August
5, 2001. Portland International
Raceway. In a weekend of peaks and
valleys, Scott Bradley battled back from a run of practice accidents during the
test days, a first lap collision in the race that shuffled him all the way to
the back of the field, and a charge through that field to finish in the top ten
in the fourth round of the Star Mazda Series North American Championship at
Portland International Raceway. Despite
falling into a tie with Chad Block in the championship, the watchwords for the
weekend were “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
Scott
Bradley, the series points leader entering the event in the #14 Polycom, Shames
Construction Star Mazda faced adversity throughout the weekend.
In the second session of the weekend his primary car was written off when
another driver drove through an official’s stop sign on pit lane and directly
in front of Scott’s path, forcing Scott into the wall, and into the spare car
for the rest of the weekend. “I
was under full acceleration starting my second lap of the session when a car
suddenly appears from the pit exit, leaving me nowhere to go and I wound up
hitting the front straight wall, damaging three corners of the car and bending
the front bulkhead,” Bradley said regarding the accident.
“On top of that my wrists and back got banged up a bit and left me sore
for the rest of the weekend.”
The
World Speed crew quickly went to work assessing the damage and once they
realized that the damage to the car was significant they moved to get
Bradley’s backup car ready for the remainder of the event.
“The guys busted their tails getting the second car into shape, but
even with all their effort I was only able to do a shakedown lap at the end of
the day, so we all felt a bit behind the rest of the field,” Bradley said.
The
second day started with rain and an enthusiastic Bradley took to the track
hoping to show the rest of the field that he would still be a force to be
reckoned with as he easily set the fastest time in the damp conditions.
The second session would again prove troublesome though as the conditions
led to another incident damaging his car. “My
teammate Frank McCormick and I were passing the slower car of Oliver Rowen when
my car lost traction at the apex and a slid into Frank, damaging my left front
and his right rear,” Bradley commented. “It
was disappointing to lose more track time but it was also frustrating to know
that I had cost Frank some time on track as well.”
Again
the mechanics jumped into action repairing the damage and aligning the car in
time for the final test session before qualifying.
“I knew we would be right there for the qualifying session as we were
able to post the fourth fastest time of the day in a car that had been quickly
repaired and had a quick alignment. Once
it had the thorough alignment we would be ready to take on the field.”
On
track the following morning those efforts paid off, as Bradley was able to
capture his first pole position in the series and pick up one valuable bonus
point. “It was awesome to grab
the pole position for the guys after everything that had happened and you could
see how it picked up everyone’s spirits.
We knew it would be crazy at the start of the race in the first chicane
and with pole we hopped we could stay ahead of the trouble,” Bradley said.
Unfortunately,
the front row was not safe from danger as the fifth place qualifier Matt
Beardsley lost control and pushed Bradley off the track in the chicane.
“That was ridiculous,” Bradley commented afterwards, “He is a
danger to himself and everyone else around him when he gets on the track. I was talking to other drivers prior to the race and we were
asking each other which one of us he would hit. Regrettably, I was the victim.”
The
contact damaged the suspension and gearbox on Bradley’s car and knocked him
down to last place but he took to the track to try to hold onto his championship
lead. “Once I got going I found
that the car had suffered rear suspension damage, the front brakes were working
at about twenty percent and the bias adjuster had broken,” Bradley said.
“The next thing I found was that some how the transmission had been mildly
damaged as well putting me in the position of not being able to downshift
properly. The only way I could get the car to go into gear was to wait until the
very last second before I turned into the corner and just slam it into gear.
This allowed me to at least brake in a straight line without locking up the rear
tires but by mid way through the race had damaged the dog-rings so badly that I
was having problems upshifting. I had to lift all the way off the throttle, push
the gear lever gently until it would just fall into gear.”
Despite
all this Bradley was able to climb back into the top ten by the checkered flag,
finishing eighth overall. Despite all the weekends events Bradley remains at the top of
the leaderboard, tied with Chad Block at 148 points each. “When it first happened I had visions of the championship
being over,” Bradley said. “Now
this thing is far from being over. Especially considering we went as fast as we
did with a car that probably shouldn't have been on the track.”