Racer X's Profile
What a weekend it was. There was rain, followed by rain, followed by yet more rain. The field looked to be a very strong group of cars numbering in the high 20's (still disappointing for this race, imo) but that number quickly dwindled as the weather moved in. By Sunday there were only 16 of us intrepid enough to tackle the conditions, though they ended up being better at race time than they were on Saturday.
I missed the test day and the Friday AM practice which I was unhappy about since I knew it was going to be wet and I really wanted to try the new tires as early as possible. I arrived in a downpour (shocker!) Friday and was able to make it on track for the PM practice. The tires were surprisingly compliant and I was very satisfied to have the second quickest time behind Keith. Keith ran both his SM and his SRF this weekend and is a very good driver in all conditions. He probably has a billion more rain laps than I have so I wasn't at all upset to be behind him (by a pretty big distance). I was informed by another driver that Keith is considered one of the fast rain guys in the Viper Cup series. I figure if you can drive a Viper quickly in the rain, you better be able to drive one of these things under those conditions.
Saturday qualifying was similar to Friday afternoon - lots of standing water on track, no dry line, and light rain. I qual'd 2nd, still well behind Keith, after only getting one hot lap in (my own mistake, trying to wait to get clear track but running down the slower traffic inside of my warm up lap). After some thinking (and paddock observation
) I decided to make a significant change to the car for the race and just try it out. Generally not the wisest of decisions, but given the conditions I hoped it wouldn't hurt me too much if I went the wrong way. Apparently I went the right way.Keith was on the pole and took the outside as the preferred line through the high speed T1-2 complex. The inside line was treacherously slick and we all knew it. I had a plan in place and was hoping to come out of T2 a least in 2nd place, but I made sure to toss my plan out the window right after the green dropped. I did this by tapping the brake instead of the clutch with my left foot on the 2-3 upshift. Ugh. I had been warming the brakes (it was in the 40's and still raining) when they dropped the flag and my brain didn't automatically move my foot over... so back I went. Stupid move. So I was 6th coming off the banking. I managed to stay inside and get up to 3rd by the time we came out of T2, behind Keith and Lee Romine who was very quick this weekend. I hounded Lee for 6 corners until he made a mistake and I was back in 2nd by halfway through the lap. Not how I had planned it, but it worked out ok.
I still hadn't even had a chance to test the new set up. At this point we had a lengthy double yellow for Kevin Bosien's car who had pulled a wheelie when he hit a spinning Matt Hart. Everyone was ok, but Kevin had some suspension woes and it took several laps for us to go green again. When we did, Keith pulled out a 1-2 second lead on me but I was very pleased to be running right with him, testing some new lines just a touch and feeling out the new set up. It became quickly apparent that we were in a race of our own (fast times for us were >3 seconds faster than the 3rd fastest race lap) as we stretched our gap on the rest of the pack. About 3 green laps in I was feeling pretty good and began to press harder. I caught up to Keith in 2 laps and was on his tail. I hounded him for a bit, staying just behind him but not able to pass (tough when the only available line is taken by your quarry ). As we caught the first lap car going into T6 (leads onto the back straight, critical corner) Keith passed him on the outside before the apex and I followed as the other car stayed low at turn in. It looked like he was going to stay low on the exit so I carried my speed on around the outside and was going to shoot right by. At that point, he drifted out to the exit right in front of me (later found out he just hadn't seen me which is what I expected had happened). I had to get out of the throttle and pitch the car left to avoid him. When I did that, the tail slewed out and I began a series of tank slappers that took me all the way to the left and to the inside edge of the track. I managed to avoid a spin but as I got the car straight, the left wheels got off into the mud which sucked me off the track immediately. I tried to keep my speed up but ended hitting a minor lake and splashing my way to a 90 degree spin and sudden stop, complete with wave of muddy water and grass in the cockpit. Ugh. Somehow I had enough traction (thank you Goodyear rains!) to extricate myself and get going again, still in 2nd place, but I couldn't see and the tires were covered with mud. I got back on track, throwing mud everywhere and wiping my visor with every available square inch of my driving suit. Little did I know but Keith committed an unforced error two corners later and spun off the track of his own accord. D'oh! Unfortunately his spin lap was 7 seconds shorter than mine and he ended up winning the race by 4+ seconds. All in all, not a bad day, though I had some real clean-up work to do.All of the details are up on Mylaps (they were up that night!).
On to Sunday. Wow, what a mess of a day. It rained all night and all morning, and it rained a lot. The tunnels were flooded as was much of the paddock. Tim Blakeley sent out a note yesterday that Sunday was a record rainfall day for College Station at 1.74 inches. The only group to actually qualify were the Spec Miatas. All the other quallies were cancelled due to the weather (lightning included) and grids were set based on fastest time from Saturday (qual or race). I had nipped Keith by .1 for fast race lap so I was on pole for the Super Tour race. With real questions about whether or not the rain would abate by race time, we lost more and more drivers. The KC crowd all left (Kelly, Robey, Chris), John Strickler had chosen not to run at all Sat or Sun, Lee Romine left, Matt Hart went home... by the time our race came around I believe we were down to 16 cars. The rain finally stopped about 45 minutes before our race (group 4) which left us with a very wet track, standing water in many places (though not as bad as Saturday), and the promise of continued drying. There was no dry line by the time we were done, but the track improved noticeably between green and checkered. On the start I chose the outside and off we went. I got a good start and I will limit my commentary here as the video posted below tells most of the story. Keith hit me and spun us both in T2, leaving us both motionless on the exit. Unfortunately for me, his car was blocking everyone else's view of mine so when Kerry Bonner went to the grass to avoid Keith, he couldn't avoid me. Watch the steering wheel whip in the video (00:55 mark). I was lucky to know to pull my hands back when I saw the impact coming. When I got back on track it was clear that something was wrong in the front end. The car was less stable than it should be and the steering was further off than I've ever seen it. Steering effort was also much higher than normal. It turns out that my steering column was significantly torqued, so much so that it is twisted now. The bolt holes are oblong and don't line up now. So I'll get a new column on and see if anything else is bent.
Once I got going again, I was able to move up through the field back into the lead in about 5 laps. Keith followed me through but I would guess that I had a 5-7 second lead on him and we were running pretty much dead even times. I settled into a groove in the hopes that I could just run the last 15 minutes unmolested. Unfortunately a car went off in T1 (dang you, Ted!
) which put out a full course yellow allowing Keith to get right up on my bumper. The full course lasted for less than one lap (dang you, Ted! ) and off we went, Keith hot on my tail. I held him off, keeping just enough lead on him that he couldn't get me unless I made a mistake, and about 2 laps from the end he spun off coming onto the front straight. That gave me the cushion I needed to slow way down and bring home the win. Quite an eventful race indeed. I'll let the video fill in the rest of the details.Hopefully I'll get the car all put back together and ready for the Hallett race in the middle of April. I haven't been there in quite some time so I'm looking forward to it.
BTW for those of you considering what camera to get, this was shot on a GoProHD (older model), 1080P, waterproof case, rendered to 720P 29fps for YouTube HD. You'll notice the wind noise when I pull out of the draft passing the red car (Ted!
).Hope you enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRfc45pW ... -Y4bLuWxA=
