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This Week: Guthrie Racing Team Rolls with Racing Punches to Weather Iowa Storm
June 28th
What a roller coaster weekend the Guthrie Racing Team had in Iowa! We spent a lot of time on the car and the setup for that track. We came off the trailer and were up to speed with both cars right off the bat. We were all very excited and had high hopes for the entire team. Both drivers loved their cars.
Obviously, Sean Guthrie had a great car for practice and was at the top of the speed chart all day long. Then he had his best qualifying effort ever – third.
During the race, our enthusiasm continued when he ended up passing Alex Lloyd for second, although Sean got caught up in traffic soon after that and Lloyd got back by him, and (Hideki) Mutoh also got by. By then, we figured we had a fourth-place car, which still was a strong finish.
Late in the day, with Sean running a real solid race, he once again got caught up in lapped traffic, got high and into the marbles and ended up spinning through the infield and into the inside wall, destroying his car and breaking is left foot. It was the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows, all within a few laps of each other. But that’s racing.
Luckily for us, we have a spare car. The car we crashed at Homestead was sent back to Dallara and is now repaired and will be completed by Friday. It’s going back together now and we just have a few things to finish. We’ll be ready for Watkins Glen. We don’t have to worry about spares for now, but if we have another problem, then the next one is a much bigger issue as we are running out of spares.
As for Sean, he’s taking things one day at a time. He’s still in some pain, but is off of his meds in order to allow the bone in his foot to heal faster. It’s basically up to him if he’s comfortable enough to race or not next week at Watkins Glen. We’ll have a car ready for him if he decides he feels OK – if not, we have some other options.
Handling both the ups and downs of racing is all that Sean and I know. Sean and I have been racing together since he was five years old in motocross - you crash, you cry, you fix it, get back on the bike and go racing again. I encourage him and he encourages me. We are fixers, so we fix things and move on. It’s a cool relationship we have. But that doesn’t make it easier to watch him crash. The Iowa crash was huge and totally unnecessary, but It’s part of the deal and "That’s Racing."
"...you crash, you cry, you fix it, get back on...and go racing again." Words to live by, right there.
BTW - Jim's seems a lot more diplomatic here than he was immediately after the wreck. It must take a lot to see your child go nose first into a wall.
Posted by: My Name Is IRL | July 02, 2007 at 01:31 PM