Paulie's Blog: Not the start to '09 we had hoped for

The Camping World West Series season opener turned out to be everything but what we had hoped for, but in the end, there was a bright side to it all.

After arriving in Austin, Texas, I headed to the track with the guys on a rainy, cold Friday afternoon for inspection. Although, as the driver, I didn't really have any specific jobs to be completed as a part of inspection, I did have a NASCAR safety meeting at the track that evening and felt it was best to be there and to be around my team before I had to go to the meeting. The guys got everything unloaded and completed much of the inspection process with the NASCAR officials.

In the safety meeting, we were briefed on all of the latest developments in safety equipment and offered advice as to how to make our cars safer. NASCAR deserves a huge pat on the back for the work they've done in the field of driver safety. Steve Peterson, who spearheaded NASCAR's safety team before his passing last summer, was a mentor of mine. Steve's work has been carried on by an extremely qualified group at the NASCAR R & D Center.

I got out of that meeting at about the same time inspection closed, so the team and I all headed to a place called Salt Lick Barbeque for a team dinner. The night was full of good company and a lot of laughs, which was a great way to bring our team closer. Once we got back to the hotel, I headed to bed around 11:00 p.m. to try and get a good night's rest before race day.

After an early breakfast with the team, we all headed to the race track. The entire event was basically a one day show, as we were scheduled to practice, qualify, and race all on Saturday. Fortunately, it wasn't raining when we arrived at the track. The team finished preparing the car for the first round of practice and went on track at 11:00 a.m.

With it being my first time at Thunder Hill Raceway, I had some learning to do. The track is D-shaped and, because all of the rubber had been washed off the track by the rain, the fastest line was on the bottom. Once I learned the basics about the track, I headed into the pits for our first round of changes, which were pretty substantial, as we were extremely loose. We made a number of other large changes during the rest of the session and made some improvements. Still, we never got the car where we wanted it.

Crew chief Duane Knorr and I went through a lot of notes and discussions after the first round of practice and found a number of things that we believed were causing our problems. We made a number of other changes between sessions and were really looking forward to the second practice, as the track would have some rubber on it and we believed we would start out much closer than we had ended the first session. Unfortunately, Mother Nature denied us the second round of practice, as the rains began to fall.

Duane and I decided to make a few more changes before qualifying, taking some chances in hopes of improving the car. On the whole, I believe those changes paid off, as we were on the pole for a little while after our lap. By the time qualifying was over, we ended up sixth, which we were happy with, considering that all of the cars that out qualified us went out after us and the track was getting better and better with time.

Mother Nature made for some down time on Saturday.

After qualifying, I headed to an autograph session and then to an appearance in the NAPA suite. Having NAPA AutoCare as a sponsor is really a lot of fun, as they pour a lot of effort into our series and are huge supporters of our race team, the tracks we race at, and our sport as a whole.

After the USAC race ran longer than expected, we were given the command to start our engines at 9:07 p.m. by Miss Texas. When the green flag flew, "Spotter Joe" Goodrich was able to help me get to the bottom grove within a lap, settling us into the sixth position. I decided to just ride there for a little while, saving my equipment, as we were running the entire 150 laps on one set of tires. Around Lap 15, Mike David, in the No. 2 car, got to my rear bumper and turned me sideways entering Turn 3. I was able to get the car gathered back in, but was stuck in the outside groove and fell back a number of positions. To be honest, I don't know what his hurry was, as he was fast enough to pass me cleanly and the race had just begun. I'm sure Mike and I will talk about it at the next race in Roseville, Calif.

The caution flag flew for a spin a few laps later and we decided to pit for some chassis adjustments, as the car was still pretty loose, especially exiting both Turns 2 and 4. Unfortunately, we went a lap down while making those adjustments. We were able to make our way up to the first car one lap down and were the "free pass car" when the caution flew on Lap 50, putting us back on the lead lap.

While coming back up through the field a few of cars in front of me checked up, which meant a lot of bumping between our No. 12 Toyota and the cars around me. At some point during that, the front bumper cover of our Toyota was bent, closing off the air inlet to the radiator. That was the start of the end of our night, as the engine began to overheat. We hoped to stay out until the next caution before doing repairs, but ended up blowing the engine before that caution came, ending out night.

Overall, it certainly wasn't the start to the season we were looking for. However, there were a number of good things that came out of it. The largest being that Duane learned just how different a driving style I have from his last driver, Moses Smith. Moses and I really look for different things in a car and like a much different "feel." Although I can drive a car that's set up for Moses, I give feedback in a different way than he does. Because weren't able to test at Thunder Hill over the winter, due to NASCAR's no testing policy (which does save our race team money), we had the misfortune of learning this on a race day. The bright side is that Duane and I have both acknowledged this and believe we have a much, much better idea of how we can better communicate with one another, as well as what the other one of looking for.

The best part of it all? This is the first race of the season, not the last. The next race? All-American Speedway in Roseville, Calif., where Duane and I set the track record last fall!

Paulie Harraka, a native of Fairlawn, N.J., is a student at Duke University. He is a member of the Drive for Diversity program and races in the Camping World West Series for Bill McAnally Racing. Harraka won the 2008 track championship at All American Speedway.