Surprising and Not Surprising: Texas Samsung Mobile 500
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[/media-credit]With the honors of hosting the first night race of the 2011 season, here is what was surprising and not surprising in the Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Surprising: Although Matt Kenseth was dominant for most of the race, when the checkered flag flew for him, the usually stoic driver of the No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford for Roush Fenway Racing was surprisingly emotional.
“After two years, I didn’t know if I’d be back here,” Kenseth said in Victory Lane. “I’ve been so blessed in my life with a beautiful family, a great team and I do what I love for a living.”
“I haven’t had something like this for a long, long time,” Kenseth continued. “I have lost a lot of close ones at this track. It feels good to be able to close it out.”
Kenseth’s win ended a 76-race drought dating back to his win on February 22, 2009 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. This was Kenseth’s 19th career win.
Not Surprising: From his 29th starting position, it was not surprising that Kevin Harvick just could not continue his consecutive win streak this weekend at Texas. The driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet was entangled in a pit road problem early in the race from which he never recovered, finishing 20th.
“Our first two pits stops pretty much ruined our day,” Harvick said. “The 00 and 20 wrecked in front of us trying to leave pit road, so we had to stop, back up and move around them.”
Surprising: Speaking of those pit road incidents, it was surprising just how influential pit road problems were during this race. On the first stop with everyone in the pits, it looked more like bumper cars than the usually smoothly choreographed tire changes and refueling.
Both David Reutimann and Joey Logano sustained damage on pit road due to collisions and Dave Blaney got his No. 36 Accell Construction Chevrolet completely turned in the wrong direction due to a spin into his pit stall.
One of the costliest pit road problems, however, was the too fast entering speeding penalty that was assessed to Tony Stewart late in the race.
“Sorry, I knew I did it,” Stewart told his crew after being advised of the penalty on lap 276 of the race. Prior to the penalty, Stewart had overcome a collision in the pits at lap 11 to lead twice in the race for a total of 12 laps.
“You know, it took almost the whole race to crack the top-10, so to be in the position we were in there at the end, I guess is a good thing,” Stewart said. “But when you’re in that position and you can’t capitalize, it’s pretty frustrating. Speeding on pit road didn’t exactly help the cause either.”
Not Surprising: Just as in the Nationwide race, the race was relatively clean and green. The only major crash again involved Martin Truex, Jr., who for the second week in a row hit the wall hard. This time instead of Kasey Kahne buffering his hit as at Martinsville, Truex, Jr. took innocent bystanders Mark Martin and Regan Smith with him for a wild TMS ride.
“I’m OK,” Mark Martin, driver of the No. GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, said. “I didn’t see the pile up in front of us. Just racing.”
“Unfortunate deal for the NAPA Toyota,” Truex, Jr. said. “We were struggling but we were running our butts off. Once you make mistakes and you get desperate, you just get yourself in trouble. It sucks having this two weeks in a row.”
Surprising: Texas Motor Speedway may just be the surprising turning point for young Roush Fenway driver David Ragan. After qualifying well and being in position to even win in several of the past races, Ragan, who started the Samsung Mobile 500 from the pole position, finally got a good finish.
Ragan brought his No. 6 UPS Freight Ford to the checkered flag in the seventh position. His top-ten finish also moved him up to 17th in the point standings.
Not Surprising: Just as the Fords were strong all day at Texas Motor Speedway, claiming five of the ten finishing spots, Carl Edwards in his No. 99 Scotts Ford proved his ‘Iron Man’ status yet again.
Edwards overcame stomach problems to finish in the third position and claim the points lead in the process. The driver blamed his physical ailments on a new rice and bean dish that his mother had cooked for him prior to the race.
“I’m all hopped up on Pepto Bismol,” Edwards said in the media center after the race. “I hate to throw my mom under the bus but she cooked something last night that I don’t think was too good.”
Surprising: Behind the wheel of the No. 9 Stanley Ford, Marcos Ambrose had one of his best oval track efforts in his career, finishing sixth. This was the second top-ten finish on a mile and a half track this season for the Richard Petty Motorsports ace from down under.
“I’m very proud of the Stanley boys for putting together this result,” Ambrose said. “We’re starting to really click on these intermediate ovals. It’s great to be running out in the front of the pack and it gives us a lot of confidence moving forward,”
Not Surprising: Dale Jr. had yet another consistent run and finish. The driver of the No. 88 Amp Energy/National Guard Chevrolet gained the most positions in the race and finished in seventh.
Most impressive is his continuing climb in the point standings, this time gaining another two positions to claim the sixth spot as a result of his top-ten finish. Junior is no doubt looking forward to next weekend’s race at Talladega Super Speedway, where he is not only wildly popular but also has outstanding plate racing skills.
Matt Kenseth goes from knocking on the door to kicking it down in Texas
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[/media-credit]When Matt Kenseth won the Daytona 500 in 2009 he cried in his post race interview. It had been over a year since he had won and a man that many have never seen get emotional, Kenseth said he was going to cry like a baby. When Kenseth climbed out of his winning No. 17 Ford Saturday night in Texas he again seemed choked up but was ready to celebrate winning and a whole lot more.
Kenseth’s victory again ends a drought, a two-year one that goes back to February of 2009 at California when he won the first two races of the season. It was his first of the 2011 season and it came in dominating fashion after leading 169 of 334 laps. He delivers the second win of the season for Roush-Fenway Racing who won with Carl Edwards at Las Vegas early last month. RFR also sweeps Texas with Edwards’ victory Friday night in the Nationwide race and Kenseth’s Cup victory.
For Kenseth the win joins what has already been a great start of a new season. In early February his hometown team, the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl. Then a day after the season-opening Daytona 500 wife Katie gave birth to their second daughter, his third child. Now his 76-race streak is history as he moves to third in points.
“Feels good to get back to victory lane for sure,” said Kenseth afterwards. “It’s been a long time. You talk about the second place finishes [four of them] here, and I got beat at the end of a lot of these races. It’s great to finish second if you can’t win. But another way is like getting kicked in the gut. You have to come back. Like last fall you look at Jimmie, and you come back and look at the guys and you’re leading with two to go, three to go, five to go, and you don’t win, it’s always disappointing. So it feels good to have a night like we had tonight with a dominant car and to be able to get the win.”
The win has been in the making. RRF went to work after what can only be described as a rough start to the 2010 season. For drivers like Kenseth it was hard going from a contender to wondering if you were ever going to win a race again. But results started coming. Both Greg Biffle and Edwards found victory lane by seasons end. At the start of the 2011 season Kenseth was right there with them, ready, waiting and working toward his shot.
After a fourth place finish two weeks ago in California crew chief Jimmy Fennig said the 17 team was knocking on the door and would win soon. A week ago in Martinsville they showed their strength by battling back from a lap one penalty after Kenseth was caught changing lanes before the start/finish line. They finished sixth and headed to Texas where Kenseth won in 2002 and finished second last fall.
His qualifying position, fourth, was the first tale Kenseth had a car to keep an eye on. By lap 44 he was leading and wasn’t looking back as five caution flags and different fuel strategies couldn’t keep the Crown Royal team from victory lane and their 19th career win. Kenseth also becomes the all-time lap leader at Texas Motor Speedway and team owner Jack Roush was pleased to sing his praises.
“I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to do in 2011,” said Roush. “You know, we tuned up our engineering program with Ford’s help over the winter and we got a new Ford nose. Everybody got a new nose this year, but our new nose was better than our old nose, I think. And we’ve had our FR9 engine really up to speed. So all of that is going well. I can’t say how proud I am to be here with Matt, realizing that he’s not gotten the success that his effort has deserved in recent past.”
Even with a dominating car Kenseth admitted he was worried because as he knows sometimes the fastest car doesn’t win. With teams like Tony Stewart’s hoping that they could go the distance on fuel mileage it shook up the running order the remaining 100 laps. The strategies of Stewart and Kurt Busch, who led a portion of the race by being on a different pit cycle, might have been the only way Kenseth’s team was derailed as the clean air and starting position led to a convincing victory.
“The car was really good, but starting there made a big difference,” Kenseth said. “If we had started 20th or 24th where I used to qualify all the time, we wouldn’t have led all the laps, obviously. It would have taken us a lot longer to get to the front. Hopefully we would have still gotten to the front. So that was a big advantage. Qualifying is really important with cars, and Jimmy [Fennig] has really turned me into a better qualifier more times than not. We’ve been doing better the last six months than what I used to do.”
Kenseth also noted his starting positions have been improving, which he says is important in the current days of the sport. Normally he’s a driver that would start near the rear of the field but be at the front when the pay window opened. He was the original closer before Kevin Harvick. It’s rare to see a night like Kenseth had in Texas where he could hardly be caught and passed unless on green flag pit stops.
“We’ve had a couple like this, but not a lot,” he said. “Vegas is one that comes to mind, and that was a long time ago. It was, I think ’03, where we felt like we were straightaway ahead all night, and the car was just about perfect. But yeah, you don’t get a lot of days in today’s competition level where you can lead that many laps and dominate a race and get a win.”
Matt Kenseth — The Chase Maker
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[/media-credit]You just never know. Matt Kenseth was thankful for another win. The Samsung Mobile 500 Sprint Cup race gave Kenseth another opportunity. It was an opportunity he cherished because, as he said, you never know if you’re going to ever win another race.
On this night, Kenseth shouldn’t have been so worried. He flat out dominated the race. He led 169 of the race’s 334 laps—well over half. His only competition, if you don’t count his fellow Roush-Fenway Ford teammates, was from Clint Bowyer, he of the Richard Childress stable. Kenseth took care of business with smart driving and a fast pit crew, however, to win the race, the 19th of his career.
Once upon a time, way back in 2003, this same driver won a Sprint Cup championship. Back in those days it was the Nextel Cup Championship, but Sprint bought Nextel, and the rest is history. I can remember sitting in the press box at the former North Carolina Speedway at Rockingham and the buzz was that there would be a new championship formula for 2004. In that year, Kenseth had only won one race, but using the point system created by the late Bob Latford, which was based on consistency, he won the trophy. Those in power didn’t like that so much, and the Chase was born. Since then, I have always called Kenseth “the Chase maker.” It was his championship that started all this changing and moving by NASCAR to create the perfect system. Of course, if it was perfect, we wouldn’t be changing it year after year, but that’s beside the point. Kenseth, for all intents and purposes, is the reason for the Chase.
Back in those days, NASCAR was growing, going into new markets like California and places you know today and the old had to be thrown out, no matter how successful it was. The champ of NASCAR’s top division had to be a winner, something Kenseth was not. For the good of the sport, it had to be someone like Jeff Gordon or, heck, anyone who won races. And for good measure, throw Dale Earnhardt’s son into the mix. Yeah, popular folks who could be on the cover of magazines. It was also would create a playoff system like the NFL and MLB had since NASCAR was so concerned about their competition in the sports world. Matt Kenseth wasn’t that person. Here’s a guy who just goes out and does his job week after week. He’s not flashy. He’s almost boring to many people. He was not the kind of folk you need to be your champion. Never mind that he’s a good driver who always seems to be at the top of every finishing order. There had to be a better way. Enter the Chase.
Since then, the formula had been pretty successful from the standpoint of NASCAR. Kurt Busch won in 2004, which must have had the boys in Daytona Beach scratching their heads, and Tony Stewart got in once, but it’s mostly been Jimmie Johnson, a driver similar to Kenseth. No one would ever say that Johnson has the charisma of Gordon or Earnhardt. He just does well, and he wins.
So in the year 2011, the guy who created the Chase wins again after 76 races. A guy who just finishes well in most races. Give him the car and a little luck and he wins. I find it refreshing. Matt Kenseth is most often compared to David Pearson, a guy who took care of his equipment and always was around at the end. He’s a guy who always makes the Chase. And for a moment on a Saturday night, he was in victory lane. It may not happen again for awhile, but with this new season it appears he might. And he’ll be in the Chase, as usual. It’s a shame he didn’t win a few more races in 2003. We might have avoided the one system I consider to be an aberration. But, then again, that’s maybe what guys like Matt Kenseth do. Congratulations, Matt. You are a winner, no matter what others may say.
Flag-To-Flag: Will Power Dominates Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
In the past five road course races, Will Power has started on pole and finished either first or second.
After finishing second last week, Power would not be denied this week as he qualified first and led flag-to-flag on his way to winning the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. The win marked the 10th win of his career.
“The key was to make sure I got the jump on him every time,” Power said. “It seemed like it was yellow-after-yellow. But man, that was one of the most relaxing races I’ve ever had. I am going to be a lot better on ovals and I am very determined. I am going to win that championship.”
Power is the first driver to lead flag-to-flag since Dario Franchitti at Sonoma in 2009.
Scott Dixon finished second after trying to find a way around Power all day.
“It is going to take a long time to make back the points that we lost at St. Peterburg’s with all of these teams,” Dixon said. “I think Helio jumped us on the restart, but it was better to just let him go. We worked by Ryan on the second stint and then sat behind Will all day. I pushed hard behind Will to try to catch him but in those final eight laps, I couldn’t get close as I had ran the tires off of the car.”
Dixon was followed by his teammate and last week’s winner Dario Franchitti.
“Its like we said at the end of last year, every point means a lot as every position means something,” Franchitti said. “Briscoe pushed me in the grass in one, left the door open into two and then off the turn, he closed the door so that was just racing. You think on these restarts you’re able to get by these guys, but Will and Scott were too far in front of us. Up until the final restart, I thought we had a good car but we didn’t get the right balance. I was just trying to get a good finish and to go from seventh to third here is pretty good.”
Marco Andretti finished fourth with Orio Servia in fifth. Tony Kanaan finished sixth after starting 26th.
“A little bit of luck and a good start,” Kanaan said. “We took the advantage to pass a lot of cars on the start and that actually changed my strategy. We were thinking of pitting on lap 10, but when we got up front, we decided to pit a little later. I got to thank my pit crew for some good pit stops as we’re a relative new team. I struggled all weekend as it wasn’t a coincidence that I was almost dead last every sesson as there was something seriously wrong. We took Takumo Sato’s set-up and on the start, I made a good jump.”
He was followed by Helio Castroneves, Sebastian Pagenaud, Simona de Silvestro and Charlie Kimball.
It wasn’t easy for Power today as there were multiple cautions for multiple incidents throughout the day.
The first caution came on lap 1 as JR Hildebrand and Raphael Matos made contact causing Matos to spin.
Then on lap 37, Alex Taglani spun and got stuck on the sand trap to bring out the caution. Though a lap before, James Jakes pits as his car was on fire.
We came in and made a pit stop,” Jakes said. “As I came out of turn three, it felt pretty hot in there and the team said to look at the telemetry. It looked a little hot so I brought it down pit road.”
The restart came on lap 41, though right away, de Silvestro, James Hinscliffe and EJ Viso wrecked. Castroneves made it three-wide, which made things tight, causing drivers to make contact with each other.
“We got off to a rough start,” Hinscliffe. “I was hoping to not make too many mistakes. I went around in lap 1 but the team was coming back in the top 10. Then Simona got into EJ, which it isn’t his fault that he spun. But any driving school you go to will tell you that you hit the clutch and the brake when you spin, not the gas. It just sucks for this Newman-Haas team.”
“Unfortunately, we were in the wrong place, wrong positoon,” EJ Viso. “Simona had a pretty good restart, passing three-or-four cars and then she spun, I tried to avoid her and Hinscliffe came down into me.”
The restart came on lap 46, which another incident then took place as Mike Conway got hooked into the wall by his teammate Danica Patrick.
“Just coming over the top of the hill, I feel we just crossed paths, made contact and unfortunately wrecked,” Mike Conway said.
The restart came on lap 50, and then six laps later, Ryan Hunter-Reay bounced off the curb into Ryan Briscoe.
“Well, I mean I think Ryan is sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Briscoe said afterwards. “I tried to give him room and looks like he just stuck the nose in there. He was that much quicker and he could’ve waited the half a lap to pass me.”
Hunter-Reay was given a penalty for unavoidable contact, in which he replied on the radio saying, “I thought I was giving him room and he just turned down. I just can’t believe this.”
The restart came on lap 62, which then on lap 63, Justin Wilson wrecked after he hit Rapael Matos, causing him to turn back into him.
“I think when I look back at it, its a racing incident,” Wilson said. “As we were racing in, Raphael gave me room and then came down, I kept backing down backing down and got into him. If you look there, he had a whole lane on the outside.”
Wilson ran the race today with a wrist injury he suffered at St. Peterburg’s.
“The wrist was bugging me, but it is fine,” he continued. “The carbonfibre brace I had broke on lap 45 so I threw that out and put this one on under caution.”
The multiple back-to-back cautions were caused in a large part due to contact on the double-file restarts, which is fresh for the series.
“From the fans point of view, it looked a lot of exciting,” Kanaan said after the race of the double-file restarts. “I think we need to work together on taking care of each other’s stuff. We crashed on almost every restart and that’s not a coincidence. This is only the second race that we’ve done it so we got to get used to it. Do I like it? No, but it worked into my favor. I think as drivers we need to learn to take care of other. Right now I am 50/50. They told me the fans like it and I am just a driver so if they tell me I have to do it, then I have to do it.”
Plenty of debates have been brought up with the rule, including how the leader restarts the race. Dixon complained that Power was crossing lines on the start, in which Ganassi added at one point during the race that if Power does it one more time, he was going to get his driver to take him out.
“Like usual, Brian did nothing about it,” Dixon said after the race. “If you’re going to make a rule, you need to enforce it.”
One-On-One Interview With Camping World Truck Series Driver James Buescher
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[/media-credit]Racing is sometimes a mix of highs and lows and this season so far for James Buescher has been full of both ends of the spectrum. At Daytona, he qualified on the outside pole, though he missed the race at Phoenix. He got a top five at Darlington, though finished dead-last after a brake failure at Martinsville.
Buescher is get things back on an upswing this weekend at Nashville and carry that on for the rest of the season as he looks for his first career Camping World Truck Series victory this year.
He took some time during the off-weekend to discuss his season, Turner Motorsports and more.
Ashley McCubbin: What are your thoughts on the season so far?
James Buescher: We’ve had an up-and-down season so far. We started up at Daytona as we started on the outside-pole and led a bunch of laps and finished in the top 10 even with getting wrecked. Then we went off to Phoenix and missed the race and that was a pretty downer. Went to Darlington and finished first in one of the practices and second in the other one, qualified in the top 10 and finished fifth. Our season was back-up and we caught back-up in the points. Then we went to Martinsville and had a brake failure and hit the wall halfway through the race and it went back down again as we finished dead last. Hopefully we can get a good finish in Nashville and get it back up and hopefully recover during the rest of the year for the bad races we’ve had so far.
AM: What are your some of your thoughts heading into Nashville?
JB: For Nashville, I feel like we’ve struggled there in the past. I never felt like I’ve ran really stout there and it’s one of those tracks on my list of tracks that I really need to focus on and get better at. I felt like Martinsville was another one that I needed to get better at as I’d never finished in the top 10. This year, I felt I was as strong as I’ve ever been before we crashed so I feel like going to Nashville, I’ve never ran in the top 10 there and somewhere I’ve kind of struggled, but we really focused hard on Martinsville and got better. So it gives me confidence heading into the weekend to now focus hard and figure out something with regards to set-up and something for me, a better way to drive the track, whatever it is. I don’t know what’s its been, whether the trucks haven’t been good or what, but I got some confidence going in there. Hopefully we can get a good finish.
AM: What are some of your thoughts with regards to the competition level in the Camping World Truck Series?
JB: I think it’s pretty up, even better than last year. You’ve got teams like Turner Motorsports and KHI (Kevin Harvick Inc) and a lot of teams have added a team to their fleight of trucks and Germain added a couple, too. KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) is suppose to run a second truck in a couple races and ThorSport is adding a third truck, so all of these teams that are pretty much running up front on a regular basis and battling for top fives and win are all adding trucks to their teams so its just growing competition level in the Camping World Truck Series and I think it’s definitely on an upswing, which is good for the sport.
AM: Speaking of KBM adding a third truck, what are some of your thoughts on Kimi Raikkonen coming into series?
JB: I really don’t know much about Kimi Raikkonen. I know he was a world champion in F1 and you got to know how to drive to that so he’s got driving talent and it’s just about how fast can he adapt to these trucks and stock cars. From what I’ve heard about his testing, he is adapting really quickly. You see Juan Pablo Montoya and those guys, some of those world drivers getting the hang of it and running really well, so he could another Juan Pablo Montoya, he could better or he could be worse. I really don’t know what to expect because you have some of those world guys that come in here and don’t run really good, and then you have those guys who take the bull by the horns and run up front.
AM: What are some of your thoughts on working with your teammates Brad Sweet and Ricky Carmichael?
JB: I mean, Carmichael and Brad and I are really close and we’re doing really well. I can go talk to one of my teammates right after practice or after qualifying and compare what my truck was doing in one spot and see if they’re having the same problem as me or if they’re good in those spots. We can compare set-ups and notes and feedback on the trucks and all work together to get all of us better. I think it’s good to having teammates you can go talk to and normally with a big team like that, you go talk to one or the other. I can feel like I can go talk to any of teammates on the trucks or Nationwide side and see what my truck or car is doing compared to their’s and work together.
AM: How’d you originally get involved with Steve Turner and Turner Motorsports?
JB: I first started driving for Steve back in 2005 in Legends. My first race was actually at Houston Motorsports Park in Texas in 2005. I was racing legends car against his daughter Kris Turner, who is now my fiancé. I broke a rear-end housing in practice and asked him if I could burrow her back-up car and she let me burrow it and I went racing. I’ve driven for him ever since so it’s been a long couple of years and it’s been six years now and ran every bit of it for him. I’ve raced late models, ARCA, Hooters Pro Cup, Truck and Nationwide for him. He has grown as a car owner as I’ve grown as a driver, kind of at the same speed and it’s been pretty cool to that have consistent team my whole career and have the same people around me.
AM: What are some of the differences between the Nationwide cars and trucks?
JB: The trucks have a lot of drag. Places like Texas and Charlotte and these mile-and-a-half tracks, we can hold them wide open for a lot of laps in the race. Sometimes we can hold them wide-open for the entire race; it just depends on our race truck and how much grip there is. The Nationwide cars don’t seem to have as much drag as the trucks have. It’s more similar, but still not able to hold it wide-open like a truck, and I think everybody are still learning the changes they can make on these new Nationwide cars. They seem to act a little different when you add track-bar, wedge, that sort of thing, and it’s just kind of hard to get your hands around what changes that you need during the race. The more you race them, the more you learn, and I think a year from now they’ll be as far along as the trucks with knowing all the changes and what helps the most and get as much grip as possible and maybe we’ll be able to hold them wide open at places like Texas and Charlotte for a long period of time.
AM: What track would it mean a lot to you to win at?
JB: Texas would be cool to get my first win at. I’d like to think that we could win a race before we get to Texas this summer, but that would be pretty cool as it is my home track. There’s five race tracks at that facility and I’ve won at four out of five in different series, in Legends cars and what not, but it’d be pretty cool to say that I’ve won at all five tracks at my home track. That’s where I started racing and that’s where I grew up and going out there every weekend racing Legends and Bandoleros and I was at the first Cup race that was ran there so that kind of tells you how long I have been going to that place. It’d be certainly cool to win in front of my home town crowds and all my family and friends.
AM: Speaking of racing memories, what is your first racing memory?
JB: One that comes to mind is the first championship I ever won in a Bandolero car at Sunny Side Raceway in Mobile, Alabama, and I sat on the pole for the Bandolero National race – sat on the pole and led every lap of the main event – and that was my second year of racing so that was pretty cool to able to do that. That’s the beginning of a lot that I’ve done in racing.
AM: And what is your favourite racing memory?
JB: That’s a tough one. It’d be winning at Daytona in the ARCA Series. Daytona is a big one is on everyone’s checklist that they want to win and to win in my first start there, pretty much dominating the race and leading the most laps there, that’s a pretty cool place to win and to win there in my first time trying is pretty cool.
AM: Where do you see yourself in five years?
JB: I’d like to say that I would be in the Cup Series, be at the Cup or Nationwide level. I’d like to say that I’d have a Truck or Nationwide championship by then and competing up front in the Cup Series.
AM: Lastly, what is some advice that you have for drivers trying to get into racing?
JB: Don’t move too quickly. If drivers are trying to get to the NASCAR level or ARCA or anything from whatever level you’re at, don’t move up to a series before you’re ready. You see a lot of guys go Nationwide racing when they’ve only had two ARCA starts or something and they don’t make it and you only get one shot at this, so you got to make the most of your opportunities and don’t advance before you’re ready to advance and you should be pretty solid.
