Posted (02/05/2008) -
Thanks to Florida businessman Henri Zogaib, Matt raced for the first time in the Grand Am KONI Challenge "Fresh from Florida 200" at Daytona International Speedway on Friday, January 25th. Here's Matt's personal memory of the race, as it appeared on SPEEDtv.com:
The Grand Am KONI Challenge season opener in Daytona was my first race drive since the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill in December. And I was glad to have it, since finding the sponsorship to get seat time has been difficult. Walking the garage with my dad at the Daytona test in early January I met Henri Zogaib, whom I knew from racing in the Skip Barber series a couple of years ago, and I was both surprised and excited when he offered me a seat for the Fresh from Florida 200 in a Ford Mustang prepared by Blackforest Motorsports, winners of the Daytona race the last two years. Henri had planned to race the car himself alongside Ed Hennessey and Greg Gimbert, and so when he told me he wanted to help me get more seat time to prepare for the next step in my career I was very grateful.
In addition to actually getting to race, I was also excited about driving a different kind of racecar: the front-engine, rear-drive Ford Mustang GT. Besides winning races in Skip Barber and Star Mazda open-wheel cars, I have also driven the rear-engine, rear-drive Porsche 911 GT Cup car in last year's Rolex 24, and a front-engine, front-drive Scion tC turbo at Thunderhill. By the way, the 25 Hours is a very cool, run-what-ya-brung type of race, and I loved it. But that's another story.
Although I'd like to think I can figure out a track pretty quickly, Daytona is one of the circuits I can honestly say I know well. My experience on the famous high banking and flat, sometimes off-camber infield corners helped me as I took my first laps in the unfamiliar Mustang. What I found was good power, though the weight bias to the front took some getting used to, especially combined with the anti-lock braking system. I can tell you one thing: the Mustang GT is a kick in the pants in a straight line, a real "point and shoot" car with good acceleration for the long Daytona straightaways. But after spending so much time in purpose-built race cars and the nimble Porsche and Scion, the handling of the bigger, heavier Mustang took a little getting used to. You really have to slow everything down, and change your mindset. Everything in a street-stock car just takes a little longer to develop, braking takes longer, as does getting the car to the apex of a corner. The Blackforest "family" was a huge help, especially Tom Nastasi and David Empringham, who have a zillion miles in these cars, and Scott Turner, who owned my car as well as the one he himself was racing. Colin McLain, the crew chief on my car, was almost as new to the team as I was, so we were learning together.
Things got interesting on Thursday afternoon, when a surprise rain shower caught out my teammate Ed Hennessey and some others in qualifying. The result was a scrambled grid featuring a bunch of fast cars, including our Mustang, at the back of the GS field, behind those who managed to get their hot laps in while it was dry.
Unfortunately the ABS became a bit of an issue during the weekend. I hate to call it a problem since I have so little experience in this car, but both my car and the Nastase/Empringham sister machine suffered persistent braking issues. The system on my car apparently had failed, which led to the power-assisted brakes locking up, which in turn made life hard on the Hoosiers used by the entire KONI field. That's how I learned what a certain warning light on the dash meant. A few adventures, including a trip into the tires in the turn one runoff in the Friday morning final practice, turned out to be a warning of things to come in the race. That runoff was newly paved for 2008, and I was glad about that, as the damage was limited to slightly creased right front bodywork. In<
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