Fw: Rear End Sends Urban Towards Rear in Jennerstown

JENNERSTOWN, PA Oct. 7, 2002; Jennerstown Speedway was always a track that Forrest Urban, Jr., looked forward to going to. This weekend was no exception, as the driver of the No. 46 Insurance Doctor Chevrolet was confident about the weekend's event. At the conclusion of the Miller Lite Charlie Campbell Memorial 250, however, Urban did not have the day he anticipated, coming home in 21st position because of mechanical difficulties.

In his two previous starts at Jennerstown, Urban brought home two top five finishes and led during a portion of his second start. In both events, he had a shot to win. For that reason, the No. 46 team unloaded with the exact same setup from earlier this year minus a slight weight adjustment to compensate for the tighter racetrack. In practice, Urban had problems getting his car to turn in the middle of the corner. After changing springs, shock settings, and air pressure, the team finalized their qualifying and race setup, but what they didn't know at the time would hurt them the rest of the night.

"We were disappointed. The rear ended up going bad. It's one of the things that we'll be changing after this race," explained Urban. "When we ran late models, you could run them a whole lot longer then than you can now. With the Hooters Cup cars, the longer races and the heavier cars, I guess you can't use them any more than you do in a late model stock car. What happens when the springs go bad is the locker starts unlocking and locking at different times. It just makes the car do crazy things. It was probably doing it in practice and that's why we kept adjusting on the car trying to figure it out. That's probably right when it started going bad and it really threw us off."

Urban qualified 25th with the faulty part. At the start of the event, he moved up a few positions, but the rear end once again started to act up on the Richmond, Va., driver. Pinned on the bottom for many laps, Urban began falling back towards the back of the field. Before lap 50, he was one lap down to leader Clay Rogers.

"Once we got in the race and the rear got hot after a few laps, that's when we knew what the problem was," explained Urban. "It's nothing we could fix during the race, so we just tried to ride the race out and get the best finish that we could and keep the car in one piece and hopefully go to Myrtle Beach and have a little better luck.

"When I'd go down in the corner, both wheels might have unlocked, sometimes one might have unlocked, sometimes neither one of them would unlock. With the locker, it's supposed to let the wheels of different size roll around the corner at the same speed when you're not on the gas. Sometimes, when I'd get on the gas, only one wheel would spin and I wouldn't have bite coming out of one wheel. The car would be real loose one time and real tight another time."

Urban made his lone stop for tires in the event just past the halfway mark in the event. Although his crew was ready to go at Winchester two weeks ago, the last-minute decision was made to use the Who Crew of Charlie Ford then. This week, however, Urban used his own crew for the first time all year. Though they weren't the first team out of the pits, Urban was pleased with how they did their first time in competition.

"I think they did good," commented Urban about his team. "When we came in, we were at the back of the line both times. We came in and got two tires and then got the other two because by the time we got to pull up to the pace car, we weren't really caught up with the field the way they had the drop down point on the backstretch. We could pass a few cars, but with everyone being strung out, we didn't have time to change tires. But I think most of the guys can go to the rest of the races. This was a good breaking in point where there wasn't really a whole lot on the line and everyone got used to doing their job. Hopefully we can build on it from there." 

Urban ended the event in the 21st position, but did move up to 24th in the Hooters ProCup Championship standings from 28th following Winchester. Going into Myrtle Beach, Urban has the luxury of having seen the track before. Only with Winchester, Jennerstown and IRP has he had that luxury at some point this year. At IRP, Urban was able to make use of his Busch Series knowledge and came home fifth. All of the other tracks have been new tracks to Urban on his first visit, and the team proved themselves competitive at most of them.

"We've been to Myrtle Beach like twice in the mid-90s with the late model. That was quite a few years ago and a much different car. But at least I've seen the track and been around it before," said the 1999 South Boston Speedway track champion. "We'd love to go testing, but with the funds we have, we really can't afford to. We'd have to take nearly two days off work to go down there and test. Hopefully we can get in the ballpark. 

"All the tracks we've been to this year have been our first time seeing them. It's been a real learning experience this year," Urban elaborated. "We're used to running mainly two tracks all year. We've been running those tracks for several years and sorta know what the tracks will do and what we need to make the car run. It's been a real big learning experience for us this year going to these different tracks with a different car for us. I think we've done reasonably well and hopefully we can go to Myrtle Beach and can get the car fairly close during the practice time." 

The running of the Miller Lite Charlie Campbell Memorial 250 at Jennerstown Speedway can be seen on SPEED Channel on October 10 at 9 pm EDT. A total of two subsequent re-airings will follow; consult listings for times. Urban Racing is also actively seeking additional sponsors and marketing partners for the Championship Series and beyond. Interested parties can contact the team through USAR or through Tex Motorsports Promotions at (412) 225-0348 for more information.