COLE MORGAN:
The Cleveland Grand Prix 2005 was ultimately the biggest crowd the Cooper Tires Championship Series will see all year.  It was my second weekend running with 10/TENTHS Motorsport in their FF2000 Zetec.  I was extremely excited about the weekend because this would be such a great event to showcase my talent.  I arrived with my Dad and James Lee Thursday night around 7:00 p.m.  Craig was at the airport waiting for us in the rental car, we went back to the hotel, dropped our stuff off, and went to dinner.  I got to meet one of the nicest and coolest guys, Bill Wald who was driving in the Cold Cup class for 10/TENTHS.  While eating we talked over our strategies for the weekend and how excited we all were for this event.

Friday morning we all woke up and drove to the track, I got myself mentally prepared for the first practice session as Craig, Bill, and James performed final adjustments on the car.  When I went out for the first session the track was horrible.  The Cooper Series was the first on the track since last year, and every car had 10 foot rooster tails of dirt behind them.  A track like Cleveland is a super tough one because there are no reference points, it is just a big open mass of land.  I spun 3 or 4 times just trying to learn the track, and I noticed that the rest of the field was too.  After the session I went and looked at the results and we were 30^th out of 40 cars.  I was honestly thinking to myself, “This is going to be a long weekend”.  After talking to Craig, Bill, and James, we all can to the conclusion that the car needed to be changed, a lot.  They took my data and worked their magic, and we were ready for qualifying.  When I went out I was still building my confidence up after the first session.  Qualifying went a lot better but I still think we could have done better.  We were 16^th on grid, but with a clean lap we could have been top 10.

Saturday morning came and Bill, James, my dad, and I went to the free tour of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  It was really fun, but Bill and I left a little early to go and get ready for the day.  I headed off to the Cooper Series driver autograph session.  It was fun to joke around with everyone and I was surprised to see how many people came by.  I left the autograph session and headed back to the trailer with one thing on my mind, Race 1.  We arrived at our spot on grid and we were all looking forward to a great race.  After talking to a few drivers on grid you could tell that everyone was a little nervous about turn 1.  At the start everyone took it easy and after getting through turn 1 without any incidents I was ready to start moving up through the field.  I was up to 12^th on lap 2 when one of the cars I was passing spun exiting turn 10.  I was inside of him and we made contact.  My car wasn’t hurt too badly except for a little right front suspension damage and wing damage.  I dropped back to about 25^th and by the time the race was over I was 17^th.  Although we didn’t get the finishing position we wanted, I turned a time in the race quick enough to qualify 11^th for Sundays race.

After fixing the damage from the race it was time to scale the car.  While the car was on the scales James noticed that the rear sway bar was broken.  Bill quickly got a new one and put it on.  We went to dinner Saturday night and none of us could wait for Sunday’s race.  We all knew we had a car that could definitely finish in the top 5.  I left the grid for Sunday’s race more excited than ever.  I got my tires up to temperature and got focused on my goal of finishing in the top 5.  At the start no one tried any stupid moves going into turn 1, I stayed put just wanting to get through clean.  As I was turning in I took advantage of about 1 ½ car lengths left wide open on the inside. I went for it and I was instantly up to 7^th or 8^th. Heading to turn 2 while going straight the car to my outside turned right down into me.  It bent the whole left front corner ending my day with a 40^th place finish.  Needless to say I was livid, but there was nothing I could do, that’s racing, all the team's hard work was thrown away in turn 1 on lap 1 by one stupid move.

In the end, the weekend was good although we didn’t get the finish we deserved in race 1 or 2.  We had the speed to run up front but luck just wasn’t on our side.  I would like to that Craig, Bill, and James for their hard work and for giving me a great car, I think they could make it do flips if I asked them to, Dave for his data analysis, my Dad for giving me the change to race and for being the team cheerleader and team metal bender.  I can’t wait for my next chance to race with 10/TENTHS in the Cooper Tires Championship Series.  They are a first class team and truly run a Pro racing team.