Grand American Rolex

Overall, it was a bit of a difficult weekend for our #01 Telmex Lexus. Memo (Rojas) was sick all weekend and spent the better part of Friday back in the hauler wheezing and coughing. Truthfully, for as bad as he felt, he really did a great job. He qualified third on Friday and then came back in the race and was able to maintain a spot in the top-five before he came in, despite the fact that he was still feeling pretty bad on race day.

The other downside of Memo’s not feeling well was that he had to run a shorter than stint than usual. That dropped us back in the field some and Miller can be an extremely difficult place to pass. The reality is the best place to pass is probably in the pits. Our Chip Ganassi Racing guys did a great job and we gained two positions, but because of our early pit stop, we needed to take on a little bit more fuel than the guys up front and we came out in third place.

After that, I did everything I could to get by the #10 for second place. We pulled up next to him a few times, but just couldn’t get all the way past as it seemed if you tried to go down the inside and outbreak someone into a corner, you immediately were in the wrong spot for the following corner due to the left/right nature of the track.

There really wasn’t much we could do at that point. We had a fast car and the crew did a great job, there was just no place to go. While frustrating, I’d normally accept a podium finish any day and move on to the next race, but with our struggles in the rain at Montreal, it was probably a worst-case scenario for us in Utah.

At this point, we’re in third place – the lowest we’ve been in three years – and there’s just one race remaining. Worse, we no longer hold our destiny in our own hands. We’re 10 points behind the #99 and two points behind the #10, so all the Gainsco guys need to do is run a solid race and it looks like the championship is theirs for the taking.

Yet, this has been a strange season where it seems like problems just keep popping up for the contenders, so you never know what may happen. All we can do is go to Homestead and do our best and try to close out the season win a win and then let the chips fall where they may.

Eleven down, one to go.