Tuesday afternoon I hadmy brother drop me off at the airport so i could catch my flight and head to Cleveland Ohio for the 2004 ROAR Carpet Nationals. All of the top U.S. stock drivers were expected to be there so it definatly was going to be a competitive race.Like carpet races before,i was out of my element,being that i rarely race on carpet and i do all of my testing on asphaly.But I was back in Cleveland,where i won the indoor champs,and for some reason,i thought it was going to be my race to win.
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I set my car down and got used to the layout. Immediately my car felt pretty good but the lap times werenâ™t quite there. I ran a few more times and the day was done. The car wasnâ™t bad and I had used the evening runs to test motors so I could focus on the chassis when the traction was closer to race conditions.
Thursday the track opened and practice started at the same times. My car was good but it seemed to be a bouncing up and down at the end of the straight away.To fix this,i leaned my rear shocks and that fixed the trick.
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Friday was qualifying. I ran my car just was i did in practice and it was phenominal.I had set the tq for the first round and that was just the beginning.I went on to the second round to better my previous time and set the tq once again.After qualifying,I sighed for relief knowing that i had alredy tqued 2 rounds and all i needed to do was place second in the next round on Saturday to seal my tq.With the ROAR points system this gave me the TQ spot for the finals!!
Saturday was no different from any other day.I went on to tq the third round and with that,i tqued the event.
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Sunday was the finals and I made no changes to my set-up. In the first A final, I checked out on the rest of the field,but with one minute left in the race,a back marker would get out of the way and he hit me.This let second place get closer but not close enough.I had won the first A-main.In the second A-main,I was taken out by the other nine drivers in the race.But i battled my way back up to 4th.In the Final A-main,My and the second qualifier checked out on the field,and with about a minute left to go,he took me out.I ended up in 3 that run.
