Seventeen seconds- how long my Race 1 lasted.
Sixty hours- number of hours I spent training for it since my last race a month prior.
I like to say that there are so many corny analogies about racing and life because it’s simply true. Racing is just like life - one second everything is great, and the next you feel like you got hit by a car.
It was an honest mistake by a racer I have tremendous respect for, but it crushed me at the time. I made a great start and was just passing my fourth car on the outside of Turn 1 when a spinning car came across the track and collected me. With several drivers in pit lane from incidents on the warm-up lap, I was into P13 - for about a tenth of a second anyway. I tried to use all the road but his right 
front tire blew up my left side-pod and caused significant damage to the car. To make matters worse, I was beached in the sand, across from my 6-year-old daughter in the stands...who was now crying. It’s actually a great introduction to racing.
The team at Indy Motorsport Group broke their backs to put the car together for Race 2, but I knew it was a tall order with suspension, cooling, aero and exhaust damage. Despite a heroic effort from the team, Race 2 ended with both public humiliation and an engine cooling issue. Apparently, the engine block lost a pressure fitting during the race that had been jarred in the crash, dumping the coolant. We caught it with plenty of time and retired from the race, but not before I spun the car multiple times and ate up green racing time for my competitors.
I was pretty low after Race 2. I can’t recall the last time I’ve been beaten down so badly in a sport. I think I freaked-out my coach, family and teammates because I basically stopped talking and just started thinking about Race 3. Some angry music may have been involved.
A few minutes before Race 3, I got a bit of good news. The team was doing final prep on the car for the race and had actually found more damage to the front suspension that was missed in the huge effort to put the car back together. I chalked-up the spins in Race 2 to the minor damage that likely had nothing to do with them, and focused on Race 3.
Eight positions from P28, my fastest lap times of the weekend, and a number of solid passes- that’s what I managed to achieve in Race 3 despite another big mistake and a smaller race craft error. I know I could have done more. I know I can make the car go faster.
That’s what racing does to you. It knocks you down to see if you can get up and go faster or if you are just going to lay there and give up. A lot of drivers got knocked down at Mid-Ohio this past weekend. How many will show up at VIR ready to go faster?
See you there!
***Grid photo provided by Positive Image Photos