Grading the NBA playoff contenders, pretenders
April 16, 2013
O’Bryant returns to LSU for junior season
April 16, 2013
After two weeks away from the racetrack, I was more than ready to return to racing this past weekend. Texas Motor Speedway was on the agenda, and it would be the first track that I raced on that I had already competed. But before we were set to go to Texas, we had one more weekend off.
The previous weekend, I returned to my racing roots and traveled to Jackson, Mississippi to compete in an off-road remote control race. I have been racing r/c cars since I was 10 years old and still do on some of my off weekends. I had a lot of fun spending time with some old friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time. We all had a great time and I was able to win one of the classes in which I competed.
Then it was onto Texas for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 weekend. I traveled to Ft. Worth a couple days before the race to get used to the area and be comfortable heading into the weekend. My fiancé and I enjoyed a couple of fun outings, which included seeing my childhood favorite movie, Jurassic Park in 3D at a dinner and a movie-style theater.
The race weekend started with a practice session Thursday evening. We took advantage of the entire session, and worked solely on getting the car dialed in for race runs because this practice session was scheduled close to the race time on Friday. The track conditions were very similar to what the track would be during race conditions. We couldn’t get the car setup to run a single quick lap, but we were able to set it up for longer race runs.
Friday started with a practice session in the morning. I only made two mock qualifying runs to get an idea of how the car would handle during qualifying later in the afternoon. During qualifying, my car was very tight and difficult to turn through the corners of the racetrack. We posted the 32nd fastest lap and would start from that spot in the race. When the race began, I quickly moved up from my starting position and into the top 25 by lap 50. I was really happy with the car, and my crew chief and I were making small adjustments to get it better. Unfortunately, we experienced a transmission failure shortly thereafter, which ended our day. In this sport, we try to push the limits of equipment, and unfortunately, mechanical failures do happen. My next race is the ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond International Raceway. Follow me on Twitter (@HalMartinRacing) and Facebook (Hal Martin – Athlete).
