Your including NASA, but that's a mistake. The NE Glen race has been posting times and class orders within 20minutes of them getting off the track. There are a couple of Rlisters there today.

 

You beat me to it. I was meaning to send out a correction and apology to the NASA Northeast crew after I reviewed it 30 minutes ago!

 

When I raced at Summit MidAtlantic a month ago. They were posting official results by the time you got back from the scales!!!! Nice job to keep up with scoring and timing!!!

 

What a weekend!

Paolo you should have stayed! Lots of DNF's in the enduro.

I should have stayed in bed this morning. Had a great day on Saturday. Set a personal best time and had loads of fun in the sprints. I even podiumed. My first real podium. I've come in second before but there were only two of us in the class

Then comes Sunday and I fall victim to the loose gas cap as well in the 15 lap sprint they organized in the morning. Just about took Mark Lee out as the gas got under my rear tire in T6!

On to the enduro: About 57 minutes in the brake pedal went to the floor as I barreled into T1. Pumping furiously I was able to get the car slowed and turned but felt like I was dragging an anchor. Next turn the brakes go half way to the floor and the car does this weird oscillation so I'm thinking really hard about whether to limp back or park. Alternately they felt soft and hard. I limp back to the pit for my 5 minute stop thinking that the brakes have just overheated. Pedal firmed up in the pit. Out I go and everything feels good as I try the brakes coming out of the pit. Then out of T1 it all goes bad. There's nothing like going 30 mph with your arm out the window and a never ending stream of cup cars flying by. That was the end of my enduro.

Somehow I sheared off the end of my axle. It just broke off at the nut. I have no idea what is holding the wheel on and I cannot believe that my day did not end very badly. Pretty freakin lucky.

Even weirder is that the line I painted on the nut never moved and I had checked the bearing that morning and it was solid.

Heck of a day.

 

Not surprising at all you and J. Bauer broke axles, the track is in nasty condition... Glad you did so well up to that point and it ended well Hunt!

 

Good meeting you Gary and Paulo. See you next season.

 

Thanks to Larry and Jeff for crewing!

 

I broke my axle and I also checked it just before I went on the track. Chalk it up to up to lovely T-1.

That track has such potential - I dont' know why the can't just fix it right..

 

Sounds like the track was very chewed up? Didn't they just repave SP a couple years ago? If so, they must have just topped the original asphalt.

 

Track owners make more $ keeping it the way it is, because it gives all their DoD and DoS trainees a lot more realistic environment for doing reverse 180's in the 3rd world with bombs going off all around. I know this because I still occasionally instruct some of these classes.

Sorry, Hunt & John.






Professional Racing and Driving Coach

 

They need to concrete T1 and T5-6 and do it correctly with the right material and finish. Asphalt won't stand up unless they do a full depth repave with a gravel and concrete sub-base and allow the asphalt to cure, which they apparently won't. I won't be back to race and I highly doubt anyone else I know will either, too bad because the layout and the rest of the track is ok.

 

Turn 1 is no worse than most of Sebring.

Congrats to Mark and Lane for excellent droving this weekend. I had a great time racing mostly out of class since Mark and Lane were no where to be seen.

Also, nice to put faces with some names.

 

This is all I have left. I was only there Friday and Saturday morning. Hope you guys enjoy!

Mike

 

A huge thanks to the Potomac region and all of the giving volunteers for a superb event. Kudos as always to the national staff for all of their efforts. Special thanks to Starla Phelps and Kevin Oyler. We appreciate all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.

I had a fairly decent weekend that was punctuated by driver and car issues. Friday's practice sessions were absolutely terrible for me since I had to get some work done in the hotel room until about 1:00am on Thursday evening and only got about five hours of sleep. My on-track concentration and vision were terrible after the first four laps, and I never felt like I was at one with the car. Despite trying to take a nap during the second practice session, my third session was still no good, forcing me to bag the whole day and get some needed shut-eye for Saturday.

Saturday was a much better day, and I was back on form. Thanks to some suspension tweaks, I had to sort of re-learn to drive the car and was now able to get grip in T5 and get on the power sooner in T9 and T10. I turned a 1:23.7 in qualifying in the 13th lap, which is a really good time for me, but Lane Martin turned a 1:23.6! Props to John Haas, who along with Gregg Lewis, Chip Henderson and Bruce Wentworth, came all the way from Ohio to race at Summit. John, who has never been to the track before, was doing 23's and 24's. Amazing lap times for a newcomer.

Lane, Timmy Tyrrell and I had a *****-to-the-walls, nose-to-tail battle for class/overall wins in the first sprint race. I tried a last lap dive bomb on Timmy on T1 but carried too much speed in the corner and ended up going off in the grass, not losing too much time to Lane. I finished second overall and first in class, and got the overall win when Timmy was found to be underweight and was DQ'd. I also somehow managed to win the Workers' Choice Award for the first sprint, my first-ever. Thanks to my cool neighbor Jim Pappas for performing crew chief duties and running my radios; he helped me get by three or four cars at the start of the third sprint race by telling me that the green flag had dropped.

We gridded for the second sprint based on our fastest lap in the first sprint, so I managed to be on pole for the race. A black 3.2 Carrera rolled and ended up in the tire wall at track out for T9 after he got tapped by another car. It was not pretty, but the driver came out unhurt. I made a stupid, stupid mistake on the restart as the lead car and lost first place in G to Lane. Tyrrell got me on the outside of T3 but nearly took me out in the process. I backed out, saving both of us from writing checks with lots of zeroes at the end. Kevin Healey and I had an excellent scrap. I took him when he missed a shift, but, other than that, he was driving very well. Congrats to Sam N for getting in the 26's!

On Saturday night, I found out that my left rear CV boot was cracked, spewing grease everywhere. Fortunately, I had a spare axle shaft and had the good guys at AT Speed put it in for me. I missed warm-up and qualifying, putting me at the back of the pack for the third, bonus sprint race. I was bested by Bob Miller who was driving Sam Nikoomanesh's G class 993, but I was happy to have sort of stayed with (much better driver) Bob, who was plagued by slower traffic from a GT4S car.

For the enduro, I started at the back of the pack and picked my way through the field to take eighth overall, first in G class. I could not have been more thrilled after starting so far back, and even beat the H class cars. I was pedaling like crazy to not lose to the G class 993 of Sam Nikoomanesh and Bob Miller and can only conclude that I had a better pit stop. I tried like hell to catch and pass Bob Mulligan in his GTC1 car but screwed up T7 and T8 for two straight laps, causing me to lose lots of time to him. Thanks to the cool shirt, the 90 minute enduro was a walk in the park for me, and I could have raced for another hour.

it was nice to see some old faces again and to meet some new ones. Good guy Louis Betstadt, my nemesis from last year, was working the bugs out with his new car, after having had to replace the tub from a horrible crash involving a stalled car at Watkins Glen. Doug DePietro was doing very well as a rookie in his F class Boxster. It was great to meet Gregg Lewis, Chip Henderson and Bruce Wentworth. Gary R., it was great to see you. Sorry that you weren't running this weekend. Scott B, nice work winning E class!

Paolo, you signed up and paid for the enduro but booked out of there; what gives? (Must resist estrogen patch joke.)

I learned a lot from this race, am trying to take my driving to the next level to become more comfortable with really pushing the car and am trying to make it drift at track out. My learning has always been deliberately and safely incremental, so maybe I'll find more talent next year.

 

I'm broken stub axle #3.

Going into T10 of the last lap of the 2nd sprint race on Saturday, the pedal went very soft. I had no warning of overheating brakes.

This morning I was tightening the CV joint bolts (they were also working loose) and I realized the left-rear wheel was very loose so I DNS'd myself for the day. Later I realized the stub axle had broken.

I believe the soft brake issue was caused when the wheel is wobbling arround, it pushes the pads back into the caliper. Then when you apply brakes, you first need to re-extend the pads and then you get braking.

Oh, the only thing holding on the wheel is the brake caliper.

- Jim, #177