Ashley’s Weekly Blog for August 24

This weekend we were racing in Reading, PA which is one of the most beautiful area’s we race at in the country. Unfortunately it also rains there a lot, hence the picturesque countryside, so we had to battle with some weather delays all weekend long!

On Friday after many hours of waiting for the rain to stop and the track to dry up we finally got to make an evening pass. The Safety Safari did an excellent job because many cars made some stellar runs down the track including all 4 of our Mustang funny cars. We ran 4.11 and jumped to the #1 position and were pretty pumped after that!

On Saturday there was more rain but we were finally able to head up to the staging lanes to make a second run. I ran at the back of the pack against Robert since he and I were #1 and #2 and we had a great side by side race until something went way wrong down track and my car exploded! It took me by surprise as my car gave no warning that it was upset at all. The explosion caused the front of my race car body and injector to come up and I lost all view through the front windshield. There was fire but not a lot where I was sitting thanks to all of the protective things we have on the car like the fire wall, multiple fire bottles and all of my Impact gear. The problem for me at that point was getting the car stopped with out being able to see where I was at on the track. I brushed up against the wall and finally came to a stop and hopped out. It was a pretty big explosion but I walked away fine though my mom was constantly following me around for the next hour to make sure I was ok! People kept patting my arms and legs making sure I wasn’t still on fire but I knew I was fine and that it just looked very spectacular! We brought the broken up car back to our race pit and my team and I joked on the way that the car looked like a piece of abstract art since the injector was sitting up sideways and the body was split down the middle. The fans all came to see the car and my team got to work figuring out what happened to cause the accident and whether or not we could run this car again. We were scheduled to make another run so we were pressed for time to make accurate decisions and get the car we wanted to run put together and ready to go. It started to rain again however, so the final session of qualifying was canceled and the field was set. We all hoped for better weather tomorrow for the event and while the crowds and other teams cleared out, our team had a long night ahead.

My team had rebuild a brand new car since our chassis was bent from the accident and not safe to run. We warmed up the car at 11pm or so and didn’t get back to the hotel until close to 2. My team was behind us too and got back even later! Then Dan and I had to re pack all of our luggage since we’d be checking out of the hotel the next morning and staying in Philadelphia Sunday night for an early morning flight Monday so we were up for a while getting organized. Just when we thought we were finally done the race coverage came on TV so at this point it was almost 3am! What a long night!

Sunday morning I brought out donuts to help wake everyone up with some sugar and for a while we were all looking a little rough with only a few hours sleep. We still had some things to check on the car and after the warm up found a problem in the fuel tank with some debris in it. We cleaned it out and then went up for first round a little stressed but still feeling confident about the car. We made a great pass and had a side by side race with Jeff Arrend and got the win light. However it wasn’t pretty as the car was acting up on the burnout and blew the burst panel right before the finish. On our way back to our pit we weighed the car and it was under weight! We were shocked as we knew that this race body was 8 pounds heavier than the car we’d run in qualifying which was fine on weight. The car and driver must be a certain minimum amount of weight and we did not meet it. Our run was not good therefore Jeff Arend would be going on to the 2nd round instead of us. We were really upset and confused at how this had happened. We got back to the pit and took the car apart to figure it out. Apparently there were still some metal shavings in the fuel tank which is why the burn out was messed up. This caused the car to go through a ton of fuel on the burnout and while backing up and staging, way more than it usually goes through, and my crew chiefs believes that’s where the 20 pounds went.

Looking back we wished we would have weighed the car the night before. We would have found the metal shavings then instead of Sunday morning and maybe things would have turned out different. This is drag racing though, and we are proof that every little detail matters and can make the difference between a win and a loss. We will take this as a learning experience and know how to never let this happen to our car again. I still think I have the best team on the planet. They proved that late Saturday night. They turned a typically bad situation- a blown up car and working until 3am- and made it in to a fun night filled with music, jokes and a lot of hard work. We’ll take this weekend of ups and downs, learn from it and go on to Indy and do everything we can to kick some serious butt and get back where we belong…the winner’s circle!