Thought I would give a little report on my trip to the Memphis R/N last weekend.
I have several friends up in Memphis that I have met through racing and the people in Memphis always make the tow worthwhile. The SCCA workers and officals up there are always helpful and nice. They take a little more laid back approach to the weekend which really fits my racing program. With rain predicted for the weekend, several of the faster SM pilots that talked of coming backed out. BUT not to worry as there were plenty of fast SM pilots that DID show up. Jim (JD) Daniels who is plenty fast on any track but ultra quick on his home turf was setup to battle Harry Manning (former SSB Nat. Champ) along with Jim "Swerve" Drago who owns two of the best prepped SMs in the country and is fast becoming a "Hotshoe". Others in the mix were Pat Sandlin who will be right at the top by the end of the year, Hugh Sutton one of the Midwest's fast guys along with saferacer.com owner Charlie James. All of that group are fast and have prepped to the max SMs. Dewey (DIMB) Harding one of the top drivers from Central Florida flew in and raced Pat Sandlin's backup 1.6 (it is for sale) and drove the wheels off the car at a track he had never seen. I drafted with him in practice / qualifying and during the race. He got all the speed he could out of the car and it was something to watch. Sometimes the best racing / driving takes place down the finishing order. Saturday's regional had some very fast laps with JD posting a best lap of 1:20.1 on the 1.7 mile circuit. I finished 9th with a best of 1:22.8 which three years ago would have been better then the SM track record. Memphis is not a hard track to learn (like MSR) so out of towners have a chance to do OK. Sunday I only spent about six laps in the Q session as I was saving tires and wanting to see how the National race would shake out. On our parade lap we were waved off as the split start group ahead must not have watched their Ps & Qs. On the second time around when we hit the flag my Tach went crazy (jumping all over the place) and the engine acted fuel starved. It finally caught and I went sailing down the straight only to have it almost die when I shifted. I limped around the track and pitted, but my crew help could not see anything wrong so my first national race was short lived. I guess I either have a electronic issue or something came loose. Todd & Chris will run it down next week. I won't race again until May at TMS so plenty of time to sort it out.
After seeing the 99 in SM trim I have Swerve up in Memphis looking for a tub of that year. I think that Todd, Chris and me getting in the way, could build another car that I might like better. After seeing so many new SMs, there are some really great jobs being done on them. I also think that with the 94 reclassified to ITA at a lower weight, it can be a winner in that class.
All in all I found out that the correct setup (thanks JD) makes a car fast. Todd and I thought the setup numbers were kind of screwy at first, but with Memphis being nearly all right turns we found out it was great. Now if somebody will give me a trick setup to go faster at Road America this summer I will be happy.
Mac
