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Looking back at the 2009 season
19-October-2009
I have had a fun season and I think it’s been a good year of racing for everyone. I would like to start off by thanking the fans for their support, as without them we wouldn’t be racing. I personally have had a lot of kind words said about me this year, some at the autograph sessions and in the paddock - that means a lot.
After a tough off-season trying to find a ride in this economy I was lucky to join the Dale Coyne Racing Team (DCR) just before the first pre-season test in March. Since then, we’ve been constantly working on every area. It’s been a great year really! We certainly have had our ups and downs, but no more than anybody else in the paddock, and I feel we have definitely made progress. The progress we’ve made wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of all the people on the team, including the people in the office. Being a one car team means everyone works especially hard. DCR has very determined and passionate personnel that put their heart and soul into making the car run well. I know everyone on the team has given 100% this year and you can’t ask for more than that.
Road courses were always going to be our strength this year and because we knew that from the start, we decided to focus more on those. The team completed a couple of road course tests as we felt that would be our best chance of a podium and a way of showing everyone what we were capable of. St Pete was a great start and I’m confident that with another year under our belts the car would be faster, I would do a few things differently and that 3rd place would become 1st! At Long Beach we were quick, but not good enough to challenge Dario as he was in another league from everyone that day, but I'm sure, with better luck, we could have had a podium. Unfortunately we slipped back with a bad pit stop and got caught up in the pile-up at the hairpin, which ended our day! The aim is to always eliminate all the ‘If Only’s’ that seem to be so common in motorsport. From that point on, the crew focused on the pit stops. It wasn’t just practice, it was technique and preparation. All the guns were rebuilt and cleaned. They left no stone unturned and by mid season we were as good as all the other teams.
The key to success is having more than one opportunity to do well in a season. Luckily for us that came at Watkins Glen, where the Z-Line Designs car was competitive all weekend and managed to bag Dale his first win. It was a fantastic feeling to help DCR to their first win in 25 years and to do it at a historical place like the Glen. As it turned out, DCR was the only team to beat Ganassi and Penske in the 2009 season. It wasn’t an easy win - we had to earn it. We caught a lucky break with the yellow coming out, but we also had an issue with the fuel tank which had dogged us most of the weekend, so I was always missing two laps of fuel. I spent most of the race fuel saving, but a late yellow meant I was able to run full rich for the last 7 laps. As a driver, there’s nothing more fun than being able to put your foot on the gas and showing everyone how fast you’re really capable of.
At some of the other road courses, like Mid Ohio and Toronto, we had missed opportunities; the car was competitive and quick, but fate was not on our side. At tracks where we were not as competitive in qualifying, like Edmonton and Infineon, we usually worked through our set-up problems by race day. I’m confident that next year I will have the ability to be on the podium at every road track.
Ovals were a different story altogether! The only oval testing we had this year was at Homestead – once before the start of the season and then one day before the final race. Our first day there was very difficult. The car was slow and a little scary to drive. I knew we would have some work to do. The oval race weekends are so short it's hard to learn anything. But Bill [Pappas] my Engineer kept working on things and never gave up. At Kansas we were conservative with the car set-up which meant we had a lot of understeer. It was a starting point for us. From there we worked on the car in practice, qualifying and even some of the races we were testing the changes that we had learnt.
Indy was great as we were learning with every run we did. It was good to qualify 15th. The car handled well, but when I look back now with the knowledge that we have acquired since then, I think we can do even better. I enjoyed the race, but I was disappointed no to make the distance. I was too loose on the entry into turn one and when I got chopped late in the race, I knew I was in trouble as I started to turn into the corner! Knowing that this was our best chassis, I couldn’t stop driving once the car had let go, I had to do everything possible to limit the damage. With the steering, brake and throttle (and a lot of luck) I was fortunate to have a relatively light hit.
We had difficult races at Milwaukee and Iowa, but good progressive races in Texas and Richmond. The results wouldn’t show that, but we knew ourselves that we’d improved. From there I felt at the last four ovals we grew stronger and stronger. At Kentucky we were better than ever, but had a wheel bearing fail. Chicago was great, the car was fast in traffic, but it was a tense race. On the last few laps I opted for the outside lane, but with hindsight this was the wrong place to be. A lesson learned for sure.
In qualifying at Motegi the car was fantastic, while the race was OK. It was very difficult to race that track as the preferred line rubbers up so much compared to the unused lanes. It made the track feel wet with only one dry line. I think we missed out a little on the gear ratios for this race as I was struggling to pull 6th. It is critical to get everything perfect just to gain a chance on the ovals.
When we went back to Homestead for the final test it was really interesting to see the improvements we had made throughout the year. That didn’t quite translate to the following week for the last race of the season. The temperature was a lot hotter than in our test, which made my car really loose and it wasn’t until the race we found a cure. It turned out that the cure was very powerful and we now had a lot of push. That made the first few stints hard, and there were no yellows to give us an opportunity to make a change. Towards the end of the race we were a lot closer on the balance and running fast again. Like I said, there is no room for the smallest mistake on the ovals, but more valuable lessons learned.
When you are behind trying to catch up, you do learn a lot. It has certainly been a great education for me this year and I’m sure there are plenty of lessons still to be had. Having people like Bill, Mitch [Davis] and Glen [Knabenshue] to learn from has helped me immensely. Dale is also involved and he can see it from a driver’s point of view, so he has had some good input in the set-ups and so on. We’ve had some good discussions together trying to find the best way forward. It’s amusing listening to Dale on the radio before a session starts as he does keep us all entertained!
All in all it’s been a good year. Finishing 9th in the Championship is a very respectable accomplishment with the highlight of course being Watkins Glen. I would like to thank my sponsors Z-Line Designs for all their support throughout the season and of course Sonny’s BBQ, Honda and Firestone. We all know how important sponsors’ input is to the Series. Above all I want to say a huge thanks to Dale and Gail Coyne for giving me the opportunity this year.
We watched three good guys battle it out for the championship and they all drove superbly throughout the season. It is extremely hard to choose one from the other, but I am really happy for Dario who did a fantastic job all year, winning on every type of race track that we visit. It's what a champion needs to do. I still think Scott’s win at Mid Ohio was the one that impressed me most. I know how good my car was and he was half a second quicker still.
Even though the season has only just finished I’m hungry to get back to racing - whilst all the information is still clear in my head I want to put it to good use. There are definitely things I want to do differently and I know where I need to improve. I can also see where we need to improve within the team - there is no time standing still when your goal is to win the championship.
I'm looking forward to doing some more testing during the off-season. In the next couple of weeks I’m heading back to the UK to see my brother Stefan, who had a good first season in Indy Lights, test a McLaren F1 car at Silverstone. It’s been fun working together in the same paddock this year and hopefully we can both find success in 2010.
Thanks for all your support this year,
Justin
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I have had a fun season and I think it’s been a good year of racing for everyone. I would like to start off by thanking the fans for their support, as without them we wouldn’t be racing. I personally have had a lot of kind words said about me this year, some at the autograph sessions and in the paddock - that means a lot.
After a tough off-season trying to find a ride in this economy I was lucky to join the Dale Coyne Racing Team (DCR) just before the first pre-season test in March. Since then, we’ve been constantly working on every area. It’s been a great year really! We certainly have had our ups and downs, but no more than anybody else in the paddock, and I feel we have definitely made progress. The progress we’ve made wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of all the people on the team, including the people in the office. Being a one car team means everyone works especially hard. DCR has very determined and passionate personnel that put their heart and soul into making the car run well. I know everyone on the team has given 100% this year and you can’t ask for more than that.
Road courses were always going to be our strength this year and because we knew that from the start, we decided to focus more on those. The team completed a couple of road course tests as we felt that would be our best chance of a podium and a way of showing everyone what we were capable of. St Pete was a great start and I’m confident that with another year under our belts the car would be faster, I would do a few things differently and that 3rd place would become 1st! At Long Beach we were quick, but not good enough to challenge Dario as he was in another league from everyone that day, but I'm sure, with better luck, we could have had a podium. Unfortunately we slipped back with a bad pit stop and got caught up in the pile-up at the hairpin, which ended our day! The aim is to always eliminate all the ‘If Only’s’ that seem to be so common in motorsport. From that point on, the crew focused on the pit stops. It wasn’t just practice, it was technique and preparation. All the guns were rebuilt and cleaned. They left no stone unturned and by mid season we were as good as all the other teams.
The key to success is having more than one opportunity to do well in a season. Luckily for us that came at Watkins Glen, where the Z-Line Designs car was competitive all weekend and managed to bag Dale his first win. It was a fantastic feeling to help DCR to their first win in 25 years and to do it at a historical place like the Glen. As it turned out, DCR was the only team to beat Ganassi and Penske in the 2009 season. It wasn’t an easy win - we had to earn it. We caught a lucky break with the yellow coming out, but we also had an issue with the fuel tank which had dogged us most of the weekend, so I was always missing two laps of fuel. I spent most of the race fuel saving, but a late yellow meant I was able to run full rich for the last 7 laps. As a driver, there’s nothing more fun than being able to put your foot on the gas and showing everyone how fast you’re really capable of.
At some of the other road courses, like Mid Ohio and Toronto, we had missed opportunities; the car was competitive and quick, but fate was not on our side. At tracks where we were not as competitive in qualifying, like Edmonton and Infineon, we usually worked through our set-up problems by race day. I’m confident that next year I will have the ability to be on the podium at every road track.
Ovals were a different story altogether! The only oval testing we had this year was at Homestead – once before the start of the season and then one day before the final race. Our first day there was very difficult. The car was slow and a little scary to drive. I knew we would have some work to do. The oval race weekends are so short it's hard to learn anything. But Bill [Pappas] my Engineer kept working on things and never gave up. At Kansas we were conservative with the car set-up which meant we had a lot of understeer. It was a starting point for us. From there we worked on the car in practice, qualifying and even some of the races we were testing the changes that we had learnt.
Indy was great as we were learning with every run we did. It was good to qualify 15th. The car handled well, but when I look back now with the knowledge that we have acquired since then, I think we can do even better. I enjoyed the race, but I was disappointed no to make the distance. I was too loose on the entry into turn one and when I got chopped late in the race, I knew I was in trouble as I started to turn into the corner! Knowing that this was our best chassis, I couldn’t stop driving once the car had let go, I had to do everything possible to limit the damage. With the steering, brake and throttle (and a lot of luck) I was fortunate to have a relatively light hit.
We had difficult races at Milwaukee and Iowa, but good progressive races in Texas and Richmond. The results wouldn’t show that, but we knew ourselves that we’d improved. From there I felt at the last four ovals we grew stronger and stronger. At Kentucky we were better than ever, but had a wheel bearing fail. Chicago was great, the car was fast in traffic, but it was a tense race. On the last few laps I opted for the outside lane, but with hindsight this was the wrong place to be. A lesson learned for sure.
In qualifying at Motegi the car was fantastic, while the race was OK. It was very difficult to race that track as the preferred line rubbers up so much compared to the unused lanes. It made the track feel wet with only one dry line. I think we missed out a little on the gear ratios for this race as I was struggling to pull 6th. It is critical to get everything perfect just to gain a chance on the ovals.
When we went back to Homestead for the final test it was really interesting to see the improvements we had made throughout the year. That didn’t quite translate to the following week for the last race of the season. The temperature was a lot hotter than in our test, which made my car really loose and it wasn’t until the race we found a cure. It turned out that the cure was very powerful and we now had a lot of push. That made the first few stints hard, and there were no yellows to give us an opportunity to make a change. Towards the end of the race we were a lot closer on the balance and running fast again. Like I said, there is no room for the smallest mistake on the ovals, but more valuable lessons learned.
When you are behind trying to catch up, you do learn a lot. It has certainly been a great education for me this year and I’m sure there are plenty of lessons still to be had. Having people like Bill, Mitch [Davis] and Glen [Knabenshue] to learn from has helped me immensely. Dale is also involved and he can see it from a driver’s point of view, so he has had some good input in the set-ups and so on. We’ve had some good discussions together trying to find the best way forward. It’s amusing listening to Dale on the radio before a session starts as he does keep us all entertained!
All in all it’s been a good year. Finishing 9th in the Championship is a very respectable accomplishment with the highlight of course being Watkins Glen. I would like to thank my sponsors Z-Line Designs for all their support throughout the season and of course Sonny’s BBQ, Honda and Firestone. We all know how important sponsors’ input is to the Series. Above all I want to say a huge thanks to Dale and Gail Coyne for giving me the opportunity this year.
We watched three good guys battle it out for the championship and they all drove superbly throughout the season. It is extremely hard to choose one from the other, but I am really happy for Dario who did a fantastic job all year, winning on every type of race track that we visit. It's what a champion needs to do. I still think Scott’s win at Mid Ohio was the one that impressed me most. I know how good my car was and he was half a second quicker still.
Even though the season has only just finished I’m hungry to get back to racing - whilst all the information is still clear in my head I want to put it to good use. There are definitely things I want to do differently and I know where I need to improve. I can also see where we need to improve within the team - there is no time standing still when your goal is to win the championship.
I'm looking forward to doing some more testing during the off-season. In the next couple of weeks I’m heading back to the UK to see my brother Stefan, who had a good first season in Indy Lights, test a McLaren F1 car at Silverstone. It’s been fun working together in the same paddock this year and hopefully we can both find success in 2010.
Thanks for all your support this year,
Justin
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