Last weekend, I went to Lime Rock Park for the KONI Sports Car Challenge ST race, but I did not race. You see, Lime Rock is one of the Grand-Am races I was not scheduled to compete in. I am signed with Team Freedom Autosport for four of the Grand-Am KONI Challenge races. I’ve already raced at Homestead-Miami and Thunderbolt, NJ and have two more races scheduled at Watkins Glen and Virginia International Raceway.
In the remaining KONI races, my co-driver for the Freedom #147 MX-5, Mark White, pairs up with Sarah Cattaneo. When I told my friends I was heading out to Lime Rock to support them, one asked, “won’t that drive you crazy, watching them race and having to sit on pit wall?” Actually, no.
You see, Team Freedom has become a sort of racing family for me. When I first met them at Homestead-Miami, my first Grand-Am race ever, my first time in the MX-5 ever, and my first time at the track ever, they welcomed me and made me feel right at home. Over the last few weeks, I’ve come to know and respect all members of the team and their roles. From Crew Chief Glenn Long, to manager and driver Tom Long, to drivers/owners Derek Whitis and Rhett O’Doski, to polesetter Andrew Carbonell, to mechanics Rob Greenwood and Doug Beckett – and everyone else there – the Freedom guys are an impressive group.
To prepare myself for my first season in professional racing, I have been working hard training in the gym, swimming on off days and studying in-car data. I watch in-car videos over and over. I drive as often as I can and work to refine my skills. I've been lucky to add sponsors, such as OGRacing, to my existing sponsor list. But one hard truth of racing is, it is not all up to you. Sometimes we are so focused on what goes on inside the race car that we take for granted we have a car to race. Despite all of my heroic efforts in the car, without a supporting cast like Team Freedom none of it could be possible.
I arrived at Lime Rock ready to work, and Crew Chief assigned me to monitor the Grand-Am frequency on pit wall. During the race, I worked with data engineer “Fast Freddy” Huscher, providing feedback when needed. This was my first opportunity to have a bird’s eye view of the pit wall and crew, and I was impressed.
One thing that surprised me during my stint at pit wall is that I was significantly more stressed sitting there than when I am in the car at race start. Rather than being in total control of my destiny, I was merely a bystander supporting a huge effort. I needed to do my specific job and leave our three cars out there to succeed.
Another revelation was the crew meetings; I’ve never sat in on those, because we have driver meetings and debriefs. I knew they worked hard, but I had no real grasp of the extent to which they worked. I can’t ever remember hearing them complain about a setup change or the dire need for a last minute fix. Five minutes prior to race start, two of the crew replaced car 146’s internal fuel pump and got the car to grid in time to start. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, during the race the crew replaced 3 out of 4 coils and a rear suspension arm in less than 10 minutes!
While I respected the guys at Team Freedom before, now I really get just to what extent racing is a team effort where each gives 110%. I am really lucky to be on a phenomenal team!
