schwank

Here's some pictures from this afternoon's qualifying session... I'll be there all weekend with a paddock pass. Literally just received the new camera in the mail yesterday - Canon EOS 400D, used EF-S 18-55 and EF 75-300 lenses. This is my first outing with it, and it is good practice before my 'ring visit next month.

Was a great day... perfect weather, light crowds. We're in the middle of Rose Festival weekend with parades, Navy ships docked downtown( lots of sailors ), and the GP Sunday as the finale.

More can be found HERE (yes, picasa sucks at compression but i'm lazy today )

Wipeout

Verrrrrrrrrrry niiiice!

911skb

Nice pics, thanks for posting. Slim to no chance of making it out there this weekend. Should get interesting if our off&on rain forecast is accurate.

hacker-pschorr

Nice to see Paul Tracy didn't even make it past turn 1 before smashing his car.

chris walrod

This is Ian Bland, a good friend and long ago coworker of mine at Swift working on one of our cars. Cool images!

Stop by the Swift trailer in the Atlantic paddock and say hi -- I am here until Sunday night.

schwank

Chris, are you in the grey Swift Engineering trailer near the entry road (near the Walker racing paddock)?

I was down there for a couple hours this morning but bailed right before the Atlantic's started their race... I figure if I want to hang in the rain all day, I'll do it tomorrow.

I'll definitely try and track you down tomorrow morning!

chris walrod

Yep, right next to the Walker trailer. Stop by, we'll BS

chris walrod

The Atlantic race #1 (double header weekend) was quite wet. Only four cars damaged, miraculously enough

Wreck Me Otter

I only had one creased door, but the damage to my psyche is FAR worse....my car was so loose that I was spinning before I knew I was spinning....

Completely wrong setup for this track...HUGE oversteer on throttle application....spun 3 times in qual...almost ate it on the outside of T9.....

If we can't fix the car, there is NO way I'm racing it in the rain....dropped from 11th in practice to near DFL...

schwank

The red Miata wreck during Friday qualy was nasty... saw the guy lose it in 10 and just went straight through 11 into the outside tire wall HARD. I can only imagine that car was totalled. And that was in the dry!

Yesterday was crazy... pretty much everyone was having grip issues coming out of 12... Champ Car practice was nuts with all the spins and 3 or 4 red flags. Hopefully the rain holds off until later on this evening!

schwank

Too bad for me today Chris... came looking for you but got shut down by the security folks... you guys were in a 'secured area' lol.

Ah well... at least we got dry weather!

Congo

everyone was getting sideways going onto 12 yesterday

skl

Can anyone beat Seabass? Maybe he'll just stay in Le Mans after next weekend...

chris walrod

Here is our resident Miata racer Kim -- just after a rain session on Saturday. I wont post pics of the door despite taking a few close-ups of it

Wreck Me Otter

I was right behind Donna's car when this happened. It looked to me like she had a late turn-in and pinched the corner still having the wheel turned when she came off the burm and still full throttle...this caused the oversteer which she didn't catch nor did she lift..I didn't see her hitting the wall though as I was busy making the turn myself.....

The car is totalled, the front end is destroyed and thefire wall and tranny tunnel are buckled in the passenger compartment.

This car also took some heavy damage on the walls at the Houston GP race...

The driver is okay though...just a bruised ego and a slightly stiff neck.