Onto the big race though! It's a four day trophy race - your entry gets you a T-shirt, practice all day Thursday and Friday, three qualifiiers and practice on Saturday, a qualifier and a main on Sunday, and trophies for TQ, BQ, 1st-3rd in the A and 1st in the B in each class.
 The track layout for the big race |
I showed up Thursday, squatted a pit spot, and started wrenching for a bit and scrubbing in some new VTA tires. I was in the corner, and cound up with Dave next to me, Jeff next to him and John straight across from me. Jeff and I wound up spending a lot of time working setups and taking practice laps and working setups some more on Thursday and Friday. I switched strategies on my car setup, figuring I would give a test to James' setup ideas - tall & soft. By the end of Friday night, I had an easy 100 laps of testing on the new setup, and had tweaked it quite a bit - feeling very comfortable with the setup, and turning decent laps. I think I strung three consecutive 12.0's together, but was hitting a fast lap of 11.8 and one miracle 11.7.
On Saturday qualifying, Barry and Jame were both fastest, turning in 26 & 27 lap performances and looking racey. Mike showed us all how fast he was by managing a 25/5:14 and Jeff and I were both staring at fast 24 lappers. I knew that if we could crack 25 we would likely beat the 5:14 time, but it was not to happen by the end of Saturday night - I left for the evening sittingt in third, but on a 24 lap pace.
Sunday morning came to wrap up the long weekend. Trophies were all out on display, people were pretty happy to be there with the opportunity to improve in one final qualifier before the main. I'm not a morning person, so I wasn't truly peppy even though it was clsoing in on 11 am. Jeff, two pits down, always lively, regardless of morning, noon or night was my contrast this morning. We chatted about the qualifier, both eager to eclipse the 25 lap barrier - the question was not whether we would do it, but who would set the faster 25 lap run. Barry was fast, James was fast - both qualifying in a league unto their own on 27 laps. Jeff and I were both fast ourselves, cars flying round our little slice of carpet churning out a pair of 25 lappers - a 25/5:12 for me, a 25/5:10 for Jeff, bumping me down to fourth. It was actually great - we had both put in a bunch of time this weekend, and it showed. We had helped each other to get better, and it, too, showed. Mike D rounded out the qualifiers who made the A main.
It turns out that our main would be an 8 minute main, and that the starting order would be inverted, putting me starting up in second. I certainly can't complain about that, but I now had a challenge I wasn't sure I was happy about - Getting past Mike D. Mike is fast and tough to pass, I'm planning to just stick behind him and see what happens. The tone goes off and we have a stellar first lap, totally clean, until we get around to turn 9 when Mike D rolls his car while out in front! I'm not far behind him and sneak past his overturned car to come around and lead the first lap of the race! Usually, this is where I would psych myself out and board it, but I managed to lead the first 4 laps before the Barry-James train caught up to me. I bobbled in turn 9, just touching the inside board - I decide to just let them both by as it was inevitible, and resume my race in third. It turned out there was a little shenanigans up front involving James and Mike D, but Barry and James wound up having a fast & furious battle up front for the final five minutes of the race. I cruised home in third, two laps down from the leaders, and one lap up on Jeff in fourth place. Mike D wound up out of the race with car problems.
All in all a great, fun weekend event, and I hope to see it grow larger each and every year!
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