rebound

I know what he's thinking, 'That does not make sense, if Chewbacca is a wookie, you must acquit.' Puzzled almost dumbfounded, he's searching. 'I've been using these shocks on sprint cars, running 30-40 lbs. of nitrogen, now you want me to take it completely out?! What about the rebound percentages? Damn, it's been 20 races and we can't dial it in, what the hell, this is a last resort.' I spent 10 minutes talking to my trusted and seasoned crew chief. Despite his great successes providing ace set-ups for sprint car jockeys, he's utterly failed trying to get even a base line set-up to work in my rocket. He conceded. The car stuck in warm-ups, it didn't matter high-low, we were fast and for the first time in a long time, my confidence started to rebound. I drew a pole start for the heat race, I needed to finish 5th or better to transfer into the main. We communicated like we always do, I'm moving my hands gesturing the attitude of the car, where I'm burping the throttle, how much left v. right side transfer. He's taking it all in, nodding, pondering and puts a set-up in the car. On the start, the outside pole sitter jumps the start leaving me in tow, blocking my entry point getting into turn 1. Damn. I've gotta ease it, the tracks much drier than I anticipated and I don't wanna loop it infront of the pack trying to pinch the car down. Trailways master, Shawn Seifert gets inside me and moves me up, Steve Buckwalter and Heath Henley blast by. I get into 3 and man this things loose, but still drivable, I gotta take it to the edge. Kendall and Holtgraver get by. Shit, now I gotta get up on the wheel and man-handle this thing. Caution is out for a spinning Kendall. Time to regroup, get the wing back, lower the panhard bar and untie that left rear shock. All cockpit adjustments I can make while racing. Green flag, 3 laps to go, great restart, I can get Scott Geasey for a transfer, just gotta time it just right. I've finally got a rhythm, Geasey's in my sights, and Holtgraver blows turn 3 and pushes like a plow, Geasey has to pull his car low but I'm coming like a freight train. At the starters stand on the front stretch I just edge him for 4th place. The scorers didn't see it that way. I earned a 5th place and a transfer into that recently elusive main event. 14 guys will go home tonight not making the show, thankfully I'm not one of them. It's strategy time, I'm starting 18th, and the tracks' the question mark. Radiation cooling is sucking moisture up from below the track surface, but 24 hungry machines will blast that off in 5 laps of racing. I need to drop 2 inches of stagger to get to where I want, I've got 1 or 3" available at the trailer. No; starting that deep in the field doesn't warrant a new tire. We decide to drop 1" of stagger and tighten up the chassis by adding RR weight by increasing the tilt. Adding rake will increase the front to rear weight transfer. But not too much or I won't be able to steer. Finally, we're prestaging. The pace truck is leading the field around, I'm a few feet behind Dwayne Gutshall, Trailways newest dry-slick artist. Guys up front are getting anxious, Chad Hough leads em into turn three and dust starts flying, rocks are getting kicked up and bouncing off my helmet, its go time and I mash the loud pedal. After the pathetic spring I've had, I'm just looking to survive and get 20 laps under my belt. Upshift into 3rd by the flagstand and drive it into turn 1, she's tight, but the front end stays pointed down, it won't be long and this beast will be close to balanced. On the backstretch Cody Darrah is slicing thru traffic, down off the bottom of 2 straight to the outside to get a sweeping entry into 3. Cars are bouncing off each other, there's just no room. I'm only at 3/4 throttle. Its so dusty if someone gets squirrelly, I'll be in his lap before I know it. I reach to slap my visor down all the way. The drastic increase in humidity over the last hour had fogged my visor and spectacles, I'm tired of eating dust. Guys are settling down and getting strung out. 5 laps into the event I'm back on a mission to pass Geasey. The car is very drivable now and I start clipping off smooth laps. Lap 7 is a golden one as I reel in Geasey closing a 30 car gap, I'm on his tail when somebody goes for a loop right in front of me, a jink of the wheel right while on the hammer gets me to the outside of the spinner and in the clear. Whew, its restart time and I know it's going to loosen up, I already know that the right rear tire is on its downward trend of traction. More wing, panhard and shock to get it to transfer even harder to that corner. The restart gets strung out and we are green again, single file past the restart cone and into turn 1. In 1 lap I'm all over Geasey but he's got the preferred line. I can run him over or settle in and wait for a mistake. He didn't mess up, he would drive it in hard and scrub speed in the middle while I would walk it in and be turned and on the gas at the apex. Since there's only one groove with traction and he's in it, I'm screwed. Lap after lap tick by. White flag is displayed, one more chance, I tightened right up on his bumper, but no bobble would come. A 21st place finish and my arms are trembling. Not bad for taking a $1,200 set of shocks and reducing them to normal oil filled shocks. So much for rebound.