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Question:
How are you feeling - you had a little brush with the wall.
Memo Gidley:
Yeah, I made a little mistake, got a bit sideways and lost it. On a street
course it doesn't take much. It's bumpy and there are manhole covers.
You're bouncing around, your head's bouncing around, the wheel's getting
knocked back and forth… You just try to smooth it all out as much as you
can, but still it's a pretty violent little ride. You've got so much power,
that if you hit a bump wrong and your foot hits the gas a little bit more
than you want to, and you hit a bump with the back tires at the same time,
you spin the tires and you spin out.
Question:
What is it like to go over a bump in a car that low and that stiff?
Memo Gidley:
It's a real short quick hit. It's not like you get out and say, oh my back,
like driving in a lowrider.
Question:
What was your first impression of driving a Champcar?
Memo Gidley:
When I first got a chance to test the Champcar, I had come out of Toyota
Atlantic, which was a pretty fast car. But it was all I could do just to
look out of the front of the Champcar, everything was a blur. The car is so
fast. I couldn't see the gauges, I couldn't hardly see the shift lights,
because so much of my focus was on trying to pick out things ahead of me.
Question:
You had to process visual information more quickly?
Memo Gidley:
Oh yeah. Everything's slowed down for me now, I feel very comfortable in the
car. I imagine the experience of getting into the Champcar for someone who
had only driven street cars, driving at this pace, it would be overwhelming.
Your eyes wouldn't be able to keep up with it.
Question:
How does the Reynard compare to the Lola?
Memo Gidley:
They're both good cars, both competitive packages. At [Walker Racing] we had
more setup data to work with, since Gil has been running the Reynards for a
long time. They had very consistent setups for Gil, a baseline, so I knew
where the car was capable of running.
It actually worked out pretty well, because then when I came to Payton-Coyne,
I got to work more on the setups. My engineer and I are a team, we're
learning the Lola together. We're kind of developing our setups as we go,
and I'm a new driver, so there's just a lot more going on. I think the Lola's
a very nice car and the experience here has helped me quite a bit.
Question:
Do you have any strategies for motivating your crew?
Memo Gidley:
You want them to see that you're as committed as hopefully they are. In the
racing I've done in go-carts and motorcross, I have no problem working all
night on something and going out and racing it the next day. I want the crew
to know I have no problem with sleeping in the shop and working on my stuff,
for me that's part of the deal. I kind of expect the same from everybody
else. When you get with a good team, when you get with they guys who do
that, it's a mutual respect.
A lot of people have a hard time sticking with the same girlfriend for very
long. In racing you've got like forty different girlfriends that you're with
basically all year long. You have to be able to work with these people and
enjoy it. It's not an easy job - you're spending a lot of time with these
guys, a lot of times working off not much sleep, maybe the results aren't as
good as you wanted.
You watch a driver that struggles one year and then the very next year all of
the sudden he's at the front. You wonder "what happened?" It's the same
team, the same tires, the same car. A big part of success is the chemistry
within the team. I think a lot of team owners kind of overlook chemistry,
it's why you see a lot of driver changes midseason. They [owners] don't
really get to know who they're putting in the car. They maybe just look at
[the driver's] previous results or get recommendations. The problem is that
the driver has to gel with everybody on the team, there's got to be a lot of
respect, everybody's got to work for each other. I think that's a real key
to success.
Question:
You're not somebody who brings a big ton of sponsorship money, you don't have
a rich dad. Do you think that gives you an edge?
Memo Gidley:
It does give me an edge, because the workload gets harder. As you start
working up the ladder and get to this level, there's more demands on you as a
driver. To run at the front, you have to work harder. I think some guys who
have had an easier time coming up, haven't had to really work hard. So they
get to this level and they're slightly overwhelmed, and they don't really
want to do it anyway that bad, so then they're just along for the ride and
the results show.
Question:
Can you learn anything from watching the other drivers?
Memo Gidley:
I come from a motorcross background. In motorcross you can look at a guy and
say, man, that guy's really dedicated to the deal. He holds it on longer than
anybody else, he jumps farther than anybody else. Here in the Champcars,
there are a lot of very talented guys in the back, and other guys that aren't
quite as good or as dedicated that are in the middle. There are some guys at
the front that are very good, and others who maybe are not quite as good.
There are a lot of other variables. The way you win here is you have more of
the pieces of the puzzle in place than anybody else, and that includes the
car, the driver, the tires, the pit stop strategy, the mechanics, everything.
Question:
Are you going to make an extended trip to see some of Australia?
Memo Gidley:
Not really. I'm not in the sightseeing mode in my life right now. It takes
away from what I'm doing. I'll go over there with as little time as I need
to do the deal and get back.
Question:
It's all business right now, huh?
.
Memo Gidley:
It's all business
Question:
Are you dreaming about this, thinking about this 24/7, every week, every day?
Memo Gidley:
Yeah, I have pretty vivid dreams of racing [laughs.] Ever since I was in
motorcross, It's always been nonstop. I started when I was eleven and it's
always been nonstop. It's just what I really enjoy, so for me it's like "why
wouldn't I do it?" It's what I enjoy the most, so putting the work in is not
a problem.
Question:
Is there anything you do to let off steam, any kind of recreation?
Memo Gidley:
The racing is what lets off the steam. The problem I have is when I go on
vacation, Christmastime, when I'm sitting around doing nothing, that's when
the steam gets built up. We have weekends when we're running every session,
and no sessions get redflagged, that's the idea situation for me. During the
week I'm out there driving karts. Being in the car is where I'm the most
natural. If I could be in it all day long, seven days a week, I'd chose to be
doing that. [laughs] It's a warped deal.
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