Bergenty Ejected & Became a Fan at Talladega
Phew, I am finally back into blog mode. It’s been some time since I last wrote and there has been a lot going on. From good runs at the track, an off-weekend with some family time, and most recently my first ever ejection from the race track. I am going to try and cover most of everything without writing a full-fledged book.
Ok, so the last time I wrote I am pretty sure I was on the plane on the way home from Texas. Gah that feels like forever ago and I am sure everyone is excited to hear about all this good content since then. It is going to take me a minute because that was so long ago I need to go back into my phone calendar and see where we have been since then.
Yes for all of you that think it’s easy to keep track of where we are each weekend…It’s not. It’s actually very confusing. The season is so long that you get into a little funk that is really week to week. So when my mom calls and asks where we are racing in 4 weeks I always refer her to talk to my wife about it. Haha.
So since my last post, we have raced Bristol, Richmond, off-weekend and then Talladega. The good news to all of this is that we have still been as solid as a rock when it comes to executing as a race team. The boys have all been doing great and the driver is as focused as I’ve ever seen. You mix all of that together and we run second at Bristol.
I sit here reflecting back a few weeks ago and finishing second to the “baby brother” Kyle at Bristol and it’s frustrating. You don’t get many chances to be that close to getting to the elusive victory lane that sits on top of the building. But either way if we go back into the weekend a little bit it was a very up and down (again). Friday was a day I was pretty sure no one could have dreamed up.
Qualifying 27th (or somewhere close to that) at Bristol with KB1 is something you have to try to do. I mean that is one of his best tracks statistically and to qualifying that bad we somehow had to actually put some effort into sucking that bad. So let’s fast forward as fast as we can away from our Fridays. Its Sunday. The day race at Bristol. It isn’t the night race but its just as special. The entire race it seemed as KB1 was asking for adjustments as if he was planning for the end of the race. We were just ok and didn’t think we had a shot to win. At halfway it seemed that we were going to run somewhere around 5th-8th. But that isn’t the plan the driver had. Somewhere towards the end of the race the driver came on the radio and asked our spotter,”How many laps to go and how many laps on my tires?” I forget exactly the laps but it was something like 20 on tires and 70 something to go.
Collect $200 and pass go. You instantly had KB1 in fighter pilot mode. The way he spoke and the car looked was something that reminded me of TC back in the early 2000s. There wasn’t anything going to stop him. Next thing you know it is the final restart and were racing the 18 for the win. At the end of the day, KB1 ended up slipping once and hitting the fence just enough to give the 18 the gap he needed.
Now, most of you heard KB1’s interview after the race and he basically told everyone his plan was to wreck the 18 on the last lap. Take it for what it’s worth. When it really hit me was Monday morning when he came to the shop and I saw the fire in his eyes as he told me I really was going to wreck him. No doubt in my mind. Now for all the team owners and sponsors that most likely isn’t what they want to hear. But for us blue collar working short track racers who would wreck our own mothers to win a race, that is a fist-pumping, let’s get some kind of moment.
As the week went on the team’s focus was fantastic. A second-place finish at a short track and now Richmond coming up. So the plan going into the weekend should have been real easy right. Standard procedure. Qualify poorly and race like hell for the win on race day. Yea that didn’t go as planned.
We ended up starting second and thought we were going to have a shot to get us a chunk of laps lead and race for the win. Sounds easy but really isn’t. We ran mediocre in the race and ended up somewhere around 11th. The long story short from Richmond is we figured some things out to help our qualifying effort but we weren’t able to execute during the race, which is so frustrating.
When you qualify well, you get prime pit selection. It is honestly very hard for me to describe how detailed and important pit road is nowadays. Years ago you just wanted to get on pit road and off pit road. Now every team is looking for ways to save tenths of a second. Not only during pit stops themselves but from the time the car hits pit road and until its back on track. So we had a prime pit stall to make gains on pit road all night but we ended up having a car that would give us what we needed.
It’s amazing to think that a 11th place finish at this level of racing is unacceptable but it is. Everyone on this team has a fire to be better every week and when you run second one week, followed-up with a bad night at another short track everyone is just so frustrated. We take it and move on.
Before I head into the off-weekend I just reminded myself of a funny story from Bristol. I just told you how frustrated everyone was after Richmond. Well that reminded me of how McCall and I wanted to headbutt each other after the Bristol race. It was honestly a classic. He is a triple black belt of something and I’m just a dude with a big head. I consider him smart but after the race when he told me he wanted to head butt. I considered him not so smart. That is the one leg up I have on most people. The ole cranium my parents supplied me with is big and solid. Haha.
Ok so back to the story that led us to this…at some point during the race we were about to come to pit road. Now on my radio there is a lot of things going on. Scanner, driver, spotter and Matt. And at some point, they are all talking.
Well, in this case, everyone is talking and Matt calls for me to adjust the rear tire pressure. As he tells me this I hear the spotter tell KB1 to get on his lights. (which means he is on pit road). My response to Matt was we’re not getting the adjustment. Now at the moment I said it pretty stern. He was instantly frustrated about my response. So we complete the pit stop and then Matt proceeds to give me some select words of encouragement lol. It wasn’t that I didn’t get the adjustment it was because I basically sounded too much like a northerner in my response of not getting it.
So if we back up just a second. Since I have moved south I feel I have come a long way in my wording and approach to people. But when my boss asks me for something I like to deliver. In this case, I wasn’t able to deliver and it pissed me off that I couldn’t get the air pressure change. My emotion got the best of me while I was trying to relate to Matt we were getting the adjustment. The good news is after the race we talked and laughed about it as good friends would. Followed up with the potential headbutt that was fueled not by the midrace miscue but rather the frustration of running 2nd. It’s an equal passion that I wish everyone could see. When we do get this first win…I promise you will!
Ok so onto the off-weekend. As I stated in my first blog, I am not an English major so don’t critique my writing skills and I am not going to talk to much about my personal life. The off-weekend was full of family time with my beautiful wife and kid. We went to the beach for a few days. Got to visit with some friends and spent some time watching my kid put her feet in the sand for the first time.
As a parent, you cherish all these little moments that one time you never thought would exist. I will end this family weekend with a little word for father/husband out there. The mother of your child is special (just like mine). Treat them like gold and appreciate what they do for your family. I’m thankful that my wife is the one that takes the brunt of the work when it comes to Pressly. And I am sure Pressly does too because if I was a stay at home dad, who knows she would maybe already be eating boxed mac-n-cheese!
Bye Bye off-weekend and let’s go to Talladega. Or let’s not. Superspeedways are so fun but yet frustrating. If you’re reading this still you most likely already have the understanding of why speedways are so stressful. Our whole team gives every ounce they have to build the best race cars each week and this is one of the weeks when there is so much out of your control. Most would think just bolt a car together, make it safe and just load it up. Well us racers aren’t built like that. We work all day and night to make every last detail perfect on a car that we know has a high probability to be wrecked from someone else’s mistake. (I better speed this up. My slow typing has us about to land in Dover and I will lose all my free time to finish my blog 4).
We end up building a really nice car for Dega. Practice goes smooth for the most part. If you watched the race you know Chevrolet put an effort into the whole speedway program. So we spent some time in practice working with the other Chevy teams. Every time you go to a speedway you just wish you would run 2 single-car runs in practice and call it good. That means you have a very low chance to wreck your primary. Well, yea. We ran like 40 laps, all in the draft. For no one that knows how it feels when your 3 wide in practice for more laps than you hoped for. It’s almost impossible to explain. I have guessed it’s like aging x2 for every lap. Its so stressful for almost no reason. You’re just waiting for it (the wreck) to happen.
Anyways back to the good news. The car is in one piece and we all put our best effort into preparing KB1 with a racecar he can contend to win with on Sunday.
Being an impound race means, once the car is through inspection for qualifying, we won’t be able to work on it again. We’re going to go through inspection, grid the car, qualify, impound and race. LOL not!
We are going to try like hell to do that but in our case, we’re going to fail inspection twice and Ryan is going to be ejected. So what exactly do you mean ejected? Well a few years back NASCAR implemented a deterrent system that after 3 failures, the car chief was sent out of the garage area for the remainder of the weekend. Well, this season they reduced the number of failures to two.
This year it seems that there is pretty much at least one car chief or engineer being escorted out of the garage. This weekend that case was myself getting the walk of shame (or fame). This is not something we try to do (getting ejected) but rather just understand the consequences for pushing the limits. In this sport, you need to be on the edge of so many things that you must understand at some point you’re going to trip over the line.
This is the part I’ve been getting the most questions about. Where did you go? Well after we failed our second time and I had to leave the garage area I headed toward the hotel to get my stuff. The nice thing about racing at this level is you have great people and companies that can take care of you.
So I went to get my bags and get ready to head home after the Xfinity race. The best part of this is I was able to activate the race fan in me for a few minutes. How? Well my mother-in-law just so happens to live close to Talladega and she was in the infield with her camper. What better scenario? I need an hour to kill before I head to the airport and NASCAR won’t let me in the garage area…go to the mother-in-law’s and have a few cold beers!
I got to meet a few of their friends and check out their pretty neat setup for watching the race. Once there was a few laps left in the race I got a ride to the airport (which is just outside the backstretch). Wheels up and touch down back in NC about 7pm on Saturday night. It always nice when you get an extra day at home with the family but I had a knot in my stomach and a sense of guilt not being at the track with my team.
The part that made this all better is I know how good of a group of guys we have and when there was 3 laps to go on Sunday afternoon I was on the edge of my seat as KB1 was making moves to win the race! Oh so close again. Just the simple fact that the car was in one piece at the end of a speedway race is something great in itself! Then to be running second with three laps left and have a chance. That’s damn badass too! I know I keep saying it, but this team is close.
It’s time for me to head to bed. Dover practice and qualifying is tomorrow so I need to get rested up. I am not sure what blog it was but remember the ice cream just about every day? Um, yea well I feel like a complete barrel ass right now. I had ice cream again!
Night
by: Ryan Bergenty