Jaygo Racing

After I turned a 1:23.1 during Saturday's race, my goal for Sunday was to turn times in the 1:22s. The fastest lap turned during the race on Saturday was in the low 1:21s, so I thought turning a few 1:22 laps would make for a largely successful weekend, especially since this was my first time at Blackhawk Farms.

After adding 13 additional pounds of lead underneath me so as to appease the crazy voodoo scales at Blackhawk Farms, I rolled the car to the grid for Sunday morning's first qualifying session. Jim and B.J. from SR Racing were standing by the fence giving me times and they displayed several times in the 1:23 range so I was pleased with my consistency but disappointed that I had not cracked the 1:22 bracket yet. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I consulted the official timing sheet and noticed that I had turned a 1:22.986. I did not think it was fair to criticize Jim and B.J. for being off by 14-thousandths of a second. :-) I was pleased with the morning session but I felt that I could still do better.

Prior to the afternoon qualifying session I requested more oversteer in the car (making it "looser" for you NASCAR folks). I felt that I would be a little faster if I could get the back of the car to swing through the corners a little better. Jim and B.J. added a pound of air to both rear tires and we rolled back to grid for the afternoon qualifying session. By combining my better handling car with a shifting tip from Bill Bonow (recommending I approach a corner in 4th and then downshift to 3rd rather than taking the whole section in 3rd) I ran a 1:22.520 to qualify 2nd in Formula First and 3rd overall. I nipped eventual race winner Doug Dale by a couple tenths of a second. I was quite excited after qualifying and looking forward to a fun race.

Doug outdragged me to turn 1 on the start and he and Bill Bonow proceeded to distance themselves from me after a few laps. However, I ran a consistent race (lapping several of the Formula Vees in the race) to finish 3rd in Formula First and 3rd overall. This was my best weekend in the car so far and I continue to get more and more comfortable with the car. A quick check of the points standings (found at www.formula-first.org) shows that I'm 2nd in the points behind Bill as the series heads to Watkins Glen. I will only have about 10 laps there to learn the track prior to our race on Sunday, but I will do my very best to run up front and bring home another solid finish for our sponsor, Progressive Basics!

Thanks again for everybody's support. I plan to have the photo gallery operational at www.jaygoracing.com this week, and I'll be blogging from Watkins Glen in a little less than two weeks.