Driving the transporter back from Mid Ohio with my brother Bill gave us a lot of time to reflect on our weekend at Mid Ohio.  First and foremost, we are really proud of young Cole's performance this weekend.  In three short Cooper Series Pro race weekends and turning just 17 years old, Cole focused to come up to speed in a hurry against some of the top up-and-coming open wheel drivers in North America.  He's done just that, improving his race craft and driving maturity in leaps at every event.  Cole has shown he's up to the task and will quickly be on the short list of names which Toyota Atlantic, IRL, and ChampCar team owners will be watching.  I predict in three year's time, Cole will be competing in premier levels of the sport, if he chooses to do so.  Let's let him finish high school first!  Many thanks to Jim Morgan for believing in our program and having James Lee join us to extract as much as possible out of Cole and the car.  Dave Kwasny also returned and it was our pleasure to have him be part of the Team again.  I'll let Cole recap most of the details below, but stand out statistics of the weekend were our P3 qualifying spot for Race 1 -- with 30 cars competing -- our best ever as a team in ZETEC; running P5/P6 for 19 of 20 laps in Race 1, and fifth fastest lap of Race 2.  Our finishing positions do not tell the tale of the Team's performance this weekend.  We're looking forward to the final rounds of the 2005 Cooper Tires Championship Series at VIR and Sebring, both in October.  -- Craig Vogeley

COLE MORGAN:
The weekend started Thursday with the first test day of the weekend.  The whole team was looking forward to getting back on track after disappointing results at Cleveland from on-track incidents.  Thursday started out chilly, with a very green track.  Our group was first out on Thursday so I didn’t push too hard.  I was just working on getting the feel for the car and learning more and more about the track, being that this was only my second time at Mid Ohio.  The day went by rather uneventfully and we were around 7^th place on the time chart, with consistent 1.24.00 second laps.  We were running the old tires from the Cleveland weekend. 

Friday started off about same way.  We changed to sticker tires to get a true reading of what the car was going to do in qualifying.  We moved up to about 5^th place in times.  Saturday morning qualifying was quite an adventure!  It was a very damp track when we initially left the grid.  Most of the drivers went out on rain tires, which proved to be the right decision early on.  When the first black flag came out about 7 minutes into the session, almost all the drivers on rains changed to slicks.  I felt the track was still too wet and didn’t want to risk going off course, so we stayed with rains.  My lap times on rains evened out at 1.33.00.  Right as I came into the pits to change to slicks, another black flag came out.  This killed our chances at pole position, because after the change, we were lined up behind the whole field.  We went back out and the track had just one dry line.  Traffic was a big problem in getting a clean flying lap.  The car was perfect and I managed to get one clean lap in just before the checker was shown.  My time was good enough for 3^rd on the grid for race 1.  I couldn’t have been happier!  With the best qualifying spot of the year for us, it was a big confidence booster after a season full of misfortune. 

Race 1 had almost the same conditions as qualifying because of a few rain storms in between our sessions.  I was ready for a good race and hopeful for a podium.  At the start going into madness Howard jumped to my inside.  We went through turn 7 side by side and had a little wheel-to-wheel contact.  The bump pushed me just wide enough for Guerrieri to follow through.  I sat the whole race in 5^th just looking for a good result.  I had a few challenges come and go but no one passed me until lap 17 when Boulle got by into turn 7.  I came around to get the white flag and finish a season best 6^th place.  Coming out of the carousel, I missed 2^nd gear which allowed Pecorari to get a run on me into turn 1.  He got his right front up to my left rear at the entry.  We gave each other room but also didn’t give up anything.  The whole race there had been a puddle on the inside of turn 1, which made the racing line move out a car width.  When Pecorari hit the puddle he shot straight out into my left rear sending me a foot off the ground into the turn 1 gravel pit.  Then and there my good 6^th place finish went to a 16^th place finish.  The damage didn’t look too bad, but after we got everything apart, we found more and more.  A rear push rod, upper A arm, lower wishbone, C.V. joint, front camber block, nose box, and diffuser were the final victims of my turn 1 incident.  The crew worked until 10:30 p.m. to get the car ready for Sunday’s race.

We were qualified 7^th for the race and were hopeful of a better result than previous day.  We all knew we had a good car capable of a top 5, and with some good luck a podium.  At the start, I gave up one position going into Madness just staying away from all the carnage.  I had a very strong car from the first lap, and was looking to be patient and make good, smart passes.  On lap 8 coming out of the Keyhole, I made a mistake and pushed out wide.  The off didn’t hurt me too badly as I only dropped back to 10^th place.  I got back by one car and was up to 9^th when I noticed the water temperature warning light flashing. Just what I expected, freshly-cut grass clogging the radiator.  I came into the pits as quickly as possible and Craig and Bill furiously pulled the grass out.  I went back out but was way down in the order, after I went back out I was doing consistent fast laps, and I managed to make up a few positions.  In the end I finished 17^th with the 5^th fastest time of the race.  I was mad at myself for throwing away a potentially great finish with a perfect car, but that’s racing.

 We had another good weekend with good performances and bad results -- story of the season it seems like.  I was more disappointed with throwing away all the hard work Bill, Craig, James, and Dave did to get the car perfect for me.  It was nice to see Dave Kwasny again.  He pitched in on the repairs and data analysis with Craig.  I want to thank my Dad, because, well, if he didn’t pay the bills, I wouldn’t be writing this!  He makes a pretty good team gopher and panel beater too, taking over Jebus’s position on the team.  Speaking of  “The Jebus”, he stopped by with the beautiful and talented Carissa Schroeder who is, if I may say so, way too hot to be seen with Jebus.  Again I would like to give a big thanks to 10/TENTHS Motorsport and everyone who helped out this weekend.