Tracking Glory with Hal Martin

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This past weekend presented another challenge for me as I raced at another track that I had never been to before – Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The race week began earlier than normal, as I left on Wednesday to head out early to attend Toyota Motorsports Day on Thursday. This was my first time visiting Toyota’s US headquarters, and it was a very insightful day. I was able to meet a lot of Toyota employees as well as sign autographs for them with fellow Toyota drivers in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series. After the autograph signing, we were all able to attend a lunch presentation in the Toyota Museum. It was really cool to see all the different passenger vehicles and race vehicles that Toyota has produced over the years. It was a very enjoyable day!

Friday was practice day. Our day began with me taking a few laps to get up to speed as I had never raced on this track before. After a couple of runs to get adapted, my crew chief, Greg Conner, began making changes to the chassis setup to get the handling characteristic I was looking for. I quickly learned that this track was very abrasive and tires would deteriorate very early during the course of a run. Another obstacle that we had to contend with was that the seams in the racetrack connecting the gaps where the asphalt had been laid down were very slick causing the tires to lose grip as the car drove over them. The trick was to try not to cross the seams through the corner. These challenges in the racetrack were mainly due to the age of the track – the surface had never been repaved since it was originally built in 1997.


Saturday was our qualifying and race day. During qualifying, the car was extremely loose leading to a 34th place qualifying run. I was not very pleased with the way the car handled, so my crew chief made changes to the car to try and make it better for the race. The race started and we quickly moved up a few positions in the field. The changes that were made to the car helped, but we were still off on our setup. I made the best out of the day and we made changes to the car all day to get it as good as we could. In the end, I finished 24th, which was a big improvement from the start of the day. We are looking forward to our next race at Texas Motor Speedway in 2 weeks! Please be sure to like and follow me on Facebook (Hal Martin – Athlete) and Twitter (@HalMartinRacing) for all behind the scene pictures, posts, and more.

Hal Martin’s No. 44 car is driving through traffic in this week’s race. The Nationwide Series driver said this week’s race was a challenge.

COURTESY PHOTO