A Driver's Journal
by Lyndon Amick-BGN Driver and Staff Writer
10/12/2002

Hello Racing Fans!

I’ve been asked to write a weekly journal for CATCHFENCE.com and am looking forward to it. Right now there’s a lot of stuff going on for me, all of which I couldn’t be happier about. In this first installment, I’d like to tell you about my recent Busch Series race at Kansas Speedway and our testing session at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

First off - Kansas. ppc Racing, which fields cars for Jason Keller and Scott Riggs, gave me the opportunity to drive a third Ford Taurus for them starting with the race at Kansas Speedway two weeks ago. I spent a lot of time at the shop with a couple of other guys, including Buddy Barnes, who served as crew chief, getting the car ready. Red Dog, as he is known in the garage, and I worked together back when I drove for my dad, so it was a great opportunity for us to work together again. He knows how I need the car to feel and react, so we had already jumped a big potential hurdle.

We tested the car at Kansas Speedway in early September and right away knew we had a good chance to qualify and race really well. When we got to the track for race weekend and went out to practice, we went straight to the top of the charts. Keith Barnwell, who is an owner at ppc Racing and also served as my spotter all weekend, told me to be sure to look at the scoring tower when I passed it the first time after we ran our fast time. Sure enough, there was the number 15 at the top of the board.

I played it a little conservative during my qualifying run. We ended up having the 12th fastest time, and frankly, we were pretty disappointed. It’s a great thing, though, to be able to be disappointed to start a race in 12th place.

It was fun to be back in the swing of things at the racetrack and even before that. On Wednesday before the Kansas weekend, I was a guest on RPM2Night and then at the track on Saturday before the race I took part in a short autograph session outside the garage area. There were tons of fans there and maybe 12 or 15 Busch drivers. There were so many fans there that we couldn’t even get through everybody before we had to leave to get to the drivers meeting.

Anyway, when the race started I just did my best to stay out of trouble for a while. We had a couple of close calls, but overall, things went well. The car handled well and Red Dog made good calls to keep us up front. We also had Kyle Petty’s Winston Cup crew as our pit crew. They’re an impressive bunch and it would be great to get them back for our next race. We finished ninth and ran strong all day, so I would consider it a success for me and our Sunrise Farm Fresh ppc Racing team.

Speaking of our next race, we weren’t able to test at Lowe’s Motor Speedway last week, so we made the decision not to enter that race. We just got back from a two-day test at Atlanta Motor Speedway this week, and plan to make that our next event.

I’ll know more about our Atlanta plans and maybe even beyond next week, so next time I write, I’ll fill you in. In the meantime, cheer on my ppc Racing teammates this weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway during the Little Trees 300 on Saturday.

You can reach Lyndon at lyndonamick@catchfence.com

Lyndon's official Website: www.lyndonamick.com