Two open-wheel races in the books now!  After this past weekend’s event at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL I am starting to feel a lot more comfortable in the car.  It was definitely a bit of an odd schedule: practice and qualifying Thursday morning, nothing Friday, nothing Saturday and race Sunday morning!  This is the price you pay when you are racing in a support series.  However, the upside is that you get to race in front of the large IndyCar crowds and be in the same paddock as the team owners so getting up early and hanging out for a few days is more than a fair trade. 

During the practice sessions I was still struggling a bit with the setup of the car.  It is tough for me as I have been driving 3,000 lb cars with little downforce for the past few years so I am still unsure of exactly what I need from a lightweight, winged car.  However, with the help of my driver coach Tony Kester we were able to review some of the data and video before qualifying and make some excellent changes to the aero balance and chassis.  We made a pretty significant adjustment before qualifying and it was night and day how much better the car was!  It doesn’t always work out like that and is a bit of a gamble, but it’s certainly nice when it does work.  It was the first time I felt like I could really drive the car hard and it was responding the way that I like a racecar to.  If I had this car at St. Pete I’m confident I would have been even further towards the front.  I ended up qualifying a very respectable 7^th place and I was pretty happy with that.  Another 3/10 of a second would have put me in 4^th position so it was definitely a tight field!  Also, my session was pretty significantly reduced as I had the flywheel explode on me on the back straight.  It was a very loud bang and very expensive sounding; it sounded like the whole engine blew up!  Luckily it was a fairly easy fix and my chief mechanic Dave Hoppel did an awesome job.  The metal shrapnel embedded on the inside of the bellhousing was crazy to see. 

We had the next two days off so it was nice to have qualified decently because you had plenty of time to think about it if you screwed up!  Even though we didn’t have to be at the track for official sessions Friday and Saturday I came by to check on the progress of the car and sit in it to scale it properly etc.  It was also a nice time to review data/video and see where I can still improve as Tristan went 7/10 faster than me so there was obviously still plenty to learn.   He is a really great teammate; he is VERY fast and very open and sharing with his data and is really helping me get up to speed.  The days off were also a nice time to “pound the pavement” and walk around and see who you can run into.  It was great to see some of my old sport scar friends in the Grand-Am paddock and I made some good connections with Indy Lights and IndyCar teams as well. 

Sunday was an early morning as I had to be there in plenty of time to make the 8am warmup session to check that everything was alright with the new flywheel and fine-tune our clutch adjustments for the standing start.  It’s funny, going into this season I was very concerned about how to do the best standing start and you can talk to 10 people and get 10 different explanations, but you really just have to figure it out for yourself.  Unfortunately, up to the race I’d only done about 5 of them total (including St. Pete race) so it was still a bit of a worry for me.  However, at the start of the race I got an awesome start, just the right amount of clutch slip and wheel spin, and managed to briefly squeeze into 4^th place by Turn 1 before eventually settling in 5^th.  I remained in 5^th position for the early portion of the race and was trying to hang on for a top 5 finish.  Barber is notoriously hard on tires due to the porous surface and it’s always a bit of a guessing game as to the right setup for the race.  We went even further in the direction that we did with our pre-qualifying improvement, but I think the combination of that setup and my hard battles early on led to my rear tires wearing away very quickly.  I had a VERY loose car for most of the race and it was exciting to say the least.  It felt like I was driving a 700 horsepower IndyCar coming off of the corners!  I had some very close and exciting battles with several drivers and held onto the car to come home in a solid 6^th place and finish as the top rookie.  I was very happy with this result as it is such a competitive field and I am so new to these cars.  Some of the other “rookies” in this series are championship winning drivers who have been in formula type cars for man years!  I am satisfied with my progress, but I want to be up there fighting with Tristan for race wins (Tristan drove a fantastic race and won in dominating fashion so a big congratulations to him as well); it’s just going to take a bit of time. 

After the race Tristan and I hung around for a bit and watched the start of the IndyCar race and went out for a nice dinner afterwards.  Neither of us were leaving until late in the day Monday so we got up early and went hiking Monday morning.  Birmingham is certainly a beautiful place and the landscape was phenomenal.  Now we are off to the ovals for the next three rounds which will be a whole new world for me.  I am very excited because it will be a completely different challenge.  We do not race until the end of May when we run the “Night Before the 500” in Indy.  So during the long break I am trying to put together the funding to get a test day on an oval so I don’t embarrass myself too badly in front of 100,000 people in Indy!  I am also going to be going on a safari in Africa looking for snakes and crocodiles during this time so I will surely have some neat pictures when I get back. 

Thanks,

Nick

If you aren’t following me yet on Twitter please do!  @nickmancusorace

PS check out some of the links below to some great press coverage I got throughout the weekend on Fox and NBC. 

Links to interviews: http://www.myfoxal.com/category/195956/video-landing-page?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=5735612&flvUri&partnerclipid

http://www2.alabamas13.com/lifestyles/2011/apr/09/2011-honda-indy-grand-prix-special-simo-38006-vi-76191/

Hey all,

I have been insanely busy since the race in St. Pete; the day after I landed back home I was off again to Nevada for Aston Martin training.  As I haven't had much time to put a proper post together I am going to put up the text from the press release that is about to go out describing the race.  I will give you a behind the scenes look when I get a moment to write something up.  Off again to Barber next Wednesday so it will likely be a "double header" post!  It was crazy and fun and I can't wait to be back in the car!!

MANCUSO SHINES IN PROFESSIONAL OPEN-WHEEL DEBUT WITH JDC MOTORSPORTSNick Mancuso’s first open-wheel race resulted in a top 10 finishLAKE BLUFF, IL. (March 31, 2011) - Rookie Star Mazda driver Nick Mancuso solidified his name as a contender in the professional open-wheel ranks with a solid top-ten finish in this past weekend’s St. Petersburg Grand Prix.  The formula car newcomer drove a strong race, advancing from 13th position on the grid and eventually bringing the Jimmy John's/INDECK car home in 7th place.  The 45 minute race through the streets of St. Petersburg, FL was punctuated by several caution periods and exciting restarts.
“Wow, what a race!” stated Mancuso. “It truly was a street fight in the #27 Jimmy John's/INDECK car. This was the first open-wheel race I've ever done, so I'm very happy to have moved up through the field and finish 7th.  It's truly a testament to the JDC team and my chief mechanic Dave Hoppel that I was able to do so.  At one point, I was run over by another car that flew over the top of me so I am glad to have finished at all; let alone inside the top-10!"


   After his first Formula One-style standing start and a strong charge towards the front, Mancuso looked set to finish the race in 5th position until contact in Turn 1 nearly took him out of the race entirely.  "I arguably should have finished inside the top 5 until another driver tried an overly ambitious move in Turn 1.  That stuff happens and I considered myself lucky to be able to finish the race at all after some of what I saw out there.  Given my limited seat time in these Mazda racecars it's very important that I do everything in my power to finish every race.  It's been a dream of mine for a long time to race these cars and I still can't believe it is actually happening.  I can't thank my racing partners Jimmy John’s and INDECK enough and I can't wait to be back in the car next weekend for the Grand Prix of Alabama!”



A native of Lake Forest, Ill., Nick Mancuso joins JDC Motorsports in the Star Mazda Championship this coming season having raced exclusively in the sports car ranks in his young racing career. First getting behind the wheel in 2006, he immediately steered his way into victory lane, winning numerous races in SCCA Regional Sports 2000 competition. That trend continued one year later in National competition, culminating in a third place finish in the year-end SCCA National Championship Runoffs, and the Jim Fitzgerald Rookie of the Year award. Making the move up to the pro racing ranks, Mancuso was selected to take part in the inaugural Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup in 2008, before racing in the SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 in 2009. Last season, the Illinois racer contested one race in the SCCA World Challenge, piloting an Aston Martin DB9 in the GT class. In addition to his racing activities, Mancuso is an 'extreme adventurer' with hobbies that include SCUBA and free-diving, skydiving and capturing reptiles in the wild.  In addition, he was inducted into the cum Laude Society in 2004 and in 2005 he was made a member of the National Honor Society and chosen as a National Merit Scholar.  He was born December 31, 1986.


PS you can follow me now on Twitter (even though I am still figuring out how to work it!) @nickmancusorace.  I will try to link it to my webpage int he future too!

Thanks,
Nick