VAN TESTS for ROUSH FENWAY RACING and FORD RACING TECHNOLOGY.

Max Jones, General Manager of Roush Fenway Racing called Van and invited him to a 3 day test that they and Ford Racing Technology were conducting. There were only 4 drivers selected for this test. Ford flew Van back to Indiana on Monday, March 26 for this test. Immediately upon arriving, Van was taken to Bob East's Race Shop (Beast Race Cars) to be fitted for a full-race midget.

On Tuesday the 27th, he was at the track by 9:00 AM and met with the three executives from Ford Racing. Dan Davis, Direcctor Ford Racing Technology; John Szymanski, Director of Sponsor Development, Ford Racing Technology; Scott Denby, Business Manager Ford Racing Technology. They emphasized that this was not a run-off or speed trial, they wanted to interact with the four drivers and see their car control with the small, high-powered midgets.

Through the course of the day, each driver was given 5 different sessions in a car. Their style and performance were critiqued by Bob and Bobby East in between sessions. Van ran quick time in virtually every session and posted the best times of the day overall.

Wednesday the 28th was rained out with no on-track time. Max Jones, the General Manager of Roush Fenway Racing was in attendance and spoke with each of the four drivers. All of the executives said they were very pleased with the performance of all four drivers and felt it was a good test for everyone. They told the drivers that they run very few of these tests and that these four selected drivers were very honored to have been selected and included. They said they would be meeting to review all of the results and would be in touch with each driver.

Hopefully Van's performance was good enough to keep Ford and Roush Fenway's interest. We will just have to wait and see what becomes of it. It was certainly an honor to be included at this level of consideration. There are thousands of drivers out there dreaming of a chance like this and only these four were selected.

Van has spent a busy off-season. After he was picked up by Yahoo Sports as one of the Top 15 Young Drivers coming up in NASCAR Regional Series, he received a feature article in Sonoran Spotlight Magazine based out of Phoenix and distributed throughout the southwest. The NBC affiliate for southern Arizona contacted Van for an 'on-air' interview about this Championship and Sirius Radio contacted him for an interview on the NASCAR channel.

He has met with and is working with Motorsports Management International with regards to arranging some 'test' sessions and rides in different series. MMI invited Van to the Las Vegas NASCAR Test Session in January and are meeting with him again at Fontana during the NASCAR Races. There have been conversations with Penske Racing and Van will be meeting with their Vice Chairman at Fontana also. He has also had meetings with Robbie Reiser at Roush Racing and several conversations with Rouulo Brothers Racing out of the midwest–they also do developmental work for Roush Racing.

As Bob Duvall, Senior Manager of Events and Operations at NASCAR said after watching Van win one of his races at Irwindale this past season: "this kid is the real thing, someone should be talking to him.'

Our last two races on September 9 & 16 have been about the same.  We have been having trouble finding the handle on our handling. So for our last races on September 30, we will be going back to our original set-ups.  Van has driven really smark races, staying out of trouble and trying to maximize his points for the Championship Standings.  He is our front by 36 points.
On September 9, he qualified 6th quick, started 6th and finished 2nd, right behind Chris Johnson an old friend from quarter midget days.  On September 16, he qualified 8th quick, started 8th and finished 4th.

The night didn’t turn out as well as we had wanted.  Our crew could not get a handle on the cars handling – a real push towards the wall exiting 2 & 4, which wouldn’t allow Van to get the power down.  Some felt it was the Hoosier rubber from the truck series that ran right before the Super Late Models, but some of the teams were able to figure it out.
 
Enough excuses – Van qualified 6th quick and fought the car in the first 50 to finish 5th.  He was complaining about the heat and exhaust fumes in the car and that they were making him sick.
 
He started the second 50 in 5th place and by lap 10 had moved to the bottom of the track and wound up finishing 6th.  The race was called at 40 laps because of time.  When Van pulled the car into the pits, the crew had to help him out.  We called the track medical staff and they gave him oxygen and checked him out.  He was dizzy, couldn’t focus his eyes and had trouble walking.  They instructed us to transport him to a local hospital where they gave him more oxygen and intravenous liquids.  They said it was heat exhaustion and the exhaust fumes getting in the car.
 
Van has little memory of anything after lap 10 in the race and told us he moved to the bottom to get out of everyone’s way and because he couldn’t focus his sight or really see where the wall was.  He didn’t want to wreck himself or anyone else, but he didn’t want to pull in either.
 
The motor had just been replaced in the car so Jackson’s will be checking the exhaust system and muffler before the next race.  He lost some points to the second place challenger, but still remains in first place in the championship race.

The NASCAR Auto Zone Elite Southwest Tour Series is a big step above the Super Late Model Van has been racing in all year.  One of our sponsors knew a car owner that had a 'tour' car, but he had not been racing it - the car had been sitting for almost 18 months since it's last race.  He approached the owner to let Van drive it at Irwindale since that is our Home track.  The owner agreed to let us use the car.  We had our crew take it into their shop and work on it - they had to made numerous changes to the car since the last time it was raced, it was on a road course, not an oval like Irwindale.  We were told the motor was not a front runner, but it should be motor enough to get him in the race and give him some experience and that is really what we were looking for.  The time, effort and dollars put into it where really a lot and when we took the car out to practice, we hoped everything was right.  The first problem we encountered was the fact that the car was set up for road course racing and we did not have any baseline for the oval track settings.  Van's practice was frustrating trying to find the right combination of shocks, springs, cross-weight, gearing etc. etc.  Friday night practice was only fair - Saturday practice wasn't much better - in his first session his best time was an 18.8 seconds and the second session was about the same - putting him 23 fast on the charts - not what we had hoped for.  Everyone was frustrated so they went back to some very basics and changed just about everything before qualifying - a risky, if not dangerous deal as Van had no idea how the car would handle or react when he went out to qualify . . . no warm-ups prior to qualifying.  I don't exactly know how the kid did it, but he put up a qualifying lap of 18.16 seconds - over 6/10ths of a second faster than he had ever gone in the car . . . it put him 8th quick in a field of 28 good, experienced drivers and teams.  And, these teams are really big buck teams with double decker haulers with two cars, spare motors and everything else needed in a touring series.  (next Saturday they race in Denver.)
 
Everyone was really thrilled for Van, other teams that know him were coming over to congratulate him.  He really did good!
 
After introductions, when they gave the command to "Start Your Engines", Van's would not start.  Luckily there were two ignition boxes wired into this car, so he switched to box 2 and the car fired to life.  In the race, he started off really good, maintained his position and then made a couple of passes moving up to 6th.  There was a caution flag about lap 20 and Van came on the radio and said he was just holding his position until about lap 50 or 60 and that then he would make his move and see what the car had left in it.  (it was a 100 lap race).  About lap 25, he came on the radio and said his brake pedal was starting to go away . . . it kept getting worse and he lost a couple of positions back to 8th place, then 10th.  He had to let off the gas earlier and coast more into the turns since he did not have full brakes to slow him down.  About lap 40 he came on the radio "NO BRAKES", they were gone, pedal to the floor, couldn't pump them up or anaything.  He pulled up high and let everyone pass him and fell in at the end of the field and was going to try and run it for a while.  We talked over the radio and he made the correct decision to pull it into the pits and park it.  It was the safe thing to do for him, the car and the other competitors.
 
It was discouraging and he was really upset.  As the race played out, if he didn't have any problems, we figured he could possibly have finsihed 5th - certainly an easy Top 10 for his first Tour Race.
 
In hind sight, the problem was running a car that had sat for so long without being used.  Everything in the car should have been upgraded or changed out, and we just didn't have the budget to do it for one race.  
 
The good thing that came from the race was that Van showed everyone that he could step into an old, untried car and make it competitive with the hot shots in the series.  It's just a shame it didn't last for the eintire 100 laps so he would have had his Top Ten Finish.
 
Well, next week we go back to Irwindale to race his Super Late Model.  They have scheduled Twin 50 Lap Races.  We race one 50 lapper, get 30 minutes to make minor changes (cannot change the tires) then go out an race another 50 laps.  They each count as separate races, so if we do well, it will help his Championship Points.  If we have trouble in the first race, it will really hurt his points standings.
 

Considering everything that happened this weekend, 5th was great!  Van went out Friday afternoon for the first practice session and immediately brought it back in because of a miss-fire.  Crew started looking at everything and pulled a valve cover and found one of the valve spring retainers had broken and was there in two parts.  Lucky for the miss-fire or he would have gone out full tilt and probably blown the engine.  They replaced the retainer and kept looking for the miss-fire.  We had just installed a back up ignition box and one of the wires was connected wrong - throwing the timing off and creating the miss-fire.  Corrected the wire and went out and had one good practice session.
 
Saturday ran one practice session in the heat of the day and the track was real slippery - part of the problem was that one of our support races was a truck series that ran on Hoosier tires.  All the hoosier rubber they put down on the track did not blend well with our Goodyear rubber.  We made a mistake and changed the car before qualifying and it was too tight - he had his worst qualifying of the year . . . a 7th out of 26.  Started the main race in 7th - avoided the first lap crash (it was next to him and he only cleared it by a foot).  About lap 5 Van's car pushed coming out of 4 and he smacked the wall - we all wondered if we were done for the night, but he gathered it up and kept going - he later told me he wondered if he had hurt anything that would later break and put him into the wall.  It knocked the car out of alignment and it just wouldn't handle as well.  He was right on top of 3rd and 4th, but they were both really blocking - they weren't going to let him by because they knew if they did, he would have been gone - what they didn't know was that his car was hurt.  So, we are really happy being able to bring home a 5th.  
 
He gained a bunch in the championship points department.  Second is now 30 points behind him, so he has a little room.

Jackson Race Cars did a great job rebuilding the "Ol' Jackson" Number 43. Van qualified it with quick time, we chose to use the "Quick Six" AC Delco Heat Race for practice and not rist damaging the car again.  Van spun the number 2 on the "invert wheel" and started the race from the outside front row.  He lead every lap of the race for his THIRD  WIN  of the Season and posted the "Fastest Lap In Competition" on the way.  It allowed him to add another two points to his lead in the points championship.  After the race, Van was honored with a visit from Mr. Jim Williams, the owner of Irwindale Speedway.

We had a fuel pickup problem and one of the rear suspension parts broke during warm up, so we were playing catch up all night.  Saturday practice didn't go much better.  Van qualified 3rd, he felt he just overdrove it into the turn.  During the "Quick Six" AC Delco Dash, we decided to back out of it and use it as a final practice to make sure everything was OK.  Well, it wasn't - the left rear brake caliper would not release and Van did a quick snap spin into the turn 3 wall.  The car was damaged enough that we could not repair it in time for the feature race.  Todd Southwell, a fellow competitor and his car owner came down to our pit and offered their spare back up car for Van to use.  I cannot tell you what a great offer that was and my hat is off to both of them.  Todd's crew and our crew worked on the car and there must have been fifty other guys that asked what they could do to help.  They did the best they could with the car set-up, stuffed towels in the seat so Van wouldn't slide around too much and pushed him off.  He had to "tag" the field of 20 plus cars and we asked him to take it easy because we couldn't afford to rebuild two cars.  Van drove an outstanding race and brought the car home in 6th place.  A great drive in a car that had not been raced this year and that Van had never sat in before.

Friday night practice was washed out again and Saturday morning didn't start out much better.  We were finally allowed into the pit area around 1:00 pm and the scramble was on.  Practice session went well, so we parked the car and got ready to qualify - FAST TIME.  The only qualifyer to into the 17 second range.
 
Started on the Pole for the Delco "Quick Eight Heat Race" and at the drop of the green Van was gone.  Eight laps later, he was being phtographed in the Winners Circle.
 
The feature race of the night . . . 50 laps for the NASCAR Super Late Models.  Van was starting on the pole again and was able to clear the field and lead every lap.  A Wire-to-Wire WIN.  Along the way he also set Fast Time during the race.
 
Van lead every competitive lap during the racing program.
 
The track officials are still trying to determine how the new points system is going to work.  In the latest shuffle, we lost some points from last weeks figuring and the points we were to get for qualifying this week were not awarded . . . but Van was able to keep the point lead.

Friday night practice was great . . . everything was right on.  Saturday was warm and the track turned slippery.  Put new tires on for qualifying and lost over 1" of stagger in the rear during the qualifying run.  The track was slippery and the car was looooooose.  Was only able to qualify 10th quick.  Worked on the tires prior to our Heat Race and started on the outside front row.  At the drop of the green, Van was movin' out and led every lap for the win.
 
Started inside row 5 for the Feature Race.  It took three tries to finally get the entire field through turn 1 & 2.  It was about lap 5 that Van came on the radio and said the car was fast and he was just waiting for things to settle down.  The next lap a lapped car moved up across the track and as Van moved inside to pass him, the lapped car decided to come back down, smashing into Van's right front and damaging the suspension, tie and wheel.  The car went from great to "junk" - he could hardly turn it down in the corners, but he pushed on as best he could.  That effort brought him home 5th.  We have all been wondering what it would have been like if the car wasn't damaged and stayed good.
 
Van's 5th place finish was good enough to move him into the Points Lead for the Season.