Blaney's Indy Blog

Brickyard 400 - the race

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 16:32:19 GMT

Racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is pretty cool. You can see by the pictures there are so many people there and the grandstands line both sides of the track. You almost feel like you are driving off into a tunnel when you come off turn four and head down the frontstretch.

After figuring out some things in happy hour practice we were really looking forward to the Brickyard 400. We knew the AOL Chevy was going to be good, especially on the long runs, so I was excited about the race.

The car was really good, right from the start. The race is 160 laps, so I had time to race my way up from my starting spot of 38th. I moved quickly up through the field into the top 15 by lap 35. We knew we had something for them and we were just biding our time. Shortly after that the caution came out and we pitted. When the pit crew was done with the stop, a NASCAR official stood in front of my car to hold me for a pit road penalty of one lap. They said we pitted out of the box. (One of my guys took a picture of it I included here in my journal.) The call dropped me from 13th to 38th, one lap down to the leaders. Needless to say we were very upset with the call.

Luckily, I got the lap back on the next caution just a few laps later. We were really good, so I knew we could over come the incident and move back up through the field.

Well, the runs didn't seem to stay green as long as what we needed to have the race turn out the way we had hoped. Especially after the left front tire blew and I lost another lap, only to get the Lucky Dog pass again later. We just ran out of time from that first mishap and couldn't regain the positions.

It's frustrating. I know we are a good team, we've proven it by how well we have run. I just wish one of these races the results will finally prove it.

Brickyard 400 - Day 1/Part 1

Fri, 06 Aug 2004 20:18:08 GMT

Last night I was able to do something I haven't done in about six years...race a USAC Silver Crown car. I changed my plans to arrive in Indianapolis a little early and head over to IRP and jump right back into things.

I really hadn't planned on racing the Silver Crown, but received a call Sunday night after Pocono from Bobby Seymour and thougt I would give it a try. It worked out pretty well I qualified 7th, then finished 5th in the 100-lap feature. The car was really loose coming off the turns, but I had a bunch of fun. A group of my guys from the AOL car came out to watch me race, so that was pretty cool. (After a certain point last night I had to turn the camera over to someone else to take the pictures since I was getting ready to race, so that's why I'm in a lot of them.) There were quite a few people who work and drive in the Cup Series who were there last night, Kenny Schrader is in one of the pictures. He has driven and won some races for the Seymours, so he stopped by.

Tonight, me and the same group of guys are going to head over to Eldora (OH) Speedway to watch my brother Dale race in the World of Outlaws event. I don't get the chance to much to see him race, so it worked out great that we are racing pretty close this weekend and I could head over today after practice.

I'll write some more in my Brickyard journal throughout the weekend.

Brickyard 400 - Day 2/Part 1

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 19:34:40 GMT

Last night was a lot of fun. Me and a group of people from the AOL team and RCR headed over to Eldora to watch my brother Dale run the World of Outlaws race. It was great being back in that element. I was able to see quite a few old racing friends and give some of my new team the opportunity to see a World of Outlaws race and Eldora for their first time.

My brother Dale is quite an athlete. He played college basketball at West Virginia back in the mid-80's, then was drafted by the LA Lakers. Now, he does a really good job racing the Sprint cars. He didn't have a great night last night at Eldora, he qualified 24th, then ended up like 12th or 13th in the Feature, but he's racing again tonight, so hopefully he'll have better results.

Brickyard practice and qualifying

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 19:48:49 GMT

The schedule here at Indy is different than every other race weekend. Normally, we have practice and qualifying on Friday, with happy hour practices on Saturday. Here at Indy, we had one practice session yesterday, then had qualifying this morning and our happy hour practices this afternoon.

We qualified 38th for the Brickyard 400 this morning and are not happy about it. The car was just too tight, so I had to lift, which made me lose time. We tested here at Indy just a few weeks back and were pretty good. But, for some reason, the AOL car has struggled since we got here. We're working on it for the race and know it will be better.

Hopefully, my next entry will have much better news, you know like a great finish!!

End of Day 2

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 22:05:24 GMT

Well, Indy testing is finally done. We tried a lot of different things on the AOL Chevrolet here at the test and it seemed to work out well for us. The crew worked really hard on all the changes as I hopped back and forth between the two cars we had here. I really think it will be good when we come back for the Brickyard 400 in a few weeks.

We ran in race trim for most of the day today, then the guys switched it over to do a qualifying run right at the end of the day. Turns out things look good, we topped the charts for the afternoon session, posting a 50.7105 second lap, which translates to 177.478 mph. It sure feels good to see your name on top of the chart!

I hope everyone enjoyed my daily journals from the Brickyard. I'll be doing this again during race week, so make sure to check back!

Testing Day 1

Mon, 19 Jul 2004 16:32:13 GMT

Testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - this is one of the big ones. There is so much prestige that goes along with winning the Brickyard, pretty much every team out there tests here at the Brickyard. We work out tails off during the test, trying to gain any little fraction of a second to make the car faster. But, for this journal entry, I want to share with you what my team did to even be able to get to the test.

The AOL team, like most that are here testing with us, brought two cars to the Brickyard. We already had it planned out which two cars we were bringing here, chassis numbers 114 and 109. Chassis 114 was run only one time this season, our last race in Chicago. If follow my racing career, you know what happened last weekend in Chicago, I was involved in a wreck following a restart on lap 126, heavily damaging the AOL Chevy and ending our day early. Watch the wreck here http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/sports/article.adp?id=20040711225209990005

As you can see by the video, the car was in no shape to go testing at Indy the following week. I knew my crew chief Kevin Hamlin really wanted to bring 114 to the test, but thought they would scrap that idea and bring a different car. But, I have figured out one thing since joining Richard Childress Racing, they don't give up on anything. The team was determined on bringing that car.

After leaving the Chicagoland Speedway following the race, the AOL Team transporter pulled into the RCR shop in Welcome, NC Monday afternoon. As soon as the car could be unloaded, the guys went to work on chassis 114 and were determined to have it ready for the Indy test session. They stripped off the remaining damaged sheet metal and sent it off to Ronnie Hopkins Chassis in Greenvile, SC to have a new front clip installed. (That's the front part of the chassis). The car made it back to the shop Tuesday morning and the guys, everyone on my AOL team as well as the fabricators, paint and body shop and the mechanics, went into high gear to try to get it ready to load back into the transporter by Friday afternoon to leave for the test.

After numerous hours of hard work, they were able to do it, that's chassis 114 in the photos I've included in this entry. As of our lunch break on Monday, chassis 114 is sitting fifth out of 19 cars on the speed chart. I know the guys literally worked around the clock to have it prepared for the test. Thanks guys, I really appreciate all your hard work. It looks like it's going to pay off.

Day 2

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 15:48:14 GMT

To start off Day two, I thought you might like a recap of Day one...

First of all, the AOL team had a really good day of testing. We tried a lot of different things with the cars and think it's really going to help us when we come back to race the Brickyard 400 in a few weeks. We ended up fifth fastest in the morning session, then ran about the same time in the afternoon and we were seventh on the speed charts. The good thing is we were in race trim the entire day. Some teams made qualifying runs and jumped up on the speed charts, but we stayed in race trim. We'll probably try some qualifying trim on Day two.

Like I said yesterday, we brought two cars to this test session at Indy. Teams will bring two cars and test both all day long to see which will be the better one to race. The AOL team did that, but we were also using this test as a sort of "body style" test for the No. 30 Chevrolets.

What we did was bring two different body-styled cars to see which one would run faster. So, we tried to make the same changes to each car and run them back to back and see which had more speed. What we found out was chassis 114, the one the guys busted their tails to get put back together after wrecking at Chicago, was the better of the two.

Chassis 109 wasn't what we had hoped for, so we decided to do something about it. As you can see by the photos I've included, our fabricators went to work and made some changes. They have been grinding on the front end to make changes, and even went as far as taking the entire nose of the car off to acheive the changes they wanted, then welded it back on. This is obviously going to take a while to get done, so during the morning session of day two we will strictly be running chassis 114.

Another thing we are planning on for day two is a little bit of teamwork. Robby Gordon, one of my RCR teammates is also testing here at Indy today, so we plan on working together and seeing what we can do to help each other out. Robby ran well here at Indy last year and Kevin won, so hopefully we can make it two in a row for RCR at the Brickyard.

We have numerous crew members, fabricators and engineers here for the test, so hopefully we can put something together that will put the AOL Chevrolet up front in the Brickyard 400. I'm really looking forward to it!