Saturday, July 22, 2006
Qualifying 1 & 2 - 7/22/06 - Watkins Glen International
As Jim, B.J., and I rode to Watkins Glen on Thursday in the SR Racing hauler, Jim told me that an "official" Formula First session had never been run in the rain. This morning at Watkins Glen that officially changed. Along with that, I'd never raced in the rain either. Needless to say, today was a very interesting and educational day.
Due to the fact that the Watkins Glen long course is 3.4 miles long (which makes for approximately 3-minute laps in our cars in the wet) and the fact that the Glen region specified 12 minute qualifying sessions this morning and this afternoon, our class only made eight laps of the track today. For the many Formula First drivers here this weekend who were new to Watkins Glen this proved to be a big challenge but everybody made it through the sessions with no on-track incidents.
In the first session this morning I ran a 3:01.4 (6th out of 10 FST cars that took to the track this morning). The goal for this morning's session was to learn the track, learn about driving in the rain, and keep the car off the guardrails. Thankfully I succeeded in doing that this morning.
This afternoon I wanted to get down under three minutes so that I could outqualify most of the Vees and get closer to the race at the front of the Formula First field. This afternoon I followed Rob Howden (in the brand new SR Racing Evolution) to grid and we both laid down times in the 2:56 range to qualify 4th (Rob) and 5th (me) in FST. Other than the exciting moment that I had almost spinning out in the inner loop (due to not being able to see a thing in front of me (including the turn-in point) except spray from other cars), this afternoon's session was reasonably uneventful on the track.
Kudos to my father-in-law and brother-in-law for making the four hour hike from NJ to Watkins Glen, NY to see me qualify this afternoon. Hopefully I'll be able to put on a good show for them during the race tomorrow! I should be able to update the blog Monday or Tuesday night this week with a full report from tomorrow's race.
Due to the fact that the Watkins Glen long course is 3.4 miles long (which makes for approximately 3-minute laps in our cars in the wet) and the fact that the Glen region specified 12 minute qualifying sessions this morning and this afternoon, our class only made eight laps of the track today. For the many Formula First drivers here this weekend who were new to Watkins Glen this proved to be a big challenge but everybody made it through the sessions with no on-track incidents.
In the first session this morning I ran a 3:01.4 (6th out of 10 FST cars that took to the track this morning). The goal for this morning's session was to learn the track, learn about driving in the rain, and keep the car off the guardrails. Thankfully I succeeded in doing that this morning.
This afternoon I wanted to get down under three minutes so that I could outqualify most of the Vees and get closer to the race at the front of the Formula First field. This afternoon I followed Rob Howden (in the brand new SR Racing Evolution) to grid and we both laid down times in the 2:56 range to qualify 4th (Rob) and 5th (me) in FST. Other than the exciting moment that I had almost spinning out in the inner loop (due to not being able to see a thing in front of me (including the turn-in point) except spray from other cars), this afternoon's session was reasonably uneventful on the track.
Kudos to my father-in-law and brother-in-law for making the four hour hike from NJ to Watkins Glen, NY to see me qualify this afternoon. Hopefully I'll be able to put on a good show for them during the race tomorrow! I should be able to update the blog Monday or Tuesday night this week with a full report from tomorrow's race.
# posted by Jaygo Racing @ 10:36 PM 
