Dave "Houdini" Porter pulls off another win at IOWA Speedway

Jamie Little:  "Jeff Prutzman, you placed 3rd driving you new Energizer car.   What was your strategy?  What happened?"
Jeff:  "What happened?  I stayed out way too long on one run, and popped a right front tire about half a lap before pitroad.  I shouldn't have pushed it so hard and was hoping the #24 would pop a tire too at that point.  I knew I had 2nd all sewn up but ya never know.  You plan for the worst and hope for the best.   I thought at the end the 24 might have been running hard and with 17 laps to go, I contemplated coming in and splitting my pit stops (short pit) but then thought I wouldn't have gained anything.  It seemed the 24 had saved his stuff throughout the race and ran a smart race."

Jamie:  "Did you have any other problems out there or was that all?"
Jeff:  "Coming on up out of turn 4 would take a big chunk out of my tires if I hit it wrong.  We ran a pretty flat camber to try and preserve the tires so we were setup for long green runs and that we had.  With 2 laps left, my right front blew out again and we were running 2nd at that point.  I drove drove it as straight and up against the wall the best that I could and we almost made it to the finish line without giving up the position, but Alex caught us and passed us on the last straight away."

Jamie:  "Anything else you would like to add?"
Jeff:  "Yea, Happy Mothers Day Jamie!"

Jamie:  "We caught up to John Boneske in the number 49.  John, what was your car like?"
John:  "It was junk from the get go.  We qualified one tenth behind the leader and in 4th so I thought we had a decent car but this was the first time we've been sooo…."

Jamie:  "What happened?"
John:  "That was the track of serious tire conservation.  It chewed up my tires like crazy.  I got my setup from the guru and adjusted it to my liking but at the same time, it ate up my tires too much."

Jamie:  "And were now in Victory lane.  Dave Porter is climbing out of his car.  Dave - another IOWA win for you."
Dave:  "Whoo Hoo!  Finally a win…"

Jamie:  "You won but how was your race?"
Dave:  "The race started out as expected - drivers were battling early for position.  It's was a nerve racking strategy to play it safe, calm, and SLOW at the beginning of a race.  Conserve tires was our major plan.  Watching drivers just leave you in the dust just makes you want to scratch the plan and go for it but being able to stick to the plan is all a part of experience."

Jamie:  "Your qualifying time was a bit off your normal, what happened?"
Dave:  "We scratched the wall once and sluffed off some speed but it was an immediate call on my part to scratch qual and take a provisional.  We did turn a time 2 tenths slower than the pole position on our first lap so we didn't have to take a provisional, but the idea of getting those front runners up in the field and relax in the back for a while also helped us in our plan."

Jamie:  "So your strategy was tire conservation"
Dave:  "Yep, but I also calculated pit stops - everyone's - monitoring their stops from the track board and what people were doing as far as fuel.  We anticipate drivers short pitting and that just made calculating the end of the race a bit harder, but since there were only 2 that did that (Alex and John) it was easy to monitor.  We were able to calculate with about 90 percent accuracy, and with 3 pit stops to go, given our lap times and longevity, we would be ahead at the end with about 5 laps to go and would still have a nice set of tires under the car in case those calculations didn't hold true.  A few adjustments during the race happened so we could run (surprisingly) slower and save our tires early in the race, then adjusted them out to run harder, and have a faster running car at the end.  It was like playing a football plan to perfection.  Faked out the opposition, and just walked past for a touchdown.