Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Qualifying 1/Race 1 - 8/26/06 - Road America
Based on the points situation heading into rounds 6 & 7 of the championship, I was rooting for good weather all weekend so I could learn Road America in nice, dry weather and hopefully get up to speed quickly.
Naturally, Saturday dawned foggy and misty - and proceeded to get worse from there. Our morning practice/qualifying session was delayed about an hour and run on a wet (but drying track). Given those conditions, the First drivers elected to go out on slicks. Anybody that went out on wets would have destroyed a set of rain tires and since no FST driver has an unlimited budget, everybody stuck with the dry tires. As you can imagine, that proved to be a very interesting experience. You had to hunt for a dry line on the racetrack but I was able to hook up with Doug Seim in his BRD and that proved very helpful to me as I could follow him around to learn the lines and pick up some braking points from him. Given that this was my first session on the track at Road America and the conditions were treacherous, I was very happy with my second place qualifying effort. I felt like that set me up well for the race and, with every point counting at this time in the season, I needed a solid race to stay in the championship hunt.
As we rolled to the start of Saturday's race, I was actually lined up on the inside of row 2. A Formula 500 (we usually run with Formula Vees and Formula 500s) had outqualified Doug (F500s are faster than a Formula First) and I was starting behind him. I had high hopes that the F500's superior straightaway speed would give me an advantage on the start. Unfortunately, this was my only second start at the front of the pack and I'm still learning how to start up front (as anybody who watched the start could tell). I got a horrible start and ended up heading to Turn 1 side by side with the #49 car (driven by Jared Smith). Jared was on my outside and then I noticed Greg Rice in the black/pink Problemchild SM2 FST diving up the inside as we braked for Turn 1. Jared and I realized that three of us weren't going to make it through T1 side by side by side so we backed out of it (I ended up braking quite hard to avoid being the meat in an FST sandwich) and Greg motored through. As we braked for Turn 3 I noticed that my car did not want to turn right. I really had to fight the car through Turn 3 and this resulted in losing my spot to Jared as we raced down the back straightaway. I had trouble again in Turn 7 (another right hander) and had big trouble through the Carousel and the Kink (turns 10 and 11) because those are both fast right handers. An ambitious pass through the kink from a Formula 500 resulted in my left side tires riding through the dirt coming out of the Kink. Anybody who has been around Road America knows that the Kink is the LAST place you want to have tires off on the dirt but I was able to keep the car straight heading to Canada Corner. I noticed that the car would not get through Turn 14 very well either (T14 is also a right-hander) and I lost two more spots (to two National FV drivers) going up the hill to complete Lap 1. I believe I had lost seven spots on the first lap and I was still trying to figure out why the handling on my car was so devilish...
On Lap 3 I found out why my car handled so badly the first couple of laps. I had re-passed the two national FV drivers on lap 2 so they were trailing me as I accelerated away from Canada Corner (turn 12) on lap 3. As I accelerated away from Canada Corner the car slewed to the left. I thought my left front tire had gone down but a quick look at it showed it still full of air so I kept my foot in it heading to Turn 13. Right after I turned in for Turn 13 the car felt very unstable and another look at the left-front corner of my car showed that a rod that connected the LF wheel to the steering wheel in my hand (a rather important piece) had come loose from its mounting. I quickly realized that I needed to be very easy on the brakes approaching the next turn because hard braking would shoot me across the racetrack into the path of the two Vees I had passed. Unfortunately, even my soft braking shot me halfway across the track. Thankfully, the first Vee had already passed me and I was able to keep the car straight enough to where the second Vee didn't hit me (and he did a great piece of driving to avoid me).
Sadly, that was that. I limped the car up the hill and back to the paddock. Brandon of SR Racing was able to repair the car in a few minutes but 30 minute races leave no time for mechanical failures. This failure left me in a bad spot for the championship (as my chief points rival, Greg Rice, won the race), but there was still another day left at Road America and I was determined to make it a good one. Stay tuned for the next blog post to get all of the details of Sunday's action.
Naturally, Saturday dawned foggy and misty - and proceeded to get worse from there. Our morning practice/qualifying session was delayed about an hour and run on a wet (but drying track). Given those conditions, the First drivers elected to go out on slicks. Anybody that went out on wets would have destroyed a set of rain tires and since no FST driver has an unlimited budget, everybody stuck with the dry tires. As you can imagine, that proved to be a very interesting experience. You had to hunt for a dry line on the racetrack but I was able to hook up with Doug Seim in his BRD and that proved very helpful to me as I could follow him around to learn the lines and pick up some braking points from him. Given that this was my first session on the track at Road America and the conditions were treacherous, I was very happy with my second place qualifying effort. I felt like that set me up well for the race and, with every point counting at this time in the season, I needed a solid race to stay in the championship hunt.
As we rolled to the start of Saturday's race, I was actually lined up on the inside of row 2. A Formula 500 (we usually run with Formula Vees and Formula 500s) had outqualified Doug (F500s are faster than a Formula First) and I was starting behind him. I had high hopes that the F500's superior straightaway speed would give me an advantage on the start. Unfortunately, this was my only second start at the front of the pack and I'm still learning how to start up front (as anybody who watched the start could tell). I got a horrible start and ended up heading to Turn 1 side by side with the #49 car (driven by Jared Smith). Jared was on my outside and then I noticed Greg Rice in the black/pink Problemchild SM2 FST diving up the inside as we braked for Turn 1. Jared and I realized that three of us weren't going to make it through T1 side by side by side so we backed out of it (I ended up braking quite hard to avoid being the meat in an FST sandwich) and Greg motored through. As we braked for Turn 3 I noticed that my car did not want to turn right. I really had to fight the car through Turn 3 and this resulted in losing my spot to Jared as we raced down the back straightaway. I had trouble again in Turn 7 (another right hander) and had big trouble through the Carousel and the Kink (turns 10 and 11) because those are both fast right handers. An ambitious pass through the kink from a Formula 500 resulted in my left side tires riding through the dirt coming out of the Kink. Anybody who has been around Road America knows that the Kink is the LAST place you want to have tires off on the dirt but I was able to keep the car straight heading to Canada Corner. I noticed that the car would not get through Turn 14 very well either (T14 is also a right-hander) and I lost two more spots (to two National FV drivers) going up the hill to complete Lap 1. I believe I had lost seven spots on the first lap and I was still trying to figure out why the handling on my car was so devilish...
On Lap 3 I found out why my car handled so badly the first couple of laps. I had re-passed the two national FV drivers on lap 2 so they were trailing me as I accelerated away from Canada Corner (turn 12) on lap 3. As I accelerated away from Canada Corner the car slewed to the left. I thought my left front tire had gone down but a quick look at it showed it still full of air so I kept my foot in it heading to Turn 13. Right after I turned in for Turn 13 the car felt very unstable and another look at the left-front corner of my car showed that a rod that connected the LF wheel to the steering wheel in my hand (a rather important piece) had come loose from its mounting. I quickly realized that I needed to be very easy on the brakes approaching the next turn because hard braking would shoot me across the racetrack into the path of the two Vees I had passed. Unfortunately, even my soft braking shot me halfway across the track. Thankfully, the first Vee had already passed me and I was able to keep the car straight enough to where the second Vee didn't hit me (and he did a great piece of driving to avoid me).
Sadly, that was that. I limped the car up the hill and back to the paddock. Brandon of SR Racing was able to repair the car in a few minutes but 30 minute races leave no time for mechanical failures. This failure left me in a bad spot for the championship (as my chief points rival, Greg Rice, won the race), but there was still another day left at Road America and I was determined to make it a good one. Stay tuned for the next blog post to get all of the details of Sunday's action.
# posted by Jaygo Racing @ 7:33 PM 
