A good showing was made in our Spec 944 class, w Neil, Ray, Joel, Sam, Angel, Sid and myself making the event- only series director Eric was missing.
The weekend started out very rough for me. With the extreme heat and onslaught of allergies, I was in less than optimal shape to be racing yet another “new-to-me” track.
Saturdays morning warm up went ok. I felt decent, but w the full wet setup still on the “Green Machine” from Putnam, I felt confident much time would be made up in qual. A good thing since Angel, Joel, Neil and Ray were already faster than I, with Sam just nipping at my heals in a sick car. Impressively the field from 2nd – 5th were all within 6 tenths of a second!
Qual didn’t go as planned. W the Toyo R888s replaced w some RA1s, I expected some decent gains. Instead I was at the bottom end of the field, qualifying 4th. I felt loose, but couldn’t explain why.
The race started and I got a great first lap. Starting 5th, I took advantage of a slightly wide exit on T1 from Angel. Then a half-spin from 2nd place Joel bunched up Ray while I slid around the outside to take 2nd and get a good gap from the field.
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I cruised by myself for a few laps before the faster Ray caught me. A serious battle ensued while I worked really hard to make my car as wide as possible. I’ve never wanted to see a race end early so bad. After about 5 laps of slow defensive laps, and attempted passes by Ray, he finally got his opening. Ray ran a bit wide on T1, dropping a tire in the dirt. I watched this- but distracted myself from braking just enough to enter T2 a fraction of a second late, causing me to slide wide and drift through T2. It was over. Ray easily slid inside and made the pass.
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A lap later whilst trying too hard to get back to Ray, I slid too wide on T3, and Angel capitalized, easily passing me for 3rd. While watching Angel go by, I desperately tried to hold on to my dirt-drifting line. Fail. Instead I ended up pulling a “Danny Sullivan” doing a complete 360 – and though I quickly recovered and got back up to speed, I pushed myself even further away from the fight. Now Joel was on me. He easily got around me into 11. I made it my goal to try and recapture the position by T1-T2 where we were inevitably going to catch a very slow lapped Miata. When we got to the Miata in T2, it quickly became evident the Miata had no clue we were there. Joel and I scrambled to find the best place to overtake him- but I over estimated my grip levels and ended up pushing into the side of Joel, spinning us both ending up w me spinning my LH side and quarter panel into his pass side quarter. Another FAIL. Huge this time. Although I made it to the end- I pulled over at the finish to let Joel retake the position he had earned earlier- I wasn’t gonna take it like that.
After much debate, and a verbal lashing from NASA (rightfully so I might add) we were on strict supervision for Sundays event. I spent a couple hours w some big hammers, 2x4s, pipes and come-along straps to mend the green machine as best I could. At this point, I was ready to throw in the towel and go home for the weekend.
After some good sleep (and some better allergy medication (thanks for the advice Dr. Angel!)), I was ready for Sunday. Morning qual went much the same. I was slow. Unfortunately Sam’s clutch hadn’t made it through Saturdays Race, so he’d packed up and gone home. Sid had made up lots of time after downloading w Neil and their Traqmates.
Race 2 started and I again slipped into 2nd. This time Ray and Eric made it passed me without incident. Angels trans decided to let go, allowing me to atleast finish 4th. After the race, we discovered 2 rear corded tires. With only 1 better tire left, I opted to put it on the outer rear, and put the better of the two dead ones on the inside. What a huge difference this made for race 3!
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Race 3 was our first standing start of the season. A great launch by Ray and I sent us ahead of Neil, who was dealing w engine issues of his own. I instantly noticed how much better the car felt on its better rear tire. I concentrated really hard on not over-cooking the rear tires, and just ran my line. Neil had an early off, which meant I could breath and just run my race. Joel was fast, but w my newer tire, he wasn’t fast enough to hunt me down. Angels car had its trans changed in about 1hr 45 minutes from the Bennington boys, but unfortunately it was about 10 minutes after the final race
The guys at Bennington will have plenty to do before July's event at Autobahn. I know the heat made things really rough on the guys, so an extra big thanks to Nick, Dennis, and Cory.
I'm glad that it went better for Sunday's race. Overall it sounded like a bad weekend for you guys with body and mechanical damage. Nice write-up BTW. 
