Bad Luck for Some Is Good Luck for Carl

With Hurricane Matthew bearing down on the coastal states, it was clear that weather was again going to play a part in the race weekend activities.  Fortunately the Thursday activities took place without interruption.  Carl posted the 9th fastest speed in the first practice.  Then during qualifying, he posted top ten speeds during each of the three rounds, advancing to keep himself in the mix, and finally ending up in 8th place.  That is two positions better than if qualifying had been rained out with the starting grid set by owners' points.

 

But then Matthew got close enough to require the cancellation of all track activities on Friday and Saturday.  What was to have been a Saturday night race ended up being a Sunday afternoon race.  Once the race got underway Carl fell back a couple of spots but regained those positions prior to the competition caution on lap 25.  Initially he said that his car was tight in traffic, but then the track changed, getting slicker, and his car was a little looser in.  During the competition caution, his team gave him four fresh tires, fuel, and one position better than he came in.

So he restarted 7th when the race went back green, and he began to advance.  He gained a spot on the restart.  (Yes, you read that right.  Carl had a good restart!)  Another ten laps, he gained another position, putting his car into the top five for the first time.

The next caution came out when a car got into the wall and caught another car in the mess.  Even though Carl was not too far behind the crash, he got by cleanly.  As a result, he was now running in 4th.  His top-notch pit crew gave him exactly what they gave him the first time:  four tires, fuel, and one more position, plus an air pressure adjustment.  

He restarted in 3rd on lap 70, reporting his car was now a little too tight.  Worse, he thought he felt a vibration.  It was more than 40 laps before he next pitted, coming in for a green-flag pit stop for four tires, fuel, and another air pressure adjustment.  The team concluded the vibration was likely from a cracked exhaust, thankfully not a serious issue.

Before everyone completed their green-flag pit stops, another car got into the wall and brought out the caution, putting Carl a lap down.  But because he had pitted recently he was able to take the wave around and get his lap back.  It did, however, put him at the back of the field.  He restarted 10th and spent the next 40 laps between 10th and 12th.

The next caution for a car in the wall brought him up to 10th, and after pitting for four tires and fuel on lap 158 he came off pit road in 9th.  Once the race resumed, he gradually moved forward bit by bit.  Over the next 40 laps, he got himself up to the 6th spot and maintained it through a cycle of green-flag pit stops.

His luck started to change when the next caution came out for debris on the track.  After restarting in 7th, he slowly lost a few spots over the next ten laps, falling back to 10th.  Then another car in the wall, another pit stop, another position lost, and another restart.

That's when Charlotte gave us a brief glimpse of what is in store for us in a couple of weeks when we go to Talladega.  A chain reaction on the restart got Carl tagged in the right rear, sending his car fishtailing down the track.  Thankfully he was able to get the car under control without hitting anything.  NASCAR parked the cars on a red flag for almost 11 minutes.

Dave Rogers deemed the needed repairs serious enough to bring Carl down pit road even before pit road was officially open.  As a result, Carl had to start at the rear of the field in 15th place.   But his car was still in good condition, and he was able to steadily move forward.  By the time the next caution came out about 40 laps later, he was back up to 9th.

During his pit stop during this caution, the air gun jammed, slowing down his typically quick pit time.  He came off pit road in 13th place and was able to advance only one more spot before the race came to an end.  He finished the race in 12th place.

That might not seem like a very good finish until you put everything into perspective.  Only 5 of those 11 drivers ahead of him were in the Chase.  And in his wake was a slew of disasters.  Amazingly 5 of the 6 Chase drivers behind him ended their day in the garage, due to tire issues and engine failures, finishing anywhere from 30 to 180 laps down, earning very few points.  So when all was said and done, Carl finds himself 6th both on the Chase grid as well as in the drivers' standings.  He is 16 points behind the leader and 20 points ahead of the cut-off line.

As if the on-track action wasn't exciting enough, Carl's pit crew was so lightning fast that they burst into flames!  Okay, that is not completely correct.  There were flames in the pit stall, but it was caused by some spilt fuel that ignited.  The uniform of the gas man, Kenneth Purcell, caught fire.  A few swats at the flames followed by a well-aimed fire extinguisher saved the day.  Take a look at the video in the accompanying article:

Fire in the Pits

 

Next we follow the yellow brick road to Carl's home track in Kansas.