!

Not to mention, WE NEVER EVEN JUMPED THE START!!!

At that point we knew that we would never have a chance to win against these two in the tower, who had decided somewhere that day that we werent allowed to win.
We had our stop and go under green, finsished the remaining 8 laps. We passed a bunch of cars and crossed the line in 11th.

After the checkard flag fell, I was numb and felt like I had just been attacked or something to that effect.The walk down from the spotters stand is usually just that, but after the race, I was running. All along the way I had to have had atleast 10 fans stop me and say things like “that was bullshit” or “you guys got robbed”.

As I’m running to get to the garage area, I had no idea that Matt had pulled into victory lane in protest. I couldn’t see it going on all I could hear is what sounded like a riot about to happen, these fans were pissed and rightfully so. The anger that was in me after that race was a feeling I have never felt before and it was only compounded by the smile on the series directors face when he walked by our trailer.

At least one member from EVERY team came to our trailer and said that they were sorry for the injustice we had been served. And even quote from Andy Santerre to the media following the race, “One of our full time teams jumped the restart supposedly. He dominated the race. He had the car to beat. You just don’t do that. If he had done it two or three times and they had warned him I could see it. But to do it once and get blackflagged is the worst deal I’ve seen in a long time.”

As we loaded up Dan Pardus, the commentator from SPEED, came to our trailer and told us that immediately after the race the the ruling regime asked for a video replay of the lap 142 restart. He said that both of the officials turned to him, Pardus, and asked him what he thought because they weren’t really sure if they had made the right call. Pardus said that it wasn’t a jump, to which the series director replyed, “Oh well, there is nothing we can do now”

The following week at Lime Rock, we had the driver/crew chief/spotter meeting. After the meeting, the race director pulled Matt aside with myself still standing there and told him point blank that he wasn’t proud the call and that it was out of his hands. “Whats done is done”, he said.

So it was that simple to them....... what’s done, is done.

A year later, we won at Adirondack. Our 3rd win of 2008, at the time, and no win had been any sweeter. I’m not sure if it closed the book on what happened that July night back in 2007, but it definatly helped in taking the sting of that injustice away.