Alex Tagliani suffered through a pretty miserable evening on
Wednesday night.
The contender had conceded for weeks that his short track focus
stood to be the weakest in comparison to his road course and street course
confidence, and yet, Tagliani nearly earned two top-fives with a car that didn’t
do much of anything he wanted it to during the twin NASCAR Pinty’s Series 125-lappers.
Tagliani was running fourth with nine laps remaining in the
first race when he spun in Turn 1 while attempting to lap Julia Landauer as
rain started to fall on the .333-mile short track. The race never resumed, and
he was scored 11th at the time of the race-ending caution.
The reigning championship runner-up finished sixth in the
nightcap but only after starting 16th and passing the most cars combined over
the course of both races.
But with his three championship rivals all finishing ahead of him in both races on Wednesday, the Prairie Thunder 125s was a disaster for the Lachenaie, Quebec native. He says he and crew chief Tyler Case have tried some new oval set-ups on the No. 18 this summer and it just hasn’t paid dividends through Jukasa, Chaudière and Saskatoon.
RECAP + RESULTS: LP Dumoulin, Andrew Range take Twins 125s
“You know, the
truth is that we made like a tremendous amount of change here today on all of
the 22 Racing Team cars, and we made small improvements,” Tagliani said.
“But I think we really owe it to ourselves to get back to a more known
set-up because we are just sort of lost at the moment.
“Like, it’s good that we finished sixth, but just
imagine how good we could have been if the car was doing what we wanted it to do.
This doesn’t feel like a sixth-place car at the moment and I had it inside the
top-five. I’m just really looking forward to getting this car back to being a
top-five car because then we’re going to get back to victory lane with
it.”
As for the run-in with Landauer, Tagliani just felt like the American didn’t show the leaders proper sporting courtesy while being lapped.
Tagliani was running fourth inside four laps to go when the leaders caught Landauer.
The former Motor Mile Speedway Limited Late Model champion had suffered a suspension issue and was off the pace. Leaders LP Dumoulin, Kevin Lacroix and Andrew Ranger caught her on the frontstretch but Tagliani had to complete his pass on corner entry in Turn 1.
Simultaneously, the rain that ultimately ended the race
started to pick-up and Tagliani spun while trying to get around Landauer, blaming
her for how they entered the corner on a wet track.
“I went to see her after the race and I said,
“Hey, a bit of courtesy, that’s all.” I think she had her hands full,”
Tagliani explained. “I mean the car was not that great and then she was
getting passed by a lot of cars and it started to rain, and there were weepers.
“She was giving me the outside, but as soon as I got in
there, she drove up and I had to go into the weepers and I spun in the water.
So, it’s what it is. It’s just a race incident. But I wish that she would have
just lifted and not raced us as hard.”
For her part, Landauer isn’t sure what she was supposed to
do differently.
“That whole thing was interesting to me because when I was talking to my spotter, he said that his spotter went over and told me to give him the high line,” Landauer said. “So he went high and hit the water and spun by himself. I don’t really remember the details because I was getting passed by so many cars, but I went where my spotter told me to go. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Ultimately, Tagliani was just left frustrated losing what amounted to 10 points to his championship rivals on a night where he probably should have averaged a fifth-place finish with a 10th-place car.
He believes they learned a ton about their short track program and is looking forward to getting after it on Saturday at Edmonton International Raceway.
“We’re getting there,” Tagliani said. “I think that we’ve made a fairly good change for this race. I think it’s a positive. It’s knowing, at least at this particular race track, what things needed to come off the car, and now we know how we need to prep the car tomorrow for Edmonton.
“So I really hope that when we get to Edmonton, we won’t be starting off so far behind. We learned a lot tonight.”
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