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.

I never raced Mid-O but have been there many times.

I'm not a good qualifier either, never have been.

"my shoe melted on the floor of the car...keep in mind this is a fireproof shoe."
I don't seem to have that problem.

"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."
Yea, a pet peeve of mine, been known to shake a fist at the idiots.

"The class leading American Iron cars were behind us and jumped the restart, getting firmly into the middle of our battle."
The white Mustang is one to keep an eye on in future races.

The last portion of the race kinda sucked since you didn't have anyone to play with and were nursing.
Finishing is better than getting towed.

The back straight is a little rough.

Nice vid, I would have liked to have seen a portion of the steering wheel though.

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The white Mustang is proof that you don't need the latest and greatest to be fast. It's an old Fox body Mustang driven by Jay Andrew, he's been piloting that thing to championships for many years. The blue Mustang was driven by Dean Martin, you may know him from Rehegan Racing, last year's Koni Challenge championship team.

In general we're faster than those guys, but Andrew's overall fast lap was quite impressive, more than 1/2 a second quicker than my fast lap yesterday.

It's funny, I never notice how rough certain tracks are until I look at the video. I do need a better camera, I'm grateful to my buddy for loaning me his, but the fish-eye view really sucks. The race was much more exciting that the video shows

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I know what those bumps would feel like in a 1250 lb. car with 600 & 1000# springs.

Run that in a kart at 120 and it will blur your vision.

Was that a Go-Pro camera?

Sounds like a recipe for kidney failure

Yeah, it's a GoPro. An old one. I borrowed it but need to get my own, with better quality. That one is terrible.

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Vids on the new one look OK to me but what do I know.

I just fould a crappy vid of me at Reno but Windows 7 won't play it.

thanks for the report, I always look forward to reading them.

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Not nearly as much fun as I have making them!

Now just imagine your green monster in the mix out there....

You have the pickup for your daily driver, get a cage in that thing and we'll all meet up at the Glen!

Like a lot of turns?

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The new HD GoPros look amazing. Take a look at Matt's video using one from the saturday race:

http://vimeo.com/14184930

You might have to turn off the HD (little button in the corner of the video), it still looks the same but most computers won't play it smoothly. Oh, and he didn't edit out the beginning, skip about 6:00 minutes in.

He almost won, by the way. Sonofagun is still faster than me. Too bad his crappy C4 brakes gave out on him and he had to back down from the EVO I tangled with on Saturday.

...

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Goose Bumps.
That's really good quality for the money.

Nice that my Toshiba laptop has a HD and a 16 inch screen.

Nice write up Jon. Great job on a solid weekend too. Are you racing at Putnam in October? Saturday should be a double race then Sunday doesn't count for anything.

****Hidden message =(Sat. Night at Bubba's should be a dooooozie)

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I don't drink, so Bubba's isn't a big reason for me to go...

But that's still the plan. Cece already got a hotel room. Although Aaron's email about doubling up on students makes me not want to instruct, that's complete BS.

I want to make Gingerman this weekend, but I don't think it'll happen. I'll be racing myself in PTA (no surprise) and only Sawtell is signed up in ST2. I also need to replace that right front wheel bearing, I'm sure that tire tore it up Sunday. Good thing I have one from our friends at Mac auto;)

By the way, I'm keeping all that gravel in the car so I can make weight.

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Yea, really. I did that last month in 103* weather.
Won't do it again.

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You end up slighting both. I won't have time to spend with them before and after each driving session, won't be able to do any instructor ride and drives, etc.

Poor system.

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Debrief is really important ( I use track maps). And the pre session is important but takes less time.

And the chief instructor sits around and watches the group (which he's supposed to). He's not getting slamed around in cars w/o harnesses.
I go for the Chief position but then I'd have to do the classroom sessions too.

If I was smart, I stay Chief of Tech and blow off the instructing.

BTW they make special heel caps for shoes just for that purpose.

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I bought some high dollar special one-of-a-kind footwear...

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Finally watched the vid. Nice work not getting stuck on that off. Maybe you could've still done the pass if you stayed in it? :P

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Don't worry, you know those students only pretend to listen anyways so they get back on the carousel unsupervised asap.

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As long as they listen to me while I'm in the car, I'm good. Wetting ypur pants in a hot car does not cool you off. After that they're on their own.

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Can you make me an avatar of about 10 seconds of that section of the video?

I can with Corel. Might be awhile though. Maybe sunday night.

But I think you should change it to your racing shoe / swiffer.

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I can market this.

"After a hard day of racing, the last thing you want to do is clean your kitchen floors. With our new Sparcoswiffer shoe, once the checker flag flies just walk around the room and it's taken care of for you!"