03.Oct.08 -
As published on
www.sprintcardaily.com
Reed
returns from TPCR with sore feet!
Lead
driver of the Westside Honda sprintcar team, Matthew Reed, returned to Tyrepower Parramatta City
Raceway last Saturday night to take on the might of the
Parramatta Posse. He endured a night of mixed fortunes, with
the end result not quite what the team were looking for.
Matt explains it as follows...
"We
actually were not sure whether to go to Adelaide for the
Masters or back to PCR, and I waited right up until Friday
to decide. We were at PCR the previous meeting when Scott
Darley lost his life in a horrible crash, and the events of
that night have really upset me.
Throughout my whole career I’ve been fortunate enough to
have never witnessed anyone die at the racetrack, and after
watching Scott’s crash I have really struggled to come to
terms with it. And I had never even met the guy. But just to
have been there and seen the crash, and to see the pain on
everyone’s faces with people crying is something that will
stay with me for a very long time. I thought about quitting
the whole deal, which I’m sure a lot of people did. But
after talking to some people I decided to press on, and in
order to move forward I felt I needed to go back to
Parramatta.
It
was a pretty tough thing to do for me, and it must have been
awful hard for his family and all the local guys up there.
What I found tough was firing the car the very first time.
You sit there waiting for a push truck to come round, and
you are looking down the front straight. And the very first
thing you see on the right side is the wall that claimed
Scott’s life last time we was here. You have to drive right
past that section before you even get onto the track, and it
was not easy.
Talking to people like Garry Coleman and some of my friends
up there we share the view that if we openly talk about the
incident rather than try to hide it, it can help us move
forward, so I hope no one thinks poorly of me by me writing
this.
We
got off to a pretty average start to be honest with a poor
qualifying effort however we made a nice run through both
our heats, taking a win and a second from our third row
starting positions, giving us an A main start out of
position 8. I figured I needed to have the car pretty free
to be able to move around and pass cars if I wanted to work
my way toward to front, and I felt that with the way the
track was, we would be up against the cushion or over it for
the most part of the race.
We
got rolling around ready to start and I could see the guys
up on the front row crowding each other and rubbing wheels,
which I thought was pretty dumb. These guys have 22 cars
right behind them and 30 laps of racing in front of them to
get the job done, and it worries me when you see that cause
it’s usually the first sign of a mess about to happen.
Sure
enough the first attempt at a start was aborted as someone
up near the front climbed up over someone else and poo just
happened. I think a guy spun out at the other end of the
track too. We lost a couple cars from my row and it allowed
me to move up at the restart. We seemed to roll around for
quite a while and I spent these laps trying to knock down
the evilness of the cushion.
We
finally got racin and I started working my way around the
top side of the track, with all 4 wheels over the cushion.
We passed some cars and after a few laps we hit the lead.
And up until the 21st
lap that is where we stayed. I was gassing it up around the
top of the track doing my best Garry Brazier impersonation.
We were rarely in clean air, and the lapped traffic was
heavy.
After so many green flag laps I could see that the cushion
was getting pretty decent in turn 2, and I was trying my
best to avoid hitting it. I was trying to enter the turn
above the cushion way up on the edge, so that on the exit I
could drive down the track and not slide up into the lumps
of clay and bang the car into it. I actually dropped my
right rear over the edge of the track a couple times getting
into turn 1, because I couldn’t see the where the edge of
the track was. I was getting absolutely covered in mud from
the lapped cars and a few times I was going that fast at the
end of the straight I was too damn scared to take my hand
off the wheel to pull a tear-off.
In
hindsight I should have maybe moved down and rolled around
the bottom, hoping I had built enough of a lead, which from
all reports I had. But I hate driving around the bottom. To
run the bottom you usually need to use the brake, and that
means using both feet. That’s like twice as much work for
the driver.
When
you are working through the lapped cars, you sorta drive up
into the corner and need to wait a split second to try to
figure out which way they are gonna go. Then after you guess
what way they are headed you try to go somewhere they are
not in order to get passed them. I guessed wrong on a couple
of guys, and found myself in the middle of the track, and I
knew I might be in trouble on the exit. Sure enough we
caught the cushion big time on the exit, and it turned me
hard right instantly.
I
tried to correct it but by that time I had flown over the
edge of the track and the car was spinning backwards towards
the wall. To be totally honest, it scared the crap out of
me, because the car seemed to suddenly get going faster
after it left the track, and I had no control where I was
gonna land. I braced myself for a big hit into the wall
backwards, but I was relieved when it got into the new tyre
wall because it absorbed all of the speed out of the impact.
The car stalled, and about then I started to realize that my
efforts had amounted to zero.
We
restarted at the tail and ran the last 10 laps, passing a
few more cars and eventually finishing in 9th place, which
was bitterly disappointing. As a driver, everyone has their
strengths and weaknesses, and I’m not sure whether a track
with a big heavy cushion is exactly one my strengths. I feel
I’m getting better at it, but I still got some learning to
do. Most of our local tracks around Victoria don’t build a
cushion anything like what you see at Parramatta, so I don’t
get much experience with those types of tracks.
To
win a race anywhere is hard, but to win one at Parramatta is
really tough. We don’t get to race up there much so we don’t
get many chances, and to throw away one like that is gonna
burn me up for a long time. We won a race there back in
2004, but I really want to win another one there. I have the
utmost respect for all the guys that race up there, because
the place is so tough. It’s tough because there are so many
cars. It’s tough because the quality of the cars and drivers
is so high. And it’s tough because the track can be brutal
at times.
Naturally my crew, Peter & Jason, were bitterly
disappointed. We loaded up and started to head home, and
once we got out on the highway past Campbelltown where it
all gets dark Pete pulled the truck over and demanded I get
out. The guys had decided that since the driver had made
such a chronic screw-up it would only be fair to make him
walk home. Jason actually wanted to tie a rope to the back
of the truck and drag my ass down the highway, but Pete said
that was maybe taking it a bit far.
I
would have had this release up earlier but it’s taken me
until Monday night to get home. And yes, my feet are sore
and hurt like hell.
Maybe that’s a little exaggeration of the truth, but Mum
always tells me don’t ever let the truth get in the way of a
good story.
Oh,
and by the way, we ran our opening night at Avalon a few
weeks back. I was pretty sick all week with the flu, and
drove like a lazy ass.
We
bought our Westside Honda / Workplace Safety Wear Maxim home
in third place, but I just didn’t have the energy to get up
on the wheel and have a go. Some kid by the name of Loudoun
came down from Sydney and smashed the track record in
qualifying and simply drove off into the distance to win the
feature. He literally arrived at the track, pulled our pants
down, spanked our asses and then yanked them back up and
gave us a big wedgie, then drove back up the highway with
the money.
Apparently he’s just some local guy from Parramatta…."
