Here’s my update on the week:
Overall Ofest experience: If I may be so immodest, I think the Peachtree DE and race committee folks did a fabulous job! We had, by my rough calcuation, about 500 cars total take the track over 5 days between DE students/instructors, race school, and racers, so adding up spouses, kids, crew and groupies, probably 700-800 folks spent part or most of the Ofest week with us, and the compliments outweighed the complaints by a healthy margin, so even though we’re all whipped, we feel good about the product we put out there. I’m really proud of Kelly, Eric, Tom, Lea, Anna, Patty. Jack, Alan, Matt, and way too many more to mention. Amazingly enough, the only incident in the DE sessions all week was a lightly crunched LR of an E30 that backed into the T7 wall.
As a rookie Club Race Chairman, the list of things I didn’t have a clue about was longer than a typical Ranger post, but somehow it all worked out and my most offensive omissions generally occurred offstage.
Here’s my racing recap:
Friday - didn’t race, was too buried in the administrivia of the event to seriously think about putting my helmet on.
Saturday - Got tangled up early on with a SpecE36 guy at T7 - video link here: http://www.vimeo.com/6908360
For those interested in the cast of this short clip, the Black 231 car was a KP car, and the E30/M3 with wing was something called F-mod. Not too fast. Ranger was back there lurking just behind the fray.
Anyway, after my contact with this guy, which felt pretty significant from the cockpit, I was major bummed about the fact of having the contact (this is CCA, not NASA, and they REALLY REALLY REALLY do not like contact. Even single-car wrecks are investigated and written up) After coming in for safety check, my race was blown so I retired. It turns out that about 3 laps later, the guy did the same thing to Clay in T6, but with far worse consequences (for the 068 SE36 car) He spun off at 6 and hit the wall hard, probably terminally damaging the tub.
I had video to illustrate the scene. The stewards first reaction was “he’s driving the DE school line and you were driving the racing line”. He had already been on probation for a single-car wreck at VIR this spring (read above) and now with two similar incidents in the same race they put him down for 13 months probation and recommended he go back to DE. That plus a destroyed race car was his reward for the weekend.
On Sunday, I strapped on some new RA1s and decided to go after Ranger, but I had nothing for him till near the end when his tires to started to go off. The dude had it going on this weekend, both he and Eric Palacio. Two new forces to be reckoned with in the SouthEast.
Eric’s dad Julio experienced what I think is his first race weekend, and like most father/son duos, the kid is faster (sorry Julio, but it’s true) They have to share a car for now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a second machine makes an appearance before too long. I think they had too much fun to only get half the track time!
We all finally got to meet the Blacks from Florida (John and Natalie) – super nice people, and their car was most definitely NOT out of place in the judging line at the lake on Tuesday. A beautiful machine.
Al K hopped straight from race school into the race and acquitted himself well. It’s odd to see the JP 155 out there without JP!
A new guy, John Buckett from Atlanta in the 91 made his race debut. John’s car is a fresh build from Harrison Motorsports and is a stunningly well-turned out machine. His car was also on the lawn on Tuesday. (Ranger, you didn’t see much of Buckett because he had been there all week and was paddocked with his DE buddies in the Harrison camp on the DE side)
For the fun race at the end of the day, I watched from a spot I’ve never tried, the starters stand. I put on a second headset and listened to the corner stations and yucked it up while Scott Hughes messed with Palacio/Gress. Good times. and a good week.
