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Flying Dutchman Off-Road Race Team |
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Dallas, tx
Thursday Texas Motor Speedway was the site for CORR’s first ever trip to Texas. Also for the first time this season, night racing under the lights. The track layout would be a very tight modified dirt oval with unusually dry, hard soil. After the first practice session, everyone knew it would be a battle of tires, not horsepower. Dan and the team started working with the Kumho technicians on how to hook up and get traction. Friday qualifying showed how slick and hard the track was. Dan
was forced to run on used tires and came out ninth fastest. He would
start next to teammate Mike Oberg, who qualified tenth Friday Night Jason Baldwin Cup Qualifier The rolling two-by-two start lead to a sweeping corner and then a bottleneck 180 degree. Dan survived the log jam and quickly cleared the challengers behind him. The track was slick right off the start and got worse with every lap. Dan struggled to keep pace with the lead group with no traction, and kept his position. The Dutchman had an uneventful first half of the race, and sat in eighth position when the competition yellow came out. Now bunched up with the field, Dan stayed out of trouble on the restart lap. He was able to take advantage of one driver. A few laps later, Dan’s tire tread started to let go and he got crossed up on a jump. He was slammed from behind, breaking a shock and quickly ending his race. Pro-2 The crew had to quickly change the broken shock and make adjustments in just over two hours for round ten. The starting grid would be the same as the cup race, so once again, Dan had his work cut out for him. The plan was again to stay out of trouble when the field was bunched up and take advantage of the drivers who get into trouble. On the start, the plan worked great as Dan made up spots quickly and went from tenth to sixth by the third lap. However, contact was made while passing into sixth and CORR felt it was enough to give Dan a black flag. He served his penalty and made it back out on the lead lap, which would prove to be critical. Four laps later, it was the competition yellow, and Dan sat way back in eleventh place. On the restart, Dan once again wisely avoided the rough driving pack of trucks and found himself back in sixth place after one lap. He continued on in a group of trucks and lost a position, but gained one back before the finish. A hard fought sixth place was the result.
Saturday Night Pro-2 With no chance of traction, Dan and the team would again set a game plan of survival. Stay out of trouble and pick off anyone when the opportunity came up. Dan and Mike Oberg again qualified together in tenth and eleventh. Both drivers would have to work together with what they had. Dan worked the traffic in the first two laps to get around three drivers. Then, he was an easy target for two drivers with the advantage of better traction. Dan struggled to get around the slick track and swapped positions with Oberg, who was having equal trouble. They made up two more positions by the yellow flag laps and sat together again in ninth and tenth. Dan radioed to the team that Oberg had used up his right rear tire, and the tread was coming apart. The teams communicated and Oberg went in for a tire change the next lap. Dan went on, and managed to hold the tires together for the end of the race. After picking off a few wounded trucks, he ended up in sixth again. The team’s weekend in Texas wasn't ideal, and the two sixth
place finishes keep Dan just out of the top five in championship
points as we head into the final weekend of the season. The last
races will be in Primm, Nevada, November 3 & 4, where the soil
is expected to be more competitive.
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