Tuesdays with TMAC – Cool Hand Terry!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
(Bill W) - Frigid temperatures that had both Southern natives and Northern invaders shaking in their coveralls, did nothing to stop Altoona, Iowa’s Terry McCarl from putting on a show of his own last Friday night at Paducah International Raceway near Paducah, Kentucky.
TMAC looked to be treading water in time trials, sliding low across the track instead of the preferred high line. He came home 23rd on the grid. He explains, “No brakes isn’t very conducive to driving on a high-banked slick track up by the fence. We had a new car. We had them (brakes) bled the best we could. We were actually fighting the brake problems all night long. Mike Woodring was helping us again, he is a real sharp guy, and he got them fixed as best he could.”
A star-studded heat featuring Craig Dollansky, Donny Schatz, Jason Meyers, Jac Haudenschild and Jason Martin awaited. Starting outside row three, TMAC diced back and forth until settling out of a transfer spot in a heat race for the first time this season. He lamented about his heat luck. “Of all the times to qualify bad…that was our first B of the year, so we’ll get it out of the way, I guess.” He made the most of his consolation race appearance, as he won going away.
A mishap before a lap could be completed in the main event, saw Terry make contact with another car and spin, relegating him to the rear of the 26-car field. It wasn’t far to go, as he was already slated to start outside of row 11.
After nabbing several spots and getting into the top 18, McCarl hit the high side with success. “We would have liked to run the bottom, but we kept losing the brakes on the restarts. To run the bottom, you really need use of your brakes. It got to a point on the restarts where I was getting on the throttle and almost running people over. Finally, I said ‘Screw it, I’ve gotta run the top!’ I started passing a few guys, and made a couple adjustments on the car.”
The surge forward continued as McCarl went to the wall in both turns one and two and three and four, using his momentum to gain ground. He and Jason Meyers, who started in row twelve, worked their way up into the top ten in a long green flag period. Meyers was able to block the pursuit of McCarl, but the final five lap dash would see TMAC pass Meyers as well as Daryn Pittman, Jason Sides and Danny Smith, settling for a nice seventh place run from the tail.
With the sprint show over by 10 p.m. local time, TMAC was complimentary. “I’ve got to give the WoO guys credit. We could have used more time to work out our problems, but they really keep things going. They’re running these shows off. It’s everywhere we go. They didn’t do it last weekend because it was cold. They’ve done that all year. And we need to do that, get the show run, and give the fans and their families time to get to the pits and mingle with the drivers.”
Tires and Dirt
The new WoO tire rules get a thumbs up from the McCarl pit. “I think (after one race) it did exactly what we wanted it too. The guys out here are really smart, they’ll come up with a way to work with it. One thing about starting everyone out on a harder tire like a SC12, the tracks won’t lay rubber as much. It’s definitely not a fix-all for everything, but it’s good.”
Post race inspection saw McCarl with a choice of the softest available compound, the SC12, and it looked like new despite the dry surface. “A lot of these tracks can lay rubber, but it’s not always the tire. Sometimes, it’s the lack of track prep. They couldn’t water (Paducah) because of the cold, but it still didn’t lay rubber. People in the stands don’t always understand. When we’re single file and the leader can’t pass a lapped car, that’s ‘laying rubber’. ‘Laying rubber’ isn’t when the track gets black. At Paducah it was getting black because it was slicking off, but there was still great racing.”
TMAC talks about tire choice. “You’ve got to know what you’re dealing with. If you have an abrasive surface and it has laid rubber before, that actually leaves rubber in the dirt. (Paducah) has a nice slick kind of dirt. I don’t know if it ever lays rubber there, and what a great race! Three or four different guys came from way back to finish in the top ten. That’s all you can ask for…the track had a top, middle and a bottom to run on. I think every race run there was a good one.”
The dirt is different everywhere, making the WoO game more challenging. “Dirt tracks are different, just like dialects. We have dialects from the South, Boston, Minnesota, wherever. It’s the same with dirt. Everywhere you go in the country, you have a different kind of dirt. The red dirt in Georgia had a little more sand, and the more sand you have the more abrasive it will be. Iowa has the black dirt, California has real good dirt, everywhere you go you have different kinds of dirt. Traveling with the World of Outlaws, that’s one of the tricky things, is figuring out the dirt in relation to the tires. Will it lay rubber, or will it be abrasive to the tires? Will it be dry but not abrasive? It’s a guessing game.”
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