Sept 1, 2009

Montreal is such a great place and it is one of my favorite places to both race and visit. However, the weather made it a crazy weekend at the race track. On our first day it rained all day and I only managed to get in one lap of practice, in the rain. After my one lap of practice, the track never went green long enough for me to get back on track. NASCAR decided to run qualifying in a steady rain... this was the first time in history they have done something like this. To say the least I was not happy about their decision and knew that since I was in the first group to go out the track, it was not favorable at all for achieving a good speed. I had a great lap going and a then slower car got in my way and could not let me go by, and I could not see well enough with the blinding rooster tail of water coming from the car in-front of me. So, I had to slow and wait for him to go ahead. It really cost me a great starting spot, but at least we made the race, whereas my team mate missed the race.

NASCAR Nationwide Race day was Sunday, August 30th. During the race we had a brake issue because the brake ducts were not vented all the way. I lost a ton of time on the track when we had the longest green flag of racing. We lost a valuable lap after pitting however, we were really fast and got up to the lead position, one lap down and then got our lap back on the next caution flag. From that point on, the race never ran over 3-5 green flag laps at a time due to all the caution laps. Each time it was green, I could pick cars off every lap. Coming from the back we made it quickly from about 36th to 24th in a few green flag laps and through a variety of caution laps. It was a real bummer because there were so many wrecks that I could never get into a groove and just pick our way through the pack.

It ended up raining with about 19 laps to go. By the time we got racing again, we had 15 laps left, but every one or two laps there was a wreck and back to yellow again. At this point I had managed to stay out of trouble and could have really make ground up and got near the top ten. With 5 laps left, I was running in 12th and was looking at a top ten finish. Then on another restart in the first corner Steven Wallace slid right across the hairpin turn and slammed into my car, broke the rear track bar mount, flattened my left rear tire and took out about 7 other cars. I was able to limp around two laps under caution until we could get a new rain tire on the car and not lose a lap. We restarted again with two laps to go, when there was a big spin out with about 7 cars in turn one and now I passed up to 8th spot, but my car was so damaged from the crash that I could only go about 65% speed. The race ended as the second longest race in NASCAR Nationwide history. Our result was 24th and a torn-up race car, plus a very sore back and neck for myself!

I still have lots of work to do to prepare for the coming IndyCar Series race in Motegi, Japan. I cannot wait to see Japan and tour around a little. Team 3G says they have been working really hard on the car and think in the last weeks they have found some new technology that will allow us to race very well there in Japan. It has been a while since I was in the seat of the IndyCar due to the crash a few months ago. It is such an exciting car to drive and looking forward to my return to the IRL with all my Interush friends and fans there to watch! See you soon!


Live Free and Fast,

Stanton

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