| Spectator Racing Mid-Ohio race report |
Subject: Spectator Racing Mid-Ohio race report by SpectatorRacing on 2010/8/16 17:59:16 NASA Mid-Ohio ST2 race, Sunday Aug 15. It was a HOT, HOT weekend with temps in the 90's and humidity in the 100's. At least it felt like it. I actually got a sunburn through my suit, and my shoe melted on the floor of the car...keep in mind this is a fireproof shoe. Here's the video: http://vimeo.com/14183893 Saturday I qualified mid-pack. I made up for it by taking two spots at the start. I had a fantastic battle for a few laps with David Fazzino in his Silver Mitsubishi EVO; Seeing a ricer driven so damn fast gives me hope for today's youth... Unfortunately I didn't have video running. So for the results, I hate to use the tire excuse, but I will anyway. My worn out 275's couldn't keep me in it so eventually Dave got the better of me and I ended up 4th. Actually, I ended up DQ'd, apparently there was a pass under a caution flag and three of us were guilty. I don't remember where it could have been, but we never do. Regardless, the race was a blast and it was great to meet some new competition. Sunday was another poor qualifying effort, I'm not sure what my problem was this weekend. This time I started 7th out of 8, not a great way to begin. I was gridded behind a rookie racer but a veteran time trialer (hence his superior qualiying time) in his orange EVO. Just before the start another car had mechanical issues and was limping around the keyhole. This crossed up the Evo and the Lotus ahead of me, and they fell waaaay back. When the green flag flew we were about 100 yards behind the pack! Very frustrating. Regardless, we caught up quickly and I worked through the pack into 5th place behind the yellow C5Z of John Brownlow. For only having a handful of races under his belt he's really tearing it up. He passed the Lotus along the front straight, and I was able to take him two turns later (2:01 in the video) slotting back in behind John's yellow Z. We fought hard for a lap or two, then a full course caution gave us a break...and brought the field back together. The class leading American Iron cars were behind us and jumped the restart, getting firmly into the middle of our battle. It ended up working to my advantage, JB got pushed wide and I squeezed through for the position (4:02). Running nicely in 3rd, I decided to try and put some traffic between me and Mr. Brownlow. It didn't work as planned, and I took a wicked ride through the beach. It turns out trying to late brake the representative for Hawk brake pads isn't a wise decision. (5:03) I removed most of the rubber from my right front tire, see photo in the other thread... After watching everyone else in class go by (and a handful of others, too) I jumped back on track and made a run. The tire was toast, and the flat spot caught just about every time I tried to brake for the rest of the race. Pretty soon I had almost no ability to stop or turn left, which made the car a real handful. Of course, the smart thing would have been to pull in, but everyone knows that wasn't going to happen. Sand and gravel flying everywhere, I powered down the back straight and caught up to the EVO and quickly dispatched it to go back up to 6th (5:42). On the fast left hander (6:32) you can hear the tire starting to shake the whole car apart. I then worked through a couple of AI cars who had gone by, and when trying to take the red Mustang I found out how fun the flat spot was going to be (7:10) as I about went off into the beach again! I finally Worked up to Rich in the familiar orange C4, and when he got a little squirrelly in the carousel (7:51) I got a run on him and took 5th. Down the back stretch I passed my new pal the red Lotus (8:41). Another irritating brake lock up let him get back by, although some traffic kept him from putting any distance on me and I kept in his mirrors. With my abililty to corner gone, I luckily was able to take him under power (9:36), that must've been frustrating for him...I'm sure he was wishing for a V8 about then. Of course, when I went wide and he took back the position he was feeling pretty good (10:05), only to have V8 torque strike again. Watch the camera shake (10:18) as the tire falls apart on me... I thought I might have a shot at getting back near the front, but things went from bad to worse and I decided that it was better to finish the race instead of blowing up the tire. The rest of the race was basically nursing the car around corners, making it as wide as possible, and trying to put some space between me and the Lotus on the straights. Yeah, it was propagating the Corvette stereotype, but I had a good excuse. I've never been so happy to see a white flag in my life. |
