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LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. (May 9) -- Any realistic chance Danny Rowe had of winning the 2008 JEGS ProMod Challenge title could have been lost Friday night in St. Louis when his Hottinger Group Camaro got away from him and impacted both of Gateway International Raceway's retaining walls. But instead of giving up, Rowe and crew chief Jimmy Rector scrambled to find a solution.
By Saturday afternoon's final qualifying session, an exhaustive all-night effort yielded a fourth-best 5.987 at 241.02 mph in a car they had borrowed from fellow competitor Mike Ashley. By the end of the race, Rowe had racked up another semifinal finish and 75 championship points, lifting him to fourth in the rankings and just 74 markers back of the lead.
"I feel very, very lucky," Rowe said. "First, that I didn't get hurt. I mean, I was going 190 mph when I hit the wall and I hit hard. Second, that my family, who was there, supported my decision to race the next day because they were all pretty wigged out at first. And finally, that I have such a talented team that we were able to pull it off."
After his accident, Rowe was facing the daunting prospect of failing to qualify for the event. He didn't have a back-up car as he'd sold his old Corvette to Troy Coughlin, who had wrecked a week earlier in Atlanta, and their new ride from Vanishing Point Race Car wasn't going to be completed until late May at the earliest.
"I started getting offers from all the other teams," Rowe said, "which is just an awesome thing because it's all the people you race against that turn right around and offer you anything they have to help you. We quickly decided on Mike's car because it's basically a sister car to the one I had just wrecked."
The next problem was that Ashley and crew had struggled to find the proper set-up for the car, and Rowe had one do-or-die qualifying session left. Making matters worse, the round was scheduled for the hottest time of Saturday's action.
"We'd run that other car for a year and we had just figured it out in the last few months," Rowe said. "It definitely wants something different than any other car I've ever driven. What we did was change everything in Mike's car to the way we had my car and we got lucky and it responded. It was an all-or-nothing deal.
"What could have been a really bad weekend ended up pretty darn good. We even won top speed of the meet, so we were thrilled."
Rowe ended up purchasing the car from Ashley and plans to run it in Bristol.
"We need it because even if we switch to the Vanishing Point car before E-town we'll still need a back-up car we can depend on," Rowe said. "We figured out what happened with the other one and we're working to make sure that doesn't happen again.
"Basically, there was an ignition problem and we lost the No. 3 cylinder at the hit. The car was kind of waddling around when it suddenly picked No. 3 pack up. That got me out of groove and just as I was correcting we hit that bump at the eight-mile. That lifted the car up and the driveshaft speed jumped way up and when it landed I went right around. I spun around so quickly that I hit with the left side first even though I was in the right-hand lane. There was nothing I could do.
"We're happy to have picked up the pieces so quickly. We're having an absolute blast out there with JEGS on board and racing with all these great drivers. It would have been a shame if we had missed anything. Now it's like nothing ever happened."
Rowe's rapid rebound keeps his JEGS ProMod Challenge title hopes intact
LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. (May 9) -- Any realistic chance Danny Rowe had of winning the 2008 JEGS ProMod Challenge title could have been lost Friday night in St. Louis when his Hottinger Group Camaro got away from him and impacted both of Gateway International Raceway's retaining walls. But instead of giving up, Rowe and crew chief Jimmy Rector scrambled to find a solution.
By Saturday afternoon's final qualifying session, an exhaustive all-night effort yielded a fourth-best 5.987 at 241.02 mph in a car they had borrowed from fellow competitor Mike Ashley. By the end of the race, Rowe had racked up another semifinal finish and 75 championship points, lifting him to fourth in the rankings and just 74 markers back of the lead.
"I feel very, very lucky," Rowe said. "First, that I didn't get hurt. I mean, I was going 190 mph when I hit the wall and I hit hard. Second, that my family, who was there, supported my decision to race the next day because they were all pretty wigged out at first. And finally, that I have such a talented team that we were able to pull it off."
After his accident, Rowe was facing the daunting prospect of failing to qualify for the event. He didn't have a back-up car as he'd sold his old Corvette to Troy Coughlin, who had wrecked a week earlier in Atlanta, and their new ride from Vanishing Point Race Car wasn't going to be completed until late May at the earliest.
"I started getting offers from all the other teams," Rowe said, "which is just an awesome thing because it's all the people you race against that turn right around and offer you anything they have to help you. We quickly decided on Mike's car because it's basically a sister car to the one I had just wrecked."
The next problem was that Ashley and crew had struggled to find the proper set-up for the car, and Rowe had one do-or-die qualifying session left. Making matters worse, the round was scheduled for the hottest time of Saturday's action.
"We'd run that other car for a year and we had just figured it out in the last few months," Rowe said. "It definitely wants something different than any other car I've ever driven. What we did was change everything in Mike's car to the way we had my car and we got lucky and it responded. It was an all-or-nothing deal.
"What could have been a really bad weekend ended up pretty darn good. We even won top speed of the meet, so we were thrilled."
Rowe ended up purchasing the car from Ashley and plans to run it in Bristol.
"We need it because even if we switch to the Vanishing Point car before E-town we'll still need a back-up car we can depend on," Rowe said. "We figured out what happened with the other one and we're working to make sure that doesn't happen again.
"Basically, there was an ignition problem and we lost the No. 3 cylinder at the hit. The car was kind of waddling around when it suddenly picked No. 3 pack up. That got me out of groove and just as I was correcting we hit that bump at the eight-mile. That lifted the car up and the driveshaft speed jumped way up and when it landed I went right around. I spun around so quickly that I hit with the left side first even though I was in the right-hand lane. There was nothing I could do.
"We're happy to have picked up the pieces so quickly. We're having an absolute blast out there with JEGS on board and racing with all these great drivers. It would have been a shame if we had missed anything. Now it's like nothing ever happened."
