knute2
02-11-2010, 02:46 AM
Hey Everyone! It’s been too long, and it’s really my fault, went awhile without internet but just got busy of late. However with the race season here I wanted to say hello for pit road and fill everyone in.
To start off, last season was “wicked awesome” I had a blast working in the ARCA series. For those who don’t know or remember, I was on the #36 car for Robb Brent, it was a Justin Allagier Motorsports car that won the ARCA championship the season before with Justin in the Car. We didn’t win any races, but we did win some races off pit road. Maybe the most exciting pit stop was at Toledo, it was a Saturday night race and we were the 4th car onto pit road, and came off 1st, it was great to watch Robb drive off and be the first off of pit road. What wasn’t so great about that pit stop was the next lap by our pit stall the left front was flat. Then it was short track racing from there on beating and banging. If you need to know how that happened, let’s just say our front carrier didn’t know his lefts from rights.
Our best racetrack finish was 4th at a road course in New Jersey, he had some better runs that little things happened. The best part was the pit stops though, and we kicked butt on pit road all year, had to of been one of the top 3 pit crews in the ARCA series. I also got to see so much considering how much traveling we did. ARCA series isn’t like the big boys in cup who fly, we drove everywhere accept for Iowa and Kansas. Driving wasn’t bad thought, we got to see so much of the east coast, (West Virginia is really nice and I wish we didn’t have to go through Ohio so much). We got to see so many cool sights like state fairs, corn fields, mountains, farms, crazy car accidents and more corn fields.
Some wicked cool tracks we went to were Rockingham (the rock) Toledo Ohio, Mansfield Ohio, Salem Indiana, Springfield and DuQuion Illinois (1 mile dirt tracks). We also went to some of the big boy NASCAR tracks like Talladega, Pocono, Michigan, Kansas and Chicagoland. I wish the season never would end when it did, there was still 8 weeks left of the NASCAR season and ours was over, so it was a little bit of a bummer watching all that racing and not doing any myself. That being said I still had an awesome year and a lot of fun at the same time.
Now down to business, and business is tough. The Offseason went well for me, I’ve been working hard on everything on and off pit road. You can usually fine me in 3 ½ places. At the OTW shop in Mooresville, at the gym, or at work at sunglass hut where I’ve been for 6 years. The other ½ of the time you can find me at home looking for a race or hockey game on the tube. If you were to see me as a jackman back a year ago you would probably say cool, if you saw me back in July you would probably think “not bad” and if you were to see me now I would hope you would say “wow” I feel like my improvement and performance lever has risen higher and quicker that what it usually takes.
At OTW (over the wall) we are fairly new, I say “we” because I was part of the original group that helped DJ Copp start OTW Crew. It’s been really cool to see this thing grow, and it really hasn’t even started to begun. So of course being a new company for DJ has its ups and downs, we started with 9 people and now have almost 30. We finally have our own building in Mooresville, and our own pit practice cars. But the tough part is getting good teams to represent ourselves with. I guess the best way to explain that is there are some teams you don’t want to really associate your company or brand with. It doesn’t look good on you in the long run. (I’ve learned a lot about this sport and some of these teams in the past year I’ve been here).
So the plan for this season for me and most of the guys I worked with last year was to break into the Nationwide and Truck series. We have a bunch of new kids who were ready to break into the ARCA series just like I did a year ago. We had some truck team tryouts, they were not individual tryouts, they were team tryouts, and they all went really good. The only tryout I was a part of was for Billy Ballew Motorsports in the Truck series. That tryout went extremely well. We ended up getting the deal, so we thought. The crew chief said yes and worked the deal out with DJ at OTW who set up the tryout. We went to the shop to meet some of the guys, get a look at our pit boxes to learn the basic set up of them, and then we took our drug tests and filled out the proper forums for our licenses that the team gave us.
The next week we found out the deal was back in the air, and to just hope we still get it. What happened was another story that was out of our control, but in the end Billy Ballew decided to take over and hire I guess what you would call a temporary pit crew from Michael Waltrip Racing. We found out for sure at the end of last week. It was a real bummer to me and a few of the other guys, and it kind of left us stranded for the start of the season. But I am more hopeful than what most may think, I don’t think it will be too long you see me on pit road in one of the NASCAR series. I’m just going have to be a little patient for now, work hard and kept doing every ARCA race available. I just did this past ARCA race in Daytona and I hope to do every ARCA race that my schedule allows.
Anyways I still believe this will be an exciting year, and hopefully for you guys too as I will do my best to do a much better job posting updates and stories on the season. One thing I really hope to do is get a helmet camera for you guys. With that I’ll be able to take video of stops in practice and during the race to post online for every one of you to see. One of my teammates has one and the picture is really good so I hope after I do get my NASCAR license and some extra money saved up it will be something I can afford only being a few hundred bucks. I hope by mid season I have that which can also be used as a great studying tool and for resumes others have told me. Trust me it’s on the list of things to get soon, the video’s others have looks awesome.
I will kept everyone updated, if you want look me up on facebook (Eric Knuuttunen) of e-mail me at Eknute2@comcast.net (Eknute2@comcast.net) Facebook has a lot of pictures from last season up there that are really cool. I plan to post a lot more pictures from this season on facebook as well. Enjoy Daytona this weekend whoever is there, I wish I was, and I hope to run into you guys on pit road soon.
Eric
To start off, last season was “wicked awesome” I had a blast working in the ARCA series. For those who don’t know or remember, I was on the #36 car for Robb Brent, it was a Justin Allagier Motorsports car that won the ARCA championship the season before with Justin in the Car. We didn’t win any races, but we did win some races off pit road. Maybe the most exciting pit stop was at Toledo, it was a Saturday night race and we were the 4th car onto pit road, and came off 1st, it was great to watch Robb drive off and be the first off of pit road. What wasn’t so great about that pit stop was the next lap by our pit stall the left front was flat. Then it was short track racing from there on beating and banging. If you need to know how that happened, let’s just say our front carrier didn’t know his lefts from rights.
Our best racetrack finish was 4th at a road course in New Jersey, he had some better runs that little things happened. The best part was the pit stops though, and we kicked butt on pit road all year, had to of been one of the top 3 pit crews in the ARCA series. I also got to see so much considering how much traveling we did. ARCA series isn’t like the big boys in cup who fly, we drove everywhere accept for Iowa and Kansas. Driving wasn’t bad thought, we got to see so much of the east coast, (West Virginia is really nice and I wish we didn’t have to go through Ohio so much). We got to see so many cool sights like state fairs, corn fields, mountains, farms, crazy car accidents and more corn fields.
Some wicked cool tracks we went to were Rockingham (the rock) Toledo Ohio, Mansfield Ohio, Salem Indiana, Springfield and DuQuion Illinois (1 mile dirt tracks). We also went to some of the big boy NASCAR tracks like Talladega, Pocono, Michigan, Kansas and Chicagoland. I wish the season never would end when it did, there was still 8 weeks left of the NASCAR season and ours was over, so it was a little bit of a bummer watching all that racing and not doing any myself. That being said I still had an awesome year and a lot of fun at the same time.
Now down to business, and business is tough. The Offseason went well for me, I’ve been working hard on everything on and off pit road. You can usually fine me in 3 ½ places. At the OTW shop in Mooresville, at the gym, or at work at sunglass hut where I’ve been for 6 years. The other ½ of the time you can find me at home looking for a race or hockey game on the tube. If you were to see me as a jackman back a year ago you would probably say cool, if you saw me back in July you would probably think “not bad” and if you were to see me now I would hope you would say “wow” I feel like my improvement and performance lever has risen higher and quicker that what it usually takes.
At OTW (over the wall) we are fairly new, I say “we” because I was part of the original group that helped DJ Copp start OTW Crew. It’s been really cool to see this thing grow, and it really hasn’t even started to begun. So of course being a new company for DJ has its ups and downs, we started with 9 people and now have almost 30. We finally have our own building in Mooresville, and our own pit practice cars. But the tough part is getting good teams to represent ourselves with. I guess the best way to explain that is there are some teams you don’t want to really associate your company or brand with. It doesn’t look good on you in the long run. (I’ve learned a lot about this sport and some of these teams in the past year I’ve been here).
So the plan for this season for me and most of the guys I worked with last year was to break into the Nationwide and Truck series. We have a bunch of new kids who were ready to break into the ARCA series just like I did a year ago. We had some truck team tryouts, they were not individual tryouts, they were team tryouts, and they all went really good. The only tryout I was a part of was for Billy Ballew Motorsports in the Truck series. That tryout went extremely well. We ended up getting the deal, so we thought. The crew chief said yes and worked the deal out with DJ at OTW who set up the tryout. We went to the shop to meet some of the guys, get a look at our pit boxes to learn the basic set up of them, and then we took our drug tests and filled out the proper forums for our licenses that the team gave us.
The next week we found out the deal was back in the air, and to just hope we still get it. What happened was another story that was out of our control, but in the end Billy Ballew decided to take over and hire I guess what you would call a temporary pit crew from Michael Waltrip Racing. We found out for sure at the end of last week. It was a real bummer to me and a few of the other guys, and it kind of left us stranded for the start of the season. But I am more hopeful than what most may think, I don’t think it will be too long you see me on pit road in one of the NASCAR series. I’m just going have to be a little patient for now, work hard and kept doing every ARCA race available. I just did this past ARCA race in Daytona and I hope to do every ARCA race that my schedule allows.
Anyways I still believe this will be an exciting year, and hopefully for you guys too as I will do my best to do a much better job posting updates and stories on the season. One thing I really hope to do is get a helmet camera for you guys. With that I’ll be able to take video of stops in practice and during the race to post online for every one of you to see. One of my teammates has one and the picture is really good so I hope after I do get my NASCAR license and some extra money saved up it will be something I can afford only being a few hundred bucks. I hope by mid season I have that which can also be used as a great studying tool and for resumes others have told me. Trust me it’s on the list of things to get soon, the video’s others have looks awesome.
I will kept everyone updated, if you want look me up on facebook (Eric Knuuttunen) of e-mail me at Eknute2@comcast.net (Eknute2@comcast.net) Facebook has a lot of pictures from last season up there that are really cool. I plan to post a lot more pictures from this season on facebook as well. Enjoy Daytona this weekend whoever is there, I wish I was, and I hope to run into you guys on pit road soon.
Eric