Reflecting On Mexico & Talladega;
by Eric McClure - Staff Writer
NASCAR Nationwide Series Driver
05/05/2008

I had a weekend off while the Nationwide Series was in Mexico. My sponsorship did not call for the road course races in 2008, so FRM put Brian Simo in their car to gain some valuable owners points. They were knocked off course a couple of times, but had a potential top 20 run going, before finishing 28th. Most importantly though, they gained valuable owners points for our team, keeping us locked in the field for Talladega. Also, Bob Jenkins, the team owner, was kind enough to run Hefty® brand on the car, as the car was going to be un-sponsored, and they accumulated great exposure during the event, which is always good.

In my last few columns I made reference to our trip with Mabreigh to see the Doodlebops. So, on Thursday before the Mexico race, we loaded up the McClure mobile and headed to Charlotte, NC. And we had a ball! Now, for those of you who don't know who (or what) the Doodlebops are, they are musical group for kids that is on the Disney Channel. They dress up in colorful costumes with big hair and all that and they sing and dance. This wouldn't interest an adult, but they really are very talented. Mabreigh loved it! She gasped when they came out, and clapped and danced and laughed. At intermission, Miranda took her to the middle of the floor in front of our section and she waved and gave "high five" to the dancers. I couldn't make it up there because of the mad rush of kids and their mothers, who knew that somebody was going to be picked to go on stage. I've never seen so many middle-aged women (forgive me) in my life pushing and shoving other people's kids to get their kid up there. It had Lifetime movie written all over it.

Anyway, Mabreigh is not old enough to remember the show, but Miranda and I do, and we have pictures and memories of how sweet and happy Mabreigh was. And we bought a "Dee Dee" plastic hair mask, which Mabreigh wanted Miranda and I to wear the entire time.

The only other thing I did during my time off was move the family in with Emily for a month. Mabreigh is in the Infant Swimming Resource survival class in Charlotte, which is four to six weeks, for ten minutes a day. So, rather than commute six hours round trip every day, we are staying with Emily. Miranda will commute back home on the weekends while we are racing. The lessons are going well, although Mabreigh cried (loudly) when the instructor took her the first couple of sessions. It was pitiful. But she's doing well. I did manage to pay a visit to the FRM shop and see the guys when they got back in the states.

From there it was on to Talladega. We practiced on Thursday and didn't do anything but qualify on Friday. On Saturday was the race and the FRM team really prepared a fast car. Unfortunately for us, we had a few problems as the race went on. We developed a vibration in the car which caused us to drop off the lead pack about one third of the way into the race. We then cut a right rear tire which spun the car out. I had thought left rear because my seat was shaking so bad, but the TV booth quickly corrected me… Ha-Ha. We lost a lap limping back to the pits as we tried to beat the leaders to the line. Then, by the time we made it made it back to our pit stall and the Hefty® Racing™ crew changed four tires and worked on our left rear damage, we were almost two laps down.

We lost our third lap as we pitted under green to make sure the vibration wasn't a wheel problem. But, we survived the day and with the number of other cars having problems, we scored a season-best 15th-place finish. Go figure. It's hard to think what might have been if we hadn't had problems. Of course, we could have been in the "Big One." Nevertheless, it was a good day for our team.

I'll let you know how Richmond goes in our next colum.

Random Thoughts for the week: