Sean Caisse spent the last couple of months waging internal war with his own confidence.While the youngsters in the NASCAR Busch East Series are wooed by Nextel Cup Series organizations, put in cars that were once Cup rides and lavished with press clippings, Caisse has found himself in sort of a racing purgatory. Coupled with 4 straight poor finishes after a win at Elko Speedway in Minnesota, the 21-year-old driver from Pelham, N.H., was beginning to let frustration set in.
Some of that was alleviated with Saturday night's win in the Pepsi Racing 100 at Thompson International Speedway.
"Maybe this is just a lesson for me to stay grounded. I don't know what it is," Caisse said. "It sometimes is a little frustrating. ... We need to figure out something to do to get to the next level, because I'm ready and I think I'll be competitive."
How to make that leap to a Busch Series ride or into a Nextel Cup development contract is the puzzling part. Does Caisse need to win championships or does he just need to win a bunch of races in order to get noticed?
"I think there's two ways to look at it," Caisse said. "We only have a 13-race season. I think what teams are really looking for is consistency in finishing races, winning poles, things like that. How do you stand out? You've got to get poles. You've got to lead laps. You've got to run out front."
While the rookies were tearing up race cars behind him one after another to the tune of 9 caution periods, Caisse led all but 2 of the 108 laps in the event. Matt Kobyluck finished 2nd and defending series champion Mike Olsen was third.
2 comments:
Anyone know why they run 125 laps at the 1 mile NHIS, but only 100 laps at the .625 mile Thompson? I would think they would run more...
Part of the problem is that many traditional strangleholds for the BES in New England no longer want the series or can afford to run it.
Thompson is in a bind because it's a NASCAR-sanctioned facility. Track owner Don Hoenig couples that series with the PASS North Series -- another that he is indebted to but would happily go on without had he no heart -- in order go accomodate both and move on with his season.
Also, NHIS and Dover are anomalies on the BES. Typically, they would run 150 laps on the bullrings, which is usually about the same distance as a BES race at Thompson.
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