Talladega 1/19/15

[Optimus Prime]

Good evening all,

Just wanted to take a minute to address that first big crash last night due to my exiting the pits and coming onto the racing surface.

Specifically to the #68, and all drivers that found their nights end before the half way point of the event, I apologize. In retrospect, I made a couple crucial errors and probably should have approached the situation with much less aggression than what I used with plenty of time left to go to the finish.

For whatever reason I struggled all night long to remember that the merge point was into turn 1 as opposed to what I thought I'd remembered, it being at the exit of two on the back stretch. So when my spotter told me to merge I did so immediately, trying to anticipate Larry Jr. merging ahead of me as well. What I hadn't been anticipating was Larry giving me the go ahead to go by him, thus the beginnings of my poor judgement calls. Never once did I glance in the mirror to see where the leaders were behind me, nor did I look at my F2 to check the closing rate and how far back the full speed cars were. From there I went to the middle line not knowing when Larry would be coming up.

Understand, I am NOT blaming Larry Jr. for any of this, just using him as he was the car there.

When I realized he wasn't coming up, I was coming to the exit of two, then I FINALLY looked in my mirror and realized how much I underestimated the closing rate of the pack. In a panic I jolted my wheel to the right thinking I'd be safer on the high side, but then realized that was EXACTLY where the closing cars were, which was when I quickly tried darting back to the low side, cutting the nose off the 68 car, and from there the junkyard exploded into itself.

Knowing all that now, I can't promise you perfection or that I won't get an extreme case of the derp's ever again, but I can just about promise you that there is still learning to be done here, whether it be in terms of patience, aggression, practice, what have you.

But you know what they say about hindsight...

Fremouw, out.

[Optimus Prime]

I echoe Matt. Class statement Zak. Just like we all are at times, you were in a unique situation requiring a spit second decision in the face of uncertainty. Could happen to anyone.

Keep your head up!!