ESPN Chat with Randy Lajoie: On Robby's 15th place finish

Do you think that Robby Gordon's excellent 15th place finish yesterday is a sign of better things to come for Robby?

Randy LaJoie: Robby and his team have so much to overcome, being a single car team. A 15th place finish for him, not on a road course, he would be elated. When you have these multi car teams, and you have to pierce those teams on the track. If you beat some of them, you have to look at it as a good day.

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Permalink Reply by Ramon on March 2, 2009 at 9:53pm
i know that robby wanted more than a 15th place since he is the one that sayed that 2nd place is just the first loser, but like TOG sayed the car wasn't there although they did a hell of a job working with it, top 15ins will put you in the chase at some point so keep them coming. and thanks guys for the great chat during the race.
Permalink Reply by Tooltime on March 2, 2009 at 10:35pm
Great chat here folks! I have a few comments and a couple of questions. Racers are not happy unless they are holding the trophy period...It took me years to understand, or try to understand why our driver at the time on the team I was working on would be totally pissed off with a 2nd or 3rd place finish. It just blew me away. We still won the championship, but it just baffeled me.My thought was consistency pays in the end. Take the win when and if they come.
First question; were they using the TT chassis in Vegas?
2nd question; did I here someone say there are "new" chassis coming down the pipe line?
3rd was it me, or were they taking very very big swings at the set up during the race? What happened to little adjustments?
4th and last; was Kirk really able to make the changes he and the engineers wanted more often or less often than allowed.
Thanks for the time
ToolTime
Permalink Reply by James Tallant on March 2, 2009 at 11:01pm
#1, the "current" chassis was used at LVMS. #2, the new one will roll out in Atlanta. #3, After the car ran like junk Robby wanted to go big on the adjustments(at one point 10 clicks on the shock, 3 rounds wedge, 3 rounds trackbar, I believe) I dont know if you listened to the scanner but Robby was finding speed more than not in those changes and at one point loosening the car actually tightened it up on that last run, hence the 15th as opposed to a much more aggressive run at the end that we all were expecting. Im not an engineer or a RGM guy, just a fan so I cant guarantee this but I was paying attention on the radio...Gas On
Permalink Reply by Bigzoom on March 2, 2009 at 11:02pm
I did notice at the end when Robby wanted to go with some very extreme changes, Kirk said, "Let's not do all that, let's try and get some points and get out of here with a decent finish."

It's no breaking news Robby will gamble, but he and Kirk communicated very well sunday, which was a breathe of fresh air.

I know we hear Robby say "Tight, tight, I'm very, very, very tight!" or swap "tight" with "loose", but I also heard Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon & others saying the same stuff.

Robby caught all but 1 caution perfectly sunday...had he made 1 more lap when he had the lead, he would have had almost the whole field a lap down. No telling where he might have ended up.

Atlanta should be interesting, Robby had a great car the last few times at Atlanta, but lacked horsepower...will he have the answer now?
Permalink Reply by Tooltime on March 2, 2009 at 11:27pm
Thanks James and Bigzoom. I dont have the scanner thing this year, so I can only go off what comes on our little forum thing here.
I still struggle with them being junk that bad...RG is a smart dude, and we all know he has decent people around him. How does this thig roll off the truck that far out one has to wonder. Im very pleased though with the outcome! Agreat points day. And, this being a 1.5 mile track to boot. If he can perform at least this good on these tracks, watch out!
Thanks again fellas
Permalink Reply by Brad on March 3, 2009 at 1:50am
Who is Randy Lajoie? :-}
Permalink Reply by JoCo on March 3, 2009 at 2:41am
Yeah listening to the scanner he was quite pissed with the 15th actually. He was up to p-7 at one point but the gremlins came back in the car--no matter what they did it kept tightening up real bad again after only like 5-10 laps

Oh and nothing wrong with leading a lap either ;)...I was happy to see that 7 atop the scoring pillar :) and I made sure everyone I was with saw it too
Permalink Reply by rpmscott on March 3, 2009 at 9:12am
The way I would look at it is. This is the 3rd stage of a 36 stage rally. instead of tracking time. "Track the points" We are around 200 points down with 33 stages to go. Not to bad with 33 more chances to gain on the leader.
Stage 3 looked go to me.
Permalink Reply by Bigzoom on March 3, 2009 at 10:31am
From alot of reports coming out after Vegas, most drivers have had issues this year with set ups because of Goodyear constantly changing the tire they bring. Jack Roush blamed Goodyear for the engine failures his teams experienced. Jack belives the tire caused the engine to turn more RPM's and eventually blowing the motors. He said they didn't experiment with anyting, it was the same engine package they ran last year.

Larry McReynolds said during a radio show that most drivers & crew chiefs are having a hard time dialing in the setups because of the tires. He said it's such a thin line between going from tight & loose with the tires. Rubber layed down and track temperatures have a huge impact on the feel. He even explained how you can free a car up and it somehow feels tighter to the driver. The COT and Goodyear tire mixture rarley delivers a great feel throughout a long run. It usually feels awful and then gets better or vice versa, rarely is it good the whole run. He explained these are very smart engineers and they have their hands full trying to make a car run better. He then laughed and said that's the one's up front with clean air, we would have to do a mini-series if we discussed the challenges of the guys running in dirty air. (Gotta love Larry Mac!)
Permalink Reply by Matt on March 3, 2009 at 12:06pm
Jack Roush called my desk while I was at Goodyear and told me I owed him $150,000 because his driver just wrecked a car during a tire test at Charlotte. No no no, it was not the then rookie Kurt Busches mistake, it must have been the tires. Anyone who has worked with Jack knows its NEVER his fault, always someone elses.

Goodyear keeps bringing a different tire because people keep complaining about the old ones. They brought a tire this time that offered more grip, allowing the car to sustain more speed through the corner and thus have a higher speed at the end of the straights. All Roush had to do was put a different limiter on the ignition box, or adjust gear ratios.

I do agree though that the COT and the tires do not mix well. The way I see it, there needs to be a drastic change. Either Nascrap needs to let Goodyear build a taller wider tire that will give more grip and more consistency, or Goodyear needs move on from Nascar and let a different tire company take a crack at it. I am almost positive whatever tire company that is will suffer from the same problems Goodyear has delt with since the dawn of the COT, which will completely expose it for the engineering nightmare it has always been.

Cars that tighten up when adjustments are made to free it up, cars that are knife edge sensitive at one point in the race that become unresponsive to wholesale changes later on, etc; this is not just a tire thing folks. This issue did not exist with the old cars...
Permalink Reply by James Tallant on March 3, 2009 at 12:41pm
This is great information and explains alot of Robbys frustration on the car getting tight on the last run. Maybe the 5 lap scuffs wouldve been more predictable as opposed to stickers on the final run, but they couldve fallen off due to the heat cycle...
Permalink Reply by GrayAntiMatter on March 4, 2009 at 2:26am
In order for Vegas to be the norm you're going to have expect timely cautions that catch half the lead lap cars having already hit the pits under green and a large number of mechanical failures from top teams.

Face it, it was a 25th place car that they finished 15th with. You can't knock that, that's just the way it goes sometimes, hell its great to take a slow car and get a decent finish out of it. But you can't seriously look at everything that happened at Vegas leading to trouble for some many good things and bank on that, and therefor assume it was a good race for RGM.

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