Finally my first official drivers meeting as a pro FD driver!! Everything was starting to sink in, but the fact that my car still needed work was really bugging me. After the driver's meeting I needed to take a head shot for the FD website and man was that line long!! I had no choice, I wanted my picture on the website so I waited. After that was done, I still had to get my registration packet from will call, clear across on the other side. As I was walking over the bridge leading to the entrance/will call I see part of my practice group heading out to line up for practice. At that moment my stress level shot through the roof! My car was no where near drive-able. So as soon as we got what we needed, my team and I literally ran back to the car!
First thing we did when we got to the car was unload it from the trailer, put it on jack stands and then my pit crew went to mount the new Falken 615K's on the rims. Meanwhile they did that I started doing the front end alignment. I had to re-center the rack and eyeball the rest of the adjustments. That took a little longer then expected, and before I knew it my crew was back with the tires. They quickly started helping me with the alignment, and in the background all I could hear was the roaring of engines passing by during practice and I couldn't help but become even more nervous. The thought of missing valuable practice time was beginning to mess with my head since I had never driven the car with the new 26 setup before.
With the front alignment done I decided to just tighten up all of the rear adjustable arms and leave them the way they were considering I had no more time. I quickly added power steering fluid and bled the brakes. As soon as I was getting out from under the car I see my practice group pulling back in to the pits! Practice time was officially over and as hard as I tried to make it...I had missed it!! In order to get some practice time in I asked if I could run in practice group B, but was denied. So with no other practice opportunities I had to face the fact that my first time driving the car would be during my qualifying runs. Since I had an hour before qualifying I decided to switch out my alternator that had all of a sudden stopped charging my battery. (refer back to part 1)
At this point it was a good time to sit down with my team and strategize our plan of action. I decided I was gonna go balls out and just try not to wreck my car. Sounded like a good idea to me! Staging time arrived in the blink of an eye and I was in the car ready to head out! It felt amazing being in the drivers seat and on track once again. My team took their place as I headed to the starting line. The first couple of cars went and I got news that one of them had crashed and that raised my nerves a bit. Next I got news that I was up after Daigo Saito, a tough act to follow but I was as ready as I was gonna be. I started doing some doughnuts to heat up my tires and fell back into position ready to go. I got the flag to go and took off on first gear. The power felt amazing but at the same time I had zero grip. I was grip-less in first, second and third gear. I initiated before turn 9 of the track, transitioned into 10 and heard a loud clunk and I immediately spun. I drove the car slowly through the rest of the track while all I heard was clunk, clunk, clunk. I pulled into the pits and looked under the car and realized I had broken my passenger side axle. At this point I had one of two decisions to make, I could 1.) replace the axle and try to make it for my second qualifying run or 2.) call it a day and face the fact that Long Beach had gotten the best of me.
After some consideration I opted for option 2. As much as I didn't want to give up, I felt as if it was one of the smartest decisions I had made. One of the main reasons why I thought the axle broke was because the alignment was so far off, the wheel was literally on positive camber. I was scared that if I was to drive it again and it happened to break in mid drift close to a wall that it would send me directly into it and possibly put the rest of the season in jeopardy. So with that decision made I left the car in the pits and made my way to the stands to cheer on my fellow team mates.
While I was in the stands I got a phone call from one of my sponsors Scott at Fontana Nissan. He informed me they were gonna have a booth on display Saturday and wanted to know if they could use my car. I didn't think twice and said yes. So with that I enjoyed the show. Midway through I saw Yukio from Turbo by Garrett and flagged him down to talk and explain to him what happened. Fortunately he understood and wasn't at all mad with my performance.
After qualifying was done we all headed to the pits and were about to load up, when Nick (assistant technical manager for FD) came by in the golf cart and gathered all the drivers and proceeded to take us to the autograph signing session. Luckily I had hero cards all set and ready to go, provided by CX Racing. It was a very special experience, one that I will definitely never forget. It was the excitement on children's faces when they would ask for an autograph that will always stick with me. I didn't think that anyone would want or ask for my autograph, but to my amazement I went through a majority of my hero cards.
The following day I had to be at the track before 8am to get my car situated at the Fontana Nissan booth. I got there with only a few minutes to spare and barely made it out of the pits. I was excited to have my car on display since I knew it would get a lot of media and publicity for the days event. As I drove up to the booth I was greeted by Scott, Karryann, Yukio and the guys from DaYUUM http://www.facebook.com/Hot.DaYUUM?ref=ts and http://dayuum.com/. We chatted for a bit and I explained the fiasco that had all happened the day before and started prepping for what we were sure was gonna be a long busy day. FD Long Beach was completely sold out and was standing room only.
I did some last minute sticker touch ups and prepped the car for viewing. Throughout the day I was talking to fans, answering questions, and posing for pictures. It was an amazing and eye opening experience. I had gotten a sense of accomplishment even though I didn't make it to the big show.
Overall, even though the weekend didn't go as I had hoped, it worked itself out and was successful in the long run. I couldn't have done it with out all of my sponsors: Fontana Nissan, NissanRaceShop.com, Turbo by Garrett, Raw Brokerage, CX Racing, Turbosmart USA, Whiteline Flat Out, Falken Tire, OSR Dyno Shop, ViS Racing, Clutch Masters, BC, Import Performance Shop, Bill Reep Fire Systems, Borracho Racing.
I also need to give a big thank you to my team for all the support as well: Brady Melin, Tony Cisneros and my amazing girlfriend Erica Chavez. They were there when I needed them the most and of course with the support of my family I made it to my first FD event as a pro.
I also need to give a big thank you to my team for all the support as well: Brady Melin, Tony Cisneros and my amazing girlfriend Erica Chavez. They were there when I needed them the most and of course with the support of my family I made it to my first FD event as a pro.
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