David Vaughn Photo

Have you ever seen that movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray wakes every day and goes through the same events over and over and over again? He just can’t seem to change anything around him. It’s pretty frustrating to watch. But it’s even more frustrating to feel like you’re living that same scenario. That’s about the best way I can describe my experiences at Martinsville.

It starts to wear on you when one race track becomes a thorn in your side. For me, that’s Martinsville. I’ve had three terrible finishes in a row at that track. But despite my track record, I always go in there with a positive attitude. I feel like I can get the job done at any track. That’s just the kind of mindset you have to have to win. And after our Toyota test at Caraway, I was feeling pretty good about our chances.

About two weeks before the race, we spent two days testing at Caraway Speedway. The test results were pretty promising. We learned a lot about our front end geometry settings, rear spring combinations and shocks. Mike and I were running the same lap times. We were only a tenth or two off of Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle who were also at the track, so everyone felt like we were getting around pretty good. But you still have to keep in mind that sometimes with testing, you have to take everything you learn with a grain of salt because not everything you learn at say, Caraway, will work at Martinsville. They’re still two different race tracks. But all in all, it was a very successful test.

Before the race, we prepped our trucks with really good brakes. During our first practice session off the hauler, the truck was really tight. I couldn’t turn through the middle of the corner at all, so the team made a couple of changes right away. The changes worked, and the truck ended up being pretty decent in practice. My Bang Racing team thought we had a pretty good truck going into qualifying. I managed to pull off a sixth place effort. The truck was really close but just a little bit too loose, so we didn’t quite nail the fine line of having a good qualifying lap.

David Vaughn Photo

Looking back, happy hour was a definitely a good indication of how we were going to be during the race…we just weren’t that strong. The truck was really tight. Although I could still run decent lap times, the truck didn’t feel ‘racey’ at all. It was all I could do to run around by myself and to run good lap times. I had such a difficult time working through traffic and trying to make passes. I remember leaving the track after happy hour thinking we would have a long day ahead of us, but at the same time, I still felt pretty optimistic about our chances because I was still running pretty decent lap times. I guess I’d have to say I had pretty mixed feelings after the final practice session. Happy hour just wasn’t that ‘happy’ for our team.

When I leave the track after practice in that state, it helps me to run the whole session through my head. That night, I ran every practice session through my head…what changes we made, what helped and what didn’t. Maybe there was an area that we overlooked in the truck. I was just running everything through my head even back to the Caraway test and all the way through the very last lap in happy hour thinking of what changes we needed to make to the truck in an attempt to find what combination will work best for the situation at hand. I know Eric does the same thing and goes back to his hotel room looking over his notes the night before each race. After practices at Daytona and Atlanta, I felt like I walked away with a truck capable of winning. But after leaving Martinsville, I definitely had some concerns. I figured we were a top-five or top-10 truck, but I didn’t feel like we had a truck that was capable of winning.

Race day morning, we met to talk about the situation. A lot of the things that I thought about changing, Eric had definitely considered as well. So we put our heads together and figured out our best game plan and thought about what we needed. It’s reassuring to me that we’re always on the same page.

Because Eric had never been to the track, I felt like it was my opportunity to step up and carry the team on race day. Eric’s ability is certainly proven, but there were certain trends that I had experienced over the years at Martinsville like trying to keep good track position and not pitting too late. It seems like out of all the truck races I had experienced at Martinsville, during the last 75 laps or so, there’s a lot of cautions and a lot of lapped traffic to deal with. So it’s hard to make any passes. I knew we needed to position ourselves to have decent track position with about 75 or 100 laps to go. Eric watched the race tapes, and I told him how things had traditionally gone in the past, but our team and about 15 of the lead lap trucks felt the same way after the caution on Lap 145. None of the teams wanted to pit early and use up their last set of tires.

But our finish wasn’t necessarily reflective of when we pitted. The biggest problem was the handling of the race truck. It was extremely tight, and the team had to make pretty drastic track bar and air pressure adjustments. Usually we should be able to go into a race and make a round of adjustments here or there, but we should never have to make four or five rounds of adjustments and put spring rubbers in. So our two biggest downfalls were handling and maintaining track position. After we pitted during the second round of pit stops with a number of other trucks, we were shuffled mid-pack for the remainder of the race, I was just trying to hold my own.

Looking over the truck when we got home, it was beat up just about as bad as the team’s morale. That’s all in a day of hard racing at Martinsville. The truck needed a whole new body, so the team’s working on getting it put back together in another week or so before testing at South Boston to make sure we’re where we need to be before we unload at the inaugural race at Mansfield. That’s something I’m feeling pretty good about these days. I recently finished second to Setzer at the track, so I’m pretty confident that I know what I need to be successful at Mansfield.

So for now, I’m chalking another Martinsville race up to a learning experience. Our team’s much better than that. I’m much better than that. But we just can’t afford to finish 13th every week, and everyone knows it. We need to be there battling in the top-five and for the win. I’m hoping this was our worst finish of the year, and if that’s the case, we’ll be able to bounce back and be just fine in the points. After all, it’s about the big picture. And for this team, the big picture has championship written all over it.

- Travis Kvapil, No. 24 Line-X Toyota Tundra

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