Looking Back At Las Vegas & Atlanta
by Eric McClure - Staff Writer
NASCAR Nationwide Series Driver
03/18/2008

Have you ever wondered if things are really as bad as they seem? Well, after the weekend that was Atlanta, I am very glad to get to some of the better tracks for me. We have struggled at the intermediate tracks, more so than I thought, but the last five laps at Atlanta made it the worst. We didn't test at Las Vegas, which as I said in the last column, really hurt us. As a result, we've been forced to race our own race, finish them, and try to get as many points as possible, which we have been able to do.

At Atlanta, however, the problems started early in the week. We missed virtually the entire practice session on Friday, not only because the bell housing was hitting the track, but we broke a transmission on the second lap of practice. As such, my guys worked hard to get it changed and we got back out for six laps at the end of the session.

We chose to change setups on the car at the last minute since we didn't get to work on what we wanted. As it turns out, it wasn't the right change. We just couldn't get into the corners at Atlanta. As a result, it messed up our exit as well and, with the new spacers we have to run, if you have to wait on the throttle you are not good down the straights…Case in point. Anyway, we did a good job of staying out of the way of the leaders and not giving up too much time and were going to have a decent finish, despite being some laps down, when we had our accident. We had been making some progress with the car trying to free it up a bit, and could run with a few of the cars in our class. We were running our best laps of the race during the final run when the leaders got to us.

We stayed low as I had all day and just tried to give lots of room. Unfortunately, when the 5 car caught us the car just snapped around and, of course, we had a highlight reel wreck. I'm really sorry that the 41 car got into it. It happened so fast that I thought we had cut a rear tire because, to be frank, I've had cars around me quite a bit and never lost a car like that so, whether we had a failure or just had the air taken off of us, we wrecked. I felt like we were as low and predictable as we could be and, well, now I can be internet fodder for a couple of people that have nothing else to worry about..

Las Vegas was good and bad. We made lots of gains in final practice and were really decent. We qualified ok and for the first part of the race weren't too bad. Then I called for some changes on the car that weren't correct and we could never recover and, just had to finish. We did have fun out there. My friend, Artie, and his wife went out to Vegas with us and I got to spend time with my family out there, including my cousin, John and his parents.

My grandmother was also out there for her annual visit to my aunt's home, so after the race we had a nice home-cooked meal with my other aunt (the McClure's are a big family so be careful what you say because the person next to you may be one…ha ha) and it was great. I've never been so glad to get to Bristol in my life. I think we should have a better weekend at least as far as competitiveness. Even if we are off, we should be a closer off, but I've had a couple of decent runs there and we're looking for a much better run in the Hefty ® brand Chevrolet in front of the home crowd. We're right on the verge of being locked in the points for the next race so we need a good finish. We hit some better tracks for me coming up in the next few weeks that I'm excited about. We'll get to work on our intermediate program some more at two of my favorite tracks, Nashville and Texas.

Finally, Mabreigh celebrated her first birthday this week! We had a little party for her on the 5th, her actual b-day, but her real party was on Sunday and it was great. We did a Little Einsteins theme and had a ball! It was so special to see her playing and smiling, and having her reach for me when I got home from Atlanta was priceless. It eases the frustration of a bad weekend quite a bit. After all, whatever the perception of me on the track seems to be, it is nothing like your home life. You race a day or so a week, but your life is your life. It's full time and it's special. We want to do as well as possible on the track for our team and sponsors, and we are going to get a lot better at that, but I want to be a great father as well for my great family.

I just have to keep four wheels on the ground during the race…

Random Thoughts for this week: