There is never anything more challenging than experiencing a new track especially with a new car.  Homestead was a new place for me and never have I been so nervous.  I spent countless time watching in car footage as well as anything else I could find to get a few laps around the track.  Sunny Florida was sounding so nice to me since Washington DC had been so cold.  The sun and temperature was so welcoming and my nerves were finally settling.

I can’t ever put into perspective the feeling I get whenever I enter a track and come up through the tunnel.  It almost always takes my breath away.  You immediately feel swallowed up from all the large scaled things around you.  The fences are so high, there is banking, and there are people everywhere!  Homestead was a new place for me to drive and as eager as I was to try it out, the nerves were taking over.  After watching all that footage I didn’t notice an elevation change and I was in for quite a surprise my first round of practice on promoter’s day.

Promoter’s day was the perfect place for me to get familiar with the track and the car.  With 50 minute sessions it really gave me a chance to learn the track and see how the car was handling.  This also allowed my crew and I to adjust the car multiple times each practice round.  With the sessions we were allocated during promoter’s day I really started to get the feel for the track.  However my day didn’t go flawlessly I had a few issues entering the road course from the speedway.  Spinning in the location was something I almost became accustomed to by the end of the weekend.

Our first round of official practice on Friday really allowed me to start knocking tenths off my previous lap times.  I started getting faster and of course so did everyone else.  Entering Homestead I had a lot of self proclaimed pressure.  Knowing that in order to earn the respect that I want to be given I must first become fast enough to race with my fellow competitors.  Official practice day went well for me and I brought the car back without any damage and was getting quicker.

Friday afternoon held a qualifying session for the MX5 Cup.  I knocked another second off my fastest lap time the entire weekend.  Although this wasn’t fast enough to advance my position I felt much better about only being .2 off the competitor ahead of me.  One thing I do really like about this series is a driver is required to enter qualifying with a brand, new just stamped by an official, set of tires.  This is the series way of leveling the field out a bit, I believe.  It really makes the qualifying session fair for all parties involved.  Earlier in the day we had a drivers meeting which explained the new procedure of qualifying for Homestead.  The idea for the new method was to give an individual team as much of a chance for winning the pole as a 4 car team.  After numerous questions and explaining we took the track to find out who truly was the fastest single car.

Saturday morning MX-5 Cup was the first race at the Grand Prix of Miami.  I qualified 16^th and wasn’t overly happy with my performance but felt I had come pretty far since we unloaded the car.  Coming to the line green flag, after watching my in car footage it looks like the line started to bottle up and as I was hitting the brakes the green flag had dropped and everyone was pulling away from me.  I got caught entering turn 3 with someone on my inside.  The end result was me spinning and losing the entire field right away.  Unfortunately for me this wasn’t my only spin during the race.   At the end of the 45 minutes I finished the race 11^th out of 16.  Overall I was happy with the outcome but really wish I hadn’t eliminated myself from the field right away.

At the conclusion of my time in Homestead I really did enjoy the track and hope I end up racing there again.  Being that it was the third race in the car for me I really genuinely learned a lot about the car.  I am really starting to get a grasp on what the car is doing and how I feel in at the wheel.  The communication between my father and I is key to being successful and without a good grasp on what the car is doing I can’t relate to him the changes that need to be made.  Slowing down my hands, good communication, and really being able to feel exactly what the car is doing will really advance my experience in this car and really bring my times much closer to the front runners.

I am looking forward to our next race at Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA.  Fortunately for me this is not a new track to me and I have been racing there for ten years.  Hopefully we are closer in time to the leaders and I really am able to lay down much more competitive laps.