ProCoach

Track is REALLY good...

bauerjab

Peter, where are you located? Want to stop by

ProCoach

John, I am never still!

Will try and find you today after things slow down a little.

987part

good luck out there guys!

linzman

P5 of 17 in class, and more than 5 sec faster than my previous best. Thanks to some great coaching. Still room for improvement.

Veloce Raptor

Cool! Great job

JP66

This is a dupe post, but I felt it should be here as well for a full internet disclosure. Initially I was responding to another post hence my reason for being involved in the E thread, but really it should have been here.


Broken linkage. Went for the shift and no gears to be found.

All in all a humbling weekend for a rookie. I was there for 5 days and had coaching from the best SP2 driver around, Van Svenson. In 5 days I dropped from 2:30 to my best lap in Sprint 1 of 2:20.22 because of Van's help, but my brain simply shut down on the start in both sprints and both races I ended up focusing on cars around me and as a result I hit my brakes ludicrously late and spun, first in turn 1 race 1 and then in the bus stop in race 2. I caused another driver damage because of the mayhem and ended up getting a well deserved 13/13.

I am not giving up on myself because I know I can drive well I simply need to learn to not get distracted. I drive a 777 for a living and never lose focus. If I did hundreds would die, but somehow in a race car I let myself become spell bound. My goal is to never spin again in a race because of my own actions.

Here are 3 videos I call the good the bad and the ugly . . .

I call the second one the ugly because what I didn't show is that I lost the pass because of a miss shift. Trust me when I say I am humbled beyond belief and want desperately to redeem myself.

EDIT: Turns out in my first race at LRP my tires were at 25 psi and the proper pressure for my class on Hoosiers is 38 to 40. Also my car was setup less than ideal and required significant change to improve it's handling, but I didn't learn how to express what I was experiencing to my pit crew until Simon and Van taught me how to communicate what my butt feels to the mechanics who can then make the necessary adjustments.

ProCoach

You'll be fine, Joe. Let's talk sometime about starts...

Frank 993 C4S

We had some great races in the Yellow/Purple Group this weekend. The Enduro was absolutely crazy. Going from wet to dry after 30/35 minutes.

I had a comfortable overall lead as I pitted immediately when my fuel window opened and switched to Slicks. About 20 min from the end, my front left tire blew out and I spend the rest of the race parked at T9 next to the Porta Potty. Then Charlie Belluardo took the lead but also blew a left front tire 3 laps later. Harold Petit then took the lead but since he was still on rains, Ken Nielsen caught him at the end. What a nail biter Race!

sbelles

Thanks to the stewards for allowing the quasi split start in sprint one. It was great getting all the Boxsters together for a photo op. Sorry to any of the D cars we steamrolled on the restart but it was a blast.

Streak

Worst picture ever

mannym5

Great time(as always) at The Glen. Here is a video of the purple group enduro from my SPC. Track went from quite wet at the start and gradually dried. I made the last minute decision to go on slicks the entire race and it paid off for me in the end despite having to be very cautious the first 20-30min. Ended up 1st in SPC and 4th overall


Here is a 360 cam view of yellow sprint 2 race start.

Veloce Raptor

JP: great self analysis!

I agree with the others about you simply needing wheel to wheel seat time. Also please consider coaching specifically on race craft

mmuller

Best picture ever!

Race one was a good race and will post video of it later. Hunt and I had a great battle for the last 5 or 6 laps for second place. It was epic.

Overall however, one of the worst club race events from a driving perspective I have done. Race one with our 'rogue' split start made me uncomfortable from a safety standpoint , but we managed to pull it off and have that great photo as a result. Race 2 was god awful. I never seen such a lack of heads of driving and drivers pushing 'to hard' and causing incidents. I had 4 cars pin in front of me and I almost hit them and two drivers who thought driving me into the wall at the top of the esses would be a good idea. By the time we had done 4 full course yellow laps in sprint 2 I decided I wasn't having fun anymore and was happy me and the car where in one piece still and decided to keep it that way and pull off.

Cars ran fast all weekend and congrats to the SPB drivers that where hitting the 2:11 times. I was just happy to be back in the car after a long recovery period and be reasonably competitive.

Streak

What a weekend!

First a YUUUUGE shout out to Todd Lamb, Brain and Jim of ATLSPEEDWERKS for coaching and support. For all your support and driver development needs, ATLSPEEDWERKS! Call today! And parts! They bring parts like wheel carriers and stuff so when my bearing removal tool breaks they just replace the whole thing which they did Thursday night or I might have been done. Awesomeness.

Seriously about that, looking at the entry list I was somewhat resigned to finishing outside the top 5 or 7 since some big guns were in the field. I was determined, however, to beat the Glen! I love this track but it is my second worst track and I knew with out a doubt that I could be faster. The worst being Sebring. I hired Dave Scott last year but being riddled with the actual plague and a laughable car set up I was unable to make the most of his input. I am happy to report that this year the car was set up very well and the driver was plague free all weekend! My prior best was a 2:14 flat and the record was 2:12 flat (set by Matt Muller) so my goal was to get into at least the 13’s. Be damned if I didn’t see a low 13 in the DE on Thursday! But there is more. After some data analysis and video watching Todd found me another second which was good enough for a personal best of 12.067 and POLE for sprint 1!!!! When I pulled in to the pit for tire pressures Brian told me I was P1 and no one was more surprised than me! I’ve never been on pole before. What a hoot! I’ll admit I was pretty unlivable for a while. Almost had to go buy a bigger helmet. I demanded preferential seating at dinner and only associated with other pole sitters like Robbie Wilson and looked offended when non-pole sitters would attempt to speak with me. You know, stuff like that.

FYI, the autographed coffee table book of my run to the pole will be out Tuesday for anyone interested.

I’ll pause here to congratulate Chris Drake on setting the new track record of 11:2!

So I was the KING of SPB for 21 hours and however long it took to get from the bridge to the start finish line in sprint 1 where Matt took away all my glory and the lead.

Nevertheless, sprint 1 was an epic battle with Matt for P2. Me! Fighting for position with the venerable Matt Muller! Nose to tail racing in these cars is just as fun as it gets. While Matt and I were duking it out, Counterman took the win while I captured 3rd.

I threw as much paper on Counterman’s car as I could but the scrutes were busy inspecting the actual anuses of the E drivers. Just kidding, Jim is a superlative driver and took both wins Saturday so kudos on a great day for him.

In Sprint 2 I had an epic start and found myself battling Drake for the lead. Me! Battling the legendary Drake for the lead! Dammit it was fun right up until Counterman got by us both! P3 for me again! Really great day of racing. Two 3rds was way past my wildest expectations and has to rank up there with one of the best race days of my amateur career.

I felt like Al Bundy after scoring 4 touchdowns in a single game.

So I packed the car up, put it in the trailer and prepared to skip what was forecasted to be awful weather conditions for an enduro. And Todd tried to hide his disappointment but I knew he was disappointed when he told me he was disappointed so I slept on it. Checked the weather in the morning and decided to give it a go. Then I had to unpack the car. I was actually ready to hook up and leave so that sucked but in the end it all worked out and the car was readied for battle by Brian and Jim.

I am not a fan of the rain. Not at all. In fact I think I can count on half of one hand how many times I’ve raced in the rain. I was not looking forward to it but Todd walked me thru some video about what to look for and what to feel for in adverse conditions. So with much trepidation I strapped in and headed to the grid.

And got bitchslapped on the start

I have to say that I appreciate the patience exhibited by many in the faster cars on Hoos because I was white knuckled for the first 20-30 minutes before I started to get a little more comfortable. Oddly I was pretty OK thru and out of the corners but in the brake zones I really really really took it easy. Too easy. I found I would gain some ground only to lose it as I gently coasted to each turn in point. I’ll need to work on that. Hoyt and Felker were good to run with. We had some good back and forth which helped me gain a bit more confidence. Competition will do that. As the track dried I got my first taste of running treaded tires in the dry in a loooooong time. Needless to say there were some corners that even with a dry line were still hairy. Coming out of T3 and thru 10 I felt like an air hockey puck. So Todd makes the call to switch to dries and in we came one after the other and Brian and Jim went to work. What a difference. Eye opening to run RA1’s and the RR’s back to back like that. Gone were the T3 and T10 issues. I was able to set the fastest lap for SPB in the enduro though with a little bit of a tire advantage. Or was it a crew advantage?

Having reviewed the enduro video I owe Ron Kirshner an apology as I chopped the ever living **** out of him going into the bustop. I saw him coming but misjudged his closing speed, turned in and flummoxed him pretty good. Flummoxed is probably not the F word he would use. I put a pretty good chop on Hoyt at one point as well so sorry to him too.

An extra special thanks goes to Nader Fotouhi. Nader (G class) is a class act thru and thru. During sprint 2 Nader was coming up on an epic three way battle for the SPB lead and when he realized what was happening he laid back and let us fight it out. Nader you are a prince of a man and a gracious competitor. Please post the video as it’s probably a fun one!

And a final note to Watkins Glen: when preparing for a rain event I would like to suggest that the Glen move the Armco back at least another 100 yards and cover all on track painted surfaces with grip tape. Thanks in advance!

Videos coming soon!