Catching up with Atlantic series driver Carl Skerlong

Published 9:01 am Friday, August 8, 2008

Carl Skerlong of Mukilteo, Wash., is in his second season racing in the Atlantic Championship series. Although things haven’t always gone his way this year, he hasn’t given up on his goal of winning the series title.

Heading into this weekend’s second and final doubleheader of the 11-race season at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., Skerlong is in sixth place, 34 points behind leader James Hinchcliffe.

Driving the No. 14 King Taco entry from Pacific Coast Motorsports. Skerlong hasn’t qualified worse than fourth all season and scored his first career Atlantic pole for Race 2 of the Edmonton doubleheader held July 25-26. He has also finished three of the first five races of the season on the podium but finished 19th or worse in the other two races.

Last year at Road America, Skerlong finished third, and he is hoping to build on his second-place finish in the Edmonton finale.

Qualifying will be held Friday, Aug. 8 for Race No. 1 and Saturday for Race No. 2 at Road America. The first race is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday, with the second race set for 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

With just four races remaining after Road America, things will have to go very right for Skerlong — and very wrong for his competition — for his championship goal to be achieved.

On Thursday, I caught up with Skerlong by phone. The Atlantic series was not allowed on the track, so he had just gotten done looking over changes made to his car in the garage.

Wednesday’s practice session at Road America did not go well for the No. 14 PCM team, so Skerlong said the car was torn apart and put back together with a completely new set-up.

Here’s some of what we talked about:

Q: What do you have to do at Road America this year to improve on last year’s third-place?

CS: I think it’s just the amount of experience I have this year that’s going to make the difference. I think that for what we had last year, third was very good. We were very lucky to end up there. This year we’re taking a little different direction, a more methodical approach to it and hopefully get a little closer to the top of the podium.

Q: You told me you were completely changing the set-up of the car. How did that go?

CS: (At practice Wednesday) we were way off, so we definitely have a different approach than we did (Wednesday), but as I said we’re doing everything very methodically. So everything we’ve done has been because of stuff that happened (Wednesday), so hopefully it’ll pay off.

Q: Your last race (Edmonton No. 2) you got your first Atlantic pole and finished second. The race before that (Edmonton No. 1) you again qualified very well (third) but something happened?

CS: I got hit by Dane Cameron on the first lap in turn 10. I had to pit to repair the rear suspension. When I got back on track we were two laps down and the car was pretty beaten up still. We got two points for 19th but it was really just a survival thing.

Q: That’s similar to what happened in the first race at Long Beach. There was a first-lap incident there as well.

CS: Yes, the season so far has been really weird … either we finish on the podium or we’ve been hit. That’s been our season so far. In those cases you race in survival mode. You keep racing and collect as many points as possible.

Q: The first race in Edmonton hurt you on the points list; you’ve fallen out of the top five.

CS: We’re still sixth in points, we’re 34 points back, which is a large gap but I think it is definitely doable. A lot of guys in the front haven’t had any incidents, and we’ve had two and we’re still fairly close. If we can keep our nose clean and finish up front, and have a little luck on our side, if the other people don’t finish well, I think we’re there.

Q: Have you done anything different as a driver this year or are you still approaching racing the same?

CS: I think I’ve matured as a driver more than anything. When I get close and opportunities for overtaking happen, I’m definitely putting a lot more thought into it. The two times that I had contact (this year), I’ve thought back on them and both times I thought I wouldn’t do anything different. Last year there were a few times when I thought “I should’ve done this,” or “I wish I’d have done that.”