DAN'S DAYTONA DIARY
Wednesday February 7, 2001 

Gary caught up with Dan after today's last practice. Here's the scoop on what Dan and the JJM Team accomplished Day 2 at Daytona.

Q. Dan, what happened at the track today?

We completed technical inspection this morning around 9:00 AM. We were able to get on the track for two laps before practice was over at 10:00 AM. We were satisfied with our run. We ran a 48.80 on our second Lap. We had made a lot of changes at the shop in Charlotte after our December test, and it looks like everything went in a positive direction. We would like to have a little more speed, but that's every racer's dream, to pull a little more speed out of the hat.

In our second practice session after lunch, we tried some different air cleaner and air box configurations to try and get more RPM's out of the motor. Everything we tried seemed to slow the car down. The changes proved that the air cleaners we were running are the best for this motor. We tried some shock changes today. This pulled the nose of the car down by putting more rebound in the shocks during one of the sessions. We didn't see much change, maybe a tenth of a second in lap times.. As the day went on, track temperatures increased and the car slowed down. However, everyone else was running slower in the afternoon.

With so many cars on the track during practice it was difficult to get a "clean lap". To have a clean lap, you need to have a distance between the cars of at least ¾ of a mile or a mile. Here at Daytona that means when you come off turn 2 you should not see any car in front of you down the backstretch. A car in front breaks up the air, and it is called dirty air. It makes your car go faster. The dirty air is a separation of air flow, like the water in a lake when a boat speeds through it. I felt we were able to get clean runs during our practice runs, but a lot of drivers that beat us on the time sheets today were running in "dirty air". A lot of the times posted today were helped by the drafting situations running in dirty air.  Sometimes when you are chasing a car down, just by catching up to that car you can gain from ½ to almost a full second on your lap time. Several drivers who beat us on the speed charts said that there best lap times were posted running in dirty air.

When you want to run simulated qualifying runs, you want to be able to run in clean air. It was tough to do today for many drivers. All in all, I felt we had a good day. I think we definitely have a top ten car, and one that could be in the top five for qualifying.

Q. Is practice over now?

Tomorrow, we will have a little different schedule. We will have a practice session in the morning, then we put the car in qualifying mode. To get ready for qualifying means we will be changing all the oils, gears, and transmission.

Q. Where are you on the qualifying grid tomorrow.

There will be 60 cars qualifying tomorrow, which begins after Goody's Dash Series qualifying. It should begin about 1:00 PM and will last about three hours.  We will be the 23rd car on the grid.. Every driver wants to go out late in the session, but the numbers are drawn at random, so you must focus on running your best lap.

Q. Do the cars qualifying later in the session have an advantage?

Well later in the afternoon here at Daytona, it gets a little cooler. The track cools down, the air temperature comes down which make the motor run a little better and gives it a little more horsepower. That extra horsepower may help improve your qualifying position. If you draw a low number, you have to put that out of your mind and concentrate on running your best lap when it's your turn to go out.

Q. Will you be trying to run a qualifying lap in the morning practice?

Again, that's hard to do. Our practice is 45 minutes in the morning and everybody will be trying to do the same thing. We will be trying to get a good clean run, but I expect it will be hard to do.  Yes, we will have the car taped up, the engine cooled down, and the oil will be heated for a full modified qualifying run. It will not be a real qualifying run, because we don't change the oil, put the gear in or have all the light weight stuff installed. We only do this set up for the qualifying run. With the special qualifying set up you can expect to gain 2 to 3 tenths over your practice runs.

Overall today we had a good day, and we believe we will ready for a good qualifying run tomorrow.

Thanks Dan for giving us more insight in preparing for the race. Good Luck tomorrow. 

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five

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