Cowtown Sprints, Evil goes racing again
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As some of you know, I raced at TMS this weekend. It was an SCCA double regional club race. I drove our 'old' 1.6l spec miata. This was my second and third regional races and finished up my regional license. I'm now a licensed race car driver! Yeah!
Heres how the weekend shook out. It didn't go quite like I'd hoped in some ways, but went really well in other ways. The car had a new motor built by the same guys who do our world challenge motors. It was supposed to be a really hot motor, but I didn't really know what to expect out of a 'stock' miata motor. I got to test on friday and it was very worth the extra money to have some time to learn the track and get used to the car. I seemed to be really fast compared to everybody else, but its always hard to tell when testing. The car ran great and I pulled everybody pretty hard on the straights.
Saturday was an eye opener. I knew it would be. Qualifying was at about 10:30 in the morning, the weather was good and I drove as hard as I thought I could. I finally got turn 1 right about half way through the session. When you do it right, its a totally flat 5th gear 117mph left hand sweeper (nascar turn 1, but we're not allowed to use the banking). the apron (below the banking where we have to drive) is really bumpy and its a really freaky corner. I qualified 22nd out of 43. Not bad, not great. I just wanted to finish in the top half.
Race 1 was later in the afternoon. I got a good start (rolling start) and passed a couple cars before turn 1. I was working my way up nicely when all of a sudden I'm coming around turn 1 with my foot to the floor and I see mayhem in front of me. Cars everywhere, bouncing off the walls, hitting the tire barriers, everything. I managed to make it through unscathed. The course went double yellow and we circulated under caution for 6 or 7 laps (16 lap race) while they cleaned everything up. After the wreck I was sitting in 8th. The course finally went green and the battle was on. The top 6 started to pull away from #7 and I as we pulled away from the rest of the field. It was just us battling it out. I passed him, he passed me, I passed him, he passed me. It was CLOSE. Finally, on the last lap I knew how I was going to make it stick. I was going to outbrake him coming down off the oval and hold a tight line the rest of the way around to end up in 7th. I got a good run on him coming around the oval and by the time we got to the baking zone we were side by side with me on the inside. Perfect. I hit the breaks and started downshifting, turn in, and *BAM* I get his from the right rear and spun. The jackass spun me. On purpose. I got the car going as quickly as possible but still lost some spots. I finished the race in 15th. Better than I had expected, but worse than I thought I should have done.
Sunday brought intermittent rain. I had full rains, but no intermediates for my car. this was going to be interesting. I'd also never roadraced in the rain. The rain was mostly light, so I decided to soften up the rear bar and go out on drys. It was a good choice. The first half of the session was wet and a little scary. I learned sooooo much about the car during those first 15 min it was crazy. Finally, in the last 5 minutes it was almost dry. I was hooked up with one of the top drivers and hanging with him. I managed to get a good draft off him a couple times and had a blast. I had qualified 7th out of 36.
Race 2 brough more clouds, but not as much rain. It was dry for the entire race. I got a good start and was driving well, trying to conserve tires. On the 3rd lap I come around the hairpin leading to the oval and once again, mayhem in front. I BARELY found a hole and made it through. Holy cow.....I was in 4th!! The race was stopped for the clean up which worked well for everyone. Tires cooled off, engines cooled off. It was going to be tough. I got a good restart and immediately passed for 3rd. The top two were clicking off great laps and I was doing everything I could to keep up. I probably should have chilled a little because the tires were going away. The car continued to fall off and I got shuffled back to 6th. I spent a couple laps there and finally cooled everything off enough to start pulling on 5th place again. I had cut the 3sec gap in half with one lap to go, but I wasn't going to have enough car left to make the pass. I finished 6th out of a 36 car field in my 3rd roadrace ever. I was happy but really dehydrated.
The top 6 cars had to go to impound to get weighed. No problem. I weighed the car in the shop with less gas than I had after the race, no video cam, no radio, no driving suit. I would be fine. The top 5 cars weighed and it was my turn. "He's light, 2294." I heard. My heart sank. They weighed me 3 times, and even recalibrated the scales but to no avail. The car was 6lbs light. 6lbs!! I got DSQed.
It turned out that our other car that won the race was also light but by 18lbs. It was DSQed as well. I have to think that our scales in the shop must be off. What a pisser. Regardless of the official result I had many many people, both drivers and spectators, come over and compliment me on my driving and congratulate me on my weekend. Spec miata is definitely some of the best racing going on right now. It simply does not get any closer.
Theres more I want to add, but this is already enough of a novel. Maybe I'll add some later. I'll try to post video/pics tonight.
I'd like to thank Bob Stretch for loaning me the car and all the driving tips, my parents, my girlfriend Elaine, and our crew for a great weekend. Also a big thanks goes out to the members of dfwmiata.com and dallasimports.net who helped put the car together last week.
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Cowtown Sprints Gallery
Here are pics from the event.
