Roadside with Alexis Rainsford

New Years Update

2010-02-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

I think everyone noticed how little I updated during the championship weekend. The less I talk about that the happier I'll be.

Canada was a mess, and you can't convince me that everyone on the entire team wasn't aware of Nawrocki's intentions and supported them. He was apparently dumb enough to not realize that they were looking for an excuse to dump him...

Well, I'm actually going to Europe for awhile to do an appearance with the Volpi people and shoot a commercial for French television with Christi... among other things. Other than that, testing starts in a month-ish. Yaaay! I think our new engine might be a rolling grenade, boooo! Seriously, the new engine rules screwed us royally, and I'd be surprised if I made the finish of half the races.

I went to two Christmas parties and a New Year's party, so I'm pretty tired. Didn't really get that intoxicated. Not much for alcohol really... one thing I didn't get was much sleep. So I'm going to do that on this plane.

Bye for now!
- A.R.

Back to the Americas...

2010-01-05T00:15:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've had a lot of stuff to do. Seriously, I haven't had a day to where I can just relax until ... basically now, and qualifying is just concluded here in Canada. I've had a lot of contract stuff to work through... that stuff is annoying and too time-consuming.

But yeah, I have a few other things in the works. I can't tell anyone what they are yet!... You'll all find out! ^_^

But a quick recap of the last few races...

Russia had rain, and I love the rain. Me and Matti Taube could really hammer the crap out of the brakes, but I noticed there were a few cars that had NO business being on the grid. The 75 and 09 cars were way off the pace. They were five seconds off of my pace and they were racing very aggressively. The guy in the 75 car is apparently a Russian rally star, but he has no business on asphalt. Don't know who the 09 car was, don't care, but if I see him again, then he'll wind up in the dirt post haste.

Spa was a lot of fun, me and Jules got to fight it out for the lead with Leonid and Arto, and I almost got a traffic ticket. There really isn't much to say about Belgium on the track other than it was a blast. I think the win did a lot for Jules's confidence level. She's moving to a team that's basically going to be at the back of the grid, so I think she really needed to win in order to help her out but to also shut up the Russian media. Apparently they're a bit jingoistic and expect a lot from her.

I also apparently made everyone piss their pants when I pointed out the bleedingly obvious about the American race stewards. Fine. OFFICIALS. -_-

But all that I said is pretty true, and it annoys me because Benny Dwyer used to say those kinds of things back in the day and it was considered cool. I think the reactions I've gotten sort of proved my point really...

Then Italy, which was... interesting. Everyone thought they had enough fuel if there would be one yellow flag towards the end -- which never happened until the last lap. Other then that there's better tracks in Italy to visit, but it's probably the best oval in Europe that I know of.

But yeah, I'm back with VRT in the Master Cup cars. Woo! Time to go get Volpi's first championship in its first year! At least, I'm hoping so, but this big superspeedway in Canada is a piece of crap. ARLA is better here, because it's just what ARLA needs, something big, flashy, and showy. However, it has no substance. No character. Kind of like Daytona, which also has no character...

Talladega has character, I normally like racing at such high speeds because it's a real thrill. I love to push the limits and go beyond them, and because there's a very real chance that once I get into that car, I won't get back out! I like to scare myself when I'm driving, because I figure that if you haven't scared yourself, then you haven't gone fast enough.

Time to go see the press... yay press releases... -_-;

Bye for now!
-A.R.

From Russia With Love

2009-12-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know, I couldn't resist that headline. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the James Bond movies (I have to admit having a soft spot for Goldeneye though), I couldn't resist calling this post "From Russia With Love". Especially since ... who was P1 here last year? Oh right... :P

I love this layout because it's not very hard for me to drive and plus it's one of the tracks where the driver makes a bigger difference than the car, but that really long front straight does mean the car can come into effect. I'm talking specifically about Dillon Mosco's finish here last year. What ever happened to that guy? That was the only race he was marginally competitive in last year...

But yeah, down that long front straight into this really silly chicane/turn thing (they really should make that just one turn, guarantee you'll see more passing over there), there's a few corners that it's faster to take the outside than the inside due to the surface.

Then there's those twisting S curves that some people call The Serpent. Gradually getting faster. It's the perfect place to wreck someone on purpose. Hello Collin Evans! Hello Stan Rosenstreter!

By the way, the big news is that Kevin Dwyer is coming to TM Lights, and I'm really looking forward to watching him race. Kevin is like his father in that he just races for fun and for family pride, but he's a more reserved person. I really don't think he cares who he roughs up on the racetrack.

Which reminds me, I think he set a new track record at the Dwyer Speedpark in a GT1 car last weekend...

I just checked the time, practice is about to start!

Bye for now!
- A.R.

Hello Australia. =D

2009-09-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, this is the first time I've been to Australia, and I'm going a week early by myself. First thing I have to say is that it's a wonderful place, and it's a nice change of pace, I'm not recognized by many people. Plus I had some time to just get away from everything.

I went to a few V8 races and almost everyone in the garage recognized me, which I didn't really expect, and they clearly didn't expect me to be there. Leonid Roderick was there the second day and talking to people about running the 1000 kilometer race in Bathurst.

He must have had that deal in place in advance, because nobody was surprised to see him except me. Makes me wish I had a deal to run that race. I think I could learn the Bathurst track pretty quickly.

The V8 races I went to weren't too bad. One of the junior V8 races had a massive pileup in the first corner after someone just forgot to brake. Amazingly nobody retired from what I can call a big fender bender.

Apparently, Lance Andrews and Cyrus LaTerza are really big in the garage and with the Aussie fans. Andrews I knew raced down here, and Cyrus races under the American flag this season but apparently he also raced in the V8s down here before going to the GRL.

Lance is going to be the crowd favorite almost definitely, he won the Bathurst 1000 twice, in 1988 and 1999. The 1999 win I don't recall ever hearing about, though to be honest I wasn't much aware of the Australian motor racing scene until I was 20 and doing college and karting. C'est la vie.

I haven't read who else is entered in the race down here, but I heard that one or two of the V8 drivers are going to give it a run, and so is Thomas Duke, a TM Lights driver from New Zealand. Duke is a really good guy, and it's a shame he's not in the TM Master Cup series, because I think he's got some serious talent... he'll run a third Blitzkrieg car or something like that.

Oh yeah, I was meaning to talk about the on-camera crap post-Talladega. That's probably the most open I've ever been on-camera. I think I'm getting a bit less pressured in front of the cameras and even here these days... other then that, Talladega sucked, Quincy sucked, end of story. :P

Bye for now!
- A.R

Third at the Brickyard! ^_^

2009-08-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

So I scored a third at Indy, despite a car that was pushing too much for my liking. I was a bit disappointed since I thought that one was mine if it went green to the finish, but I'll take the third.

Congrats to Kurt and the Power Steering bunch. They had this one coming for a long time, and good on them. Same goes to Joseph Howard. The McCallister cars are dogs this year, and I think Chris Johaanes is a contractual #1 driver, if what Howard tells me is true.

Speaking of contractual #1 drivers, it was funny to watch Tony Durbin go off on Stuart Sandoval. Now if Durbin's not a contractual #1 driver then I don't know what they are.

There's not many drivers like that in the garage anymore. Roderick never was, I'm not, I think Enzo Medina is (and that wouldn't surprise anyone), Chris Johaanes I think is, Tony Durbin, well no duh. I'd say Danny Savin might be but the thing with Danny is that he's on the same pace he has been on for the past two years and still beating Milano Rossini hand over fist...

James Dalton doesn't really give driver preference, if he was I don't think it would be to Marcos Leonard, who seems to tear his stuff up a lot...

I find myself not being able to say much more, so...

Bye for now!
- A.R.

New York and Salem Recap + Interesting Question a Fan Asked Me

2009-08-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

DATE: July 27th, 2009

New York is not really a good track. Yes, we had two surprise winners but it doesn't make it a good track. To be honest, Parker is not as much of a surprise as West. JP Junior (as people call him) everyone in the garage figured would win or get a bunch of big results once he got a hang of the Nemoto and the way it handles. He is really good, just hasn't had too much in the way of luck.

But why does the New York Autoring suck? For one, the track is not much fun to drive on, and while you can run four wide in the turns easy, that hole closes up coming out of the corners and you get a wreck, and usually a really nasty one at that.

That makes it two years in a row that a FLASH Racing driver was injured at the New York Autoring. Matt Taylor last year, and Palmer Stiles this year. I'll get into Palmer in a few minutes.

Then we have Salem. It's a short track in the middle of Indiana. Woo, short tracks! The problem I have is that this track has no high lane of any sort anymore. All marbles. So that was disappointing.

I tore up the car here pretty bad. Actually, Cyril Volpi came on the radio and told me to run it till it dies, and that was what I was planning to do anyway. I gave Zach Duff a big hug after the race, I think he needed it seeing all the flak he's been getting this season, and for all the wrong reasons.

The officials then called me to the hauler because I was apparently a moving chicane out there. What it means in their language is that I spun enough times to warrant a penalty, or rather, did something questionable. I'm used to it by now, and I don't care. I still won the championship last year despite 75 points in penalties which would have made the title a no-contest if they didn't give it to me.

On a related note, Julia is a bit stressed about her lack of success so far this season, and me hitting her (oops!) didn't help. After the race I got her and her boyfriend dinner. Speaking of Julia's boyfriend, he's pretty cute. :3

I got an interesting question from a fan during autograph signings here at Indinapolis. It's perhaps a random personal question, but they wanted to know how religious the drivers are. I think anyone but me would have been a bit offended by the question.

I can say this much. As far as the TM Master Cup series drivers are concerned, almost all of them fall into one of two categories. Either devoutly religious or nonreligious/athiest (same thing really, if you ask me), and I fall into the latter category. I'm pretty sure all the female drivers fall into the latter category (except Rachel), I don't know any self-respecting woman that is devoutly religious.

But I know Tony Durbin, Todd Wodarczyk, Garth McCallister and Stuart Sandoval are pretty religious, and I get the feeling that Tyrone Stanley and Scott Bates are too. Damien Snyder (Does anyone honestly think he's religious?!) and Leonid Roderick (I think he's too obsessed with racing to be religious) aren't really either. I don't think Alan Hodges is too big on religion.

David Krikorian and Louis Kingston were both raised Jewish, but Kingston isn't really religious. DK hasn't been around me long enough for me to know if he is still religious or not.

Bye for now!
- A.R.

Post Karjala Blues

2009-07-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

JULY 9, 2009

I FUCKING HAD THAT ONE.

But that little prick Durbin got in the way and deliberately kept me out of winning the race. He would brake a bit early in all the turns and make me smoke the tires a bit.

Gah, I'm tired of his crap.

I don't know if the Karjala officials hate me or what, but they didn't do anything to Durbin, or to Todd Wodarczyk for stomping on his brakes like that in the pits.

The worst part is we're now off to one of these big showy superspeedways. Yeah I know there's (some) skill in driving these, but they're too random to be a proper racetrack. Not to forget we'll be going 230 miles per hour or so around there...

...so if we get through the weekend without a big incident I'll be amazed. Those aren't so much about driver skill as much as they are about slotting in the right place in the draft. In theory you can make the winning pass of the race with 5 to go, and it will be for like, 7th.

Because then you'll just shuffle up to the front at the right time.

These races make the American fans happy but worldwide not too many people like them, and there's a reason why. Just one big circus. Let's get some proper oval racing in and not this bullshit.

Oh yeah, the New York promoters pulled a sharp one on the officials. Since they didn't like the Daytona Superspeedway rules, they opted for no restrictor plates.

PARDON ME... but GROW A FUCKING SPINE, OFFICIALDOM! Why make a rule like the half and half race when track promoters can easily squirm out of it like that?! What the fuck were they thinking?!

Anyway, John Calton called me not too long ago. I met him a few times when I drove the Calton-Morel Nova for the past two years, but he's mostly in charge of the Formula A operation.

Julia drove for him for two seasons, and she didn't have a problem with him, but she said some of the other people on that team are really nasty, like their technical director and such...

Gotta go, practice is about to start!

Bye for now!
- A.R.

Karjala Month

2009-07-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

Date: JUNE 17, 2009

Karjala month is exhausting. Not only is the weather historically cranky, but some of the people can be, too -- the Americans I mean.

It's the big race that this series sort of stole in the 80s because the Finns and the American track owners wanted to see American drivers race against the Soviet Touring Car Championship drivers, and since both series had similar technical regulations it was easy to find a happy medium. When it became an official TMMC points race, the Americans kept on winning it and winning it and winning... until Yuliya won it a few years back and when Lance Andrews should have won it in 2004 (he got screwed out of it by an electronics mishap that car's transponder had the entire day, but Danny's car carried Finnair on the quarterpanels that race... fill in the blanks...).

However, a few Finnish teams won it with American drivers, and looking at the official recordbooks Charlie Conway won the race driving for a French team. I say that because I know no Americans named "Jean Claude".

Anyway, we have not been as good as I thought we were going to be. 28th in the open practice session where there were 80-some odd cars on the track! Ian Cooper didn't have much luck all month, and he ended up DNQing, much to my surprise.

Well, he's been sort of off this season, really...

The car lacks a lot of power in the straights. I friggin beat this into everyone's head. We're. Too. Slow. In. The. Long. Straights. Where. There. Are. Two. Passing. Zones. Fortunately that problem was cured come the actual main practice sessions after the qualifying races to an extent.

Duffy (Zach Duff) was 44th in the open practice and Yuliya was 35th. Ian Cooper was 46th. Atop that practice session was Arto Kekkonen and then Brian Sendack. Neither of those names are a surprise to me, and Brian tends to specialize here (not a bad place to specialize). This could be a big, big race for him on a sidenote. Brian's a nice guy unless you rub him the wrong way. A certain guy in a certain #30 Lenard did that to him last year...

Main practice session 1 was yesterday and we picked up the pace and we're 18th. We're down on power a bit but I can make it up in the turns. On lap averages, however, we were 4th, which made me very, very happy -- because that's the only stat I'm looking at. The top 8 or 9 cars all made qualifying runs, and Mathias Taube is on top of the timesheets.

Who is this guy? Well, he was on the GRL entry list for this season but failed the payment requirements. He's been racing touring cars in Germany and France and he's started on the pole once or twice but always managed to find himself in the walls. They say he's pretty good but he seems to crash a lot -- really sweet guy, too.

He's driving for a team crew chiefed by his dad, who I understand was a multiple-time rally champion.

Anyway.

Did a few fan appearances here, and the fans here are a very special lot. Maybe 10% of them speak English, and they'll always ask for the strangest autographs. I recall one girl (she had to be about 17 or 18) wanted me to sign on the toe of her sneaker being one of the most normal ones.

Well, I'm exaggerating there. There's the usual shirt and hat signings, with one or two with a diecast (which I personally don't like signing) or something like that...

Apparently my emo glasses in all their colors have become somewhat iconic (for the record, they're basically reading glasses), and I have had a few people ask me to sign a pair of those this month. You know what this means, right? Time to get a pair of those with a #27 on the bridge or something! Wooo!

Some of the drivers do the fan signings for appearance's sake. I'd say I don't do that but it's really easy to say that and not mean it. I remember telling the media to fuck off (quite literally -- and got in trouble for doing that) to talk to these two girls (they had to be about 14) at Decatur last year for like 20 minutes before I walked over to my car. I think they were kind of surprised how I acted, really -- they didn't expect me to be able to understand their down to earth issues and stuff. I remember telling them to keep their chins up and follow their wishes, regardless of gender discrimination. I think I also told them not to read cosmetics magazines, because they do nothing but make you feel bad about yourself.

I actually heard that one of them (I'm not revealing their names unless I get an email from their parents okaying it) started racing karts this year. The funny thing is that neither of those two girls looked the racer type -- guess I was wrong. Appearances don't tell all -- one look at me and you'd think I write for some super liberal magazine or newspaper or am in college or something (I'm actually one of the few drivers on the grid that has a bachelor's degree -- please nobody ask how I pulled off college and the TM Lights title in the same year).

I personally like some of the bizarro crowd. You know, the more out there people. They're fun, they really are. One guy in... I think it was Seattle wanted me to sign a white band that went around his top hat. This guy had like 200 tattoos and a pretty cool skull ring. Nice guy, too.

Bye for now!
- A.R.

I went to the ARLA Race in Germany!

2009-06-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

So I went to the ARLA race in Leipzig after being in France for a few days (wonderful place by the way), and this post is going to be right off the heels (kind of ironic that I say that, since I just got a hold of a new pair yesterday) of that. Also my, like, first ARLA-only post.

First of all, who the hell uses hay bails for walls?! Are they high?! A fuel leak equals a massive fire when it meets a hay bail almost instantly and I'm surprised it didn't happen. A huge oversight by the officials that could have been a complete disaster a la Le Mans 1955. I mean, hay bails and flammable objects. Great idea to use for a wall, right? Right. Fantastic idea. That's the only reason I can see for people boycotting it and not once did that come up

Screw those turns, that just required more common sense and control of the car, which Marcos Leonard showed everyone how to do. He was the most fun to watch and I think the crowd liked to watch him go. Shame he got wrecked by some moron.

It was going to be interesting because some people just admitted they couldn't handle the turns and pulled out before the weekend started. I almost considered dusting off my old CM chassis I still have, bringing that sonofagun here and putting it on the grid, but those engines are so gutless and slow that they're not fun to drive.

Come raceday it looked like Scott Hamilton was the guy to beat. He was awesome all over the track, and I thought he was going to run away with the race. Even when he got taken out he was still the hero of the day in my eye. He led the opening part of the race and if it wasn't for Liz Hebert wrecking him he would have won the race.

Keep in mind I was watching from the pitlane, so I had access to the TV monitors to watch the OEN guys call the race.

Everyone underestimated Scott until then and even after that they overlook him. The broadcasters were pretty much oggling over the 34 car, but that's like one of the best cars in the field anyway. I really like what Leonid has done for racing in general, but those two cars aren't that good, and Scott made them look awesome. Definitely the most underrated driver in ARLA, by far. He blew some of their supposed 'stars' out of the water but got taken out because of a moronic backmarker.

I hope for his sake that more than just FLASH Racing saw that performance. It seemed like such crap that they'd sort of write him off, but he should have won the race. If Liz Hebert tried that crap in the Master Cup series she'd get suspended at least one race, and that kind of driving deserves no less.

I think Kevin Colley had better kiss his ride goodbye as well -- the team owners seem to like Taylor Brillon much better than they like him. The sad part about that is if it was the reverse I think Brillon would get off with nothing. I know a few other situations like that in the Master Cup series as well, and it's a shame.

I'm not saying I agree with Kevin Colley's move, but Taylor Brillon is not that much better than Colley is, if she is actually better than him (I think that team is just buffing Brillon's ride, really), and if you ask me she is much favored by the team owners. Rumor is Colley's getting turfed out of that team next season and personally I think his career is toast unless National Racing... excuse me... Team Saar USA, picks him up as a reserve driver. We all know how reserve drivers careers go...

It was really nice to see James West win the race, though. I have to admit that -- it's not quite as big a losing streak as Lance Andrews (not even close) but it was nice to see one of the little teams win. The only problem I have was that, well, it came on the back of another small team's misfortune, in the #74 car.

Bye for now!
- A.R.

I drove a Formula A car, Woooooooo!

2009-06-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

DATE: MAY 15, 2009

Because the inspectors are actually paying attention. Seriously, the Brazilian tech inspection people were way more attentive then the Texas tech people.

Maybe that's just because of what happened last week at Texas, but Adrian Devereux told me they were the same way during offseason testing.

Speaking of Texas, there's probably a ton of people wanting to know why I pulled off with everyone else, and some people saying I'm not a real racer. Well, shove it, because when there are rules that are set, and everyone but a few people follow them, it is absolutely disgusting when you find out five rounds in that about a third of the players are secretly breaking a pretty big rule.

By the way, Saar and Lenard were in violation of the regulations, but the officials aren't going to penalize them for it. Which if you ask me is complete bullshit. I think I even said that to Brian Alsop (you know, the bald pit reporter with the beard who always wears that red polar fleece winter hat?), so I've been called to the media center later because, oh my god, I swore on TV.

Anyway, the track here in Brazil is nice, it's not banked too much so local open-wheelers can use it. I think they actually did earlier in the season and did so marvelously.

Also, it was nice to see Carlos Donzelo make the field. The crowd went berserk when he crossed the line to see that he made it in the field. I honestly didn't know he was this big in Brazil, but I saw a TON of people wearing 45 hats and some people wearing blue and black 0 hats (Carlos drives the #0 in the TM Lights right now, the blue and black Kamatek or whatever it is car).

Also, I'm off to France after the race to meet with the Lynxe people. What is Lynxe you ask? Well, for the uninformed, it's a clothing and shoe designer that takes pride in that they don't use sweatshop labor, which is really really cool if you ask me. I think they want to be on the car for either Karjala or for next season.

Don't get me wrong, I have a wonderful relationship with the camera folks at Canon.

But the big big big highlight for me in the week between was that I tested the Dansa Formula A car at the Montreal circuit, can't recall it's name right this second (I feel so dumb), but it was a lot of fun!!

The Dansa isn't the best car in that series, but I think I did really well, because the crew was cheering me on. I later found out that I was faster than Luigi Benedetti and he was whining about it later on. That made me feel really good. Hans Eichel was pretty supportive, and said he was trying to get something worked out so he could run Karjala.

Hans is pretty good, but he's never driven a Master Cup car.

I'm not sure if I'd make the jump to Formula A. I know I can drive those cars faster than most of the grid there, and I'd do it to represent the TM Master Cup series people. The problem I have is that the results I'm going to have will be somewhat predetermined by what car I'm in -- but anyone who knows their motorsport knows how to see a good driver in a shitty car.

Bye for now!
A.R.

Everything's Bigger in Texas! Except for...?

2009-05-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

DATE: MAY 7, 2009

I've had this saying for years. Driving is like sex, a lot of men think they're good at it, and a lot of women tell them otherwise.

You could actually apply that to me at Brands Hatch. Oh the irony.

I ran Brian Sendack off the road coming out of the pitlane trying to pass him, but that was the best chance I'd had to get past him. Early on I knew I was faster than he was in the slow sections of the track, but Brian did well.

I just pushed it too hard and took us both out of contention to win the thing... whoops! I talked to him earlier this week and he seemed a bit annoyed. Brian's been having some really crappy luck lately, so I did feel bad about taking us both out.

So we go to Texas. Yay, a track that we have literally no shot at winning at all because we don't have Saar and Lenard's illegal suspension or whatever.

Okay, time to elaborate on the whole tire wear thing that some of you have heard about. Basically on the non restrictor plate tracks, Saar and Lenard have figured out how to reduce the weight being pressed on the tires. That's allowed in the rulebook, but you can only take off so much weight from the tires.

If you take off too much weight from the tires, they won't wear as much, and when tires don't wear as much (especially at a track like Texas World), you get a ridiculous speed advantage.

There's no possible way Saar and Lenard are getting tire wear that is that good without going over the restrictions. Yet somehow, they've gotten through all of the tech inspections somehow. Leonid Roderick and a few other guys have been talking to the other team bosses about how to solve this problem.

I think they have a few solutions. But I think it'l take something big for the officials to listen and to seriously investigate the Saar and Lenard cars. Especially when Lance Andrews and Alan Foster, the series's two main test drivers, say that there is a possibility the Saar and Lenard models are not playing by the rules.

This is going to be a very, VERY long week. The speeds are high, and first practice starts in an hour.

Bye for now!
- A.R.

Get well soon Joseph Howard and Ian Cooper!

2009-05-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

DATE: APRIL 22, 2009

I'm writing this as I'm en route to Kent in England for Round 4. The track is called Brands Hatch, and anyone not familiar with international motorsports (meaning, like half of the teams in the garage/paddock) probably doesn't know what the track is like.

I thought the name Brands Hatch was a really goofy name until I read its Wikipedia page and there's actually a good reason for it to be called Brands Hatch. I think it's just me having a blonde moment.

Apparently it's derived from this awesome sounding Gaelic word that I was trying to sound out with Rachel that means some kind of forest entrance. Ain't it funny that Karjala has more trees than Brands Hatch? Then again, Karjala probably has more trees than some rally tracks.

Speaking of Rachel, this is the first time we've really gone to a race together. It seems kind of odd, but let me fill you in. We're half-sisters, with different mothers (both of whom ironically divorced our dad), and we've never been that close to each other, but it felt really good to spend the flight with Rachel and her boyfriend (can I add that her boyfriend is like, twice my size?). He's actually a pretty nice guy. Yuliya (Julia Nosova) was also there but she slept the entire flight.

Rachel did awesome in Joliet, and I told her that on the flight.

Time for my Joliet rant.

We. Sucked.

No seriously, we were crap. Mike fucked up big time and I let him know it after the race. We can't qualify 40th and run last on lap 3. Especially at Joliet, where like everyone I'm going to fight against for the title is going to do well.

That first caution really helped us because we could make the car not suck as much and actually go for a top 30. Yuliya, Ian, and Zach all seemed to know what they were doing, but we were just fucking slower than a '57 Eubank.

Speaking of slow, I think that describes everyone's thought processes. Especially when you're getting lapped by your own fucking teammate!

I don't know about Joel. He's a nice guy if you're not on his team, from what I'm told. I remember he tried to ask me for dinner once but my mother was at the track, so family came first. I guess I don't know him well enough, but him at that team was a gigantic mess right from the start. Either way it didn't seem like he had an excuse for being a complete dumbshit and wrecking a bunch of cars. I mean, you've got mirrors, three of them, USE THEM.

Congratulations, Joel Rodriguez, you smashed up like half the field and put two drivers out for Brands Hatch. Oh wait, three if you count yourself, numbnuts!

Before I forget, Get well Joseph Howard! I'll miss seeing you at the track! I'd say the same about Ian but Ian will be at the track, just probably not driving in the race.

I hear Lance is going to drive the 44 car on home turf. I've never had much opportunity to race against Lance, but from what Leonid tells me that's a real shame. I watched some of his older races and he would do the strangest things, so you never knew what he had up his sleeve. Guess that's why they used to call him Pokerface in the early 90s.

Don't know about sponsors but I don't think Flash Racing is worried about that. Lance is a big enough personality to get sponsors, and you can bet there will be a lot of 44 and 26 (Lance's old number) flags in the stands. I even heard that Lance asked Alan Hodges if he could rent the #26 for one race. Don't think the folks at Haas Manufacturing took that one well...

Still, I want to race against Lance. It seems like something I just have to do. I know he was in the field for this race last year but we weren't really near each other at all. I don't know, rite of passage?

After Brands, we go to Texas World. Great. If you haven't been posted on that, there's a big problem with tire wear where the Saar and Lenard cars can run with like half the tire wear of the other cars (I'd explain if I knew exactly how), and Texas World is another big fast track. I've heard that Leonid Roderick and FLASH are going to make a huge stink about it if this whole tire wear saga isn't cleaned up soon. I heard that STS has told their teams to do likewise. I know Flavio Vespucci of Arrowtech will raise hell, and STS has two of the loudest mouths in the garage with Brian Sendack and Manny Brown.

Leonid has a lot of support in the garage, and I know he doesn't like Texas World anyway because the track doesn't have those SAFER barriers that Joliet has, so a hit into the wall at 180 will be worse than a 210 hit at Joliet... or something like that.

The officials have told the team bosses that they are not to cause a disturbance over the tire deal and just make better cars. Well, excuse me, but an entire marque can't just redo its chassis midseason, especially when Saar and Lenard are supposedly not going by the rules anyway. It's a complicated issue, I'll talk about that one later.

Hopefully the officials learned their lesson from Joliet and will mandate the superspeedway safety addons. I honestly think they didn't think we'd run 212 there. They made an honest mistake but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Bye for now!
- A.R.

Hometown Hazard?

2009-05-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

DATE: APRIL 18, 2009

There's always been something about the Joliet track, or the "Chicagoland Speedway" as promotional morons like to call it, that I've never been able to do right in TM Master Cup cars.

Don't get me wrong, I can tell you all the little tricks Mike Ross and I did to the TM Lights car when we about lapped the entire field here. But then I'd have to kill you. :P

I tested an ARLA car here when they had that Car of Tomorrow crap going on and I was told by someone (I really wish I could remember his name) that what I'd ran there would make me a threat to win. That's ARLA, though, half the trick in ARLA is to stay in front of the crashes when they happen. There's a couple great guys in ARLA, Scott Hamilton, Kurt Walker, Chris Johannes, to name a few, but there's the idiots in ARLA that just create nothing but carnage.

The funny part is that while those guys have come into the Master Cup series, they've brought the lunacy of ARLA with them. I'm not saying they can't drive, because they most certainly can, but what I'm saying is that we have about 10-20 drivers on the grid that don't deserve to be driving riding mowers. They just tear so much shit up it's not even funny. Not just in Quincy either (let's be honest, if you expect to get through a Quincy race undamaged then you're an idiot), but everywhere we go the same people wreck wreck wreck wreck. Some of them have some pretty fast cars, too, and that's really worrying.

Before I forget, I set the third slowest time in first practice, but I set all my practice laps by myself and didn't take any drafting laps. We're about four tenths off of first. I should also add that I was going over 206 MPH around there, flat out.

That's really worrying to me, because I'm not the most durable person out there, and there's some guys I'm not sure can take a heavy hit that we're bound to take. These aren't the superdurable Superspeedway cars, these are the Indianapolis cars. While it's a good idea, they're not as safe as the Superspeedway cars. The officials really fucked up somewhere, we should not be going this fast in cars that probably aren't going to be able to hold up. Something tells me they're regretting it too.

The TM Lights cars are running practice so it's a bit hard to focus. Carlos Donzelo is currently fastest, and he's tied with Jacques Bouveir (I think I spelled it right), and then Rosie is third and Matt Taylor is fourth. Speaking of Carlos, he'll be making his debut this week, and hes already faster than Craig Jonser and Eric Jackson. Then again, being faster than Eric Jackson isn't that hard when you realize Phillip Rodgers is the crew cheif. Wonder if that's why Eric is struggling this season?

Also, I have to be honest, but I really really feel like a robot writing this. Hopefully I'll be able to fix that problem in the future.

Bye for now!
- A.R.