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Group, just to let you all know, as things stand right now, there will not be a Blitz race group available to us at RA, as we’ve had the past two times we’ve run there. So, all the usual racers will be fit into Lightning/Thunder as is done everywhere else.
Jim has said he will be putting a cap on the race group size, for safety reasons, so don’t wait too long to get registered if you’re planning to be there.
Julie the cruise director reports that as of yesterday, we have
Robert Patton
Charles Taylor
Laura Patton
Robert Chrystler
Fred Switzer
Scott Gress
Matt Thornton
Michael Skeen
Joe Tripp
Who else is coming?
There are sessions associated with this Yoko event Fri-Sun (see the schedule) at RA. Don’t see any info on it at the NASA-SE site or forums. What is this event about?
Don’t know a lot about them, but this is a single-marque Porsche 996/997 series that is doing a racing season at various tracks across the US, in combination with larger host events. I believe they did Mid-Ohio with the NASA region there a few weeks ago, for example.
Wow… cutting into the practice time quite a bit on Friday!
It’s a Porsche race series… http://www.competentmotorsport.com/index.php
Something tells me Skeen’s qualifying lap will be faster than 1/2 that field…
Just a guess.:S
shifter11 wrote:
[quote]Wow… cutting into the practice time quite a bit on Friday!
It’s a Porsche race series… http://www.competentmotorsport.com/index.php[/quote]
wow, nasa finds yet another way to cram more sh!t in to that 5 lb bag…
Good point Dave. I’m looking into my crystal ball…
I forsee a thread on the NASA forum complaining about track time and session length…
Any takers on that bet?
BTW I think the yoko guys with a lot of money cup stole our blitz race group.
Al and Travis bring some chickens that will make sure they don’t come back next year!
They ran with us at Mid Ohio, fun to watch, beautiful cars. Our day was extended to 7pm to accomodate. People were not happy. At least in our region the decision was made at the beginning of the year to offset rising track costs. I think NASA is really going to start losing customers if they keep this up. The head of our region said that 30% of the entries for the weekend are paid for by NASA for volunteers. I think this is way too many.
I’m concerned that the price of oil dry is going to go through the roof. A track full of oil dumpers can’t be good.
FWIW: I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to make this race. Odds are 70/30 in favor of going.
Malt Liquor Tech is in for the enduro and sprints. Gonna be boiling ass hot. Dunno where they have us parked, but Turn 1 again would be great.
uphkrsrcraz wrote:
i think all the racers are supposed to paddock on the inside of the track ( “pro paddock” )…
does anyone know if there are any power hookups in the pro paddock?
i plan on being there all weekend running in GTS challenge…i think we run in thunder so if it rains, i should be free to drive your car again jim 
The NASA website site shows us right at the paddock entrance. From what I remember of the pro paddock there IS power, but I’m not sure if it extends all the way down to where we are. Anyone else have any info?
Road Atlanta is the 2nd most expensive track we have events at and the August event is historically much smaller than our March event. We were approached by the Yoko Cup folks early in the year and we thought it would be a nice way to make sure we break even at Road Atlanta in August. The alternative would be for us to raise entry fees 
(I hear we are the lowest priced event at RA)
We have already added an hour to the schedule, staring at 8am - to avoid the heat and will add time at the end of the day if necessary to get everything in like we did in March during the tornadoes. :blink:
We are always looking for ideas to keep everyone happy and still break even on the cost of the track rental. If this doesn’t work we’ll have to resort to raising the entry fees which doesn’t make anyone happy
In trying to do DE’s, TT’s and races, oh and also make a buck, NASA bites off a lot. It’s gotta be hard to fit everything in, schedule enough track time to keep folks coming back, and still pay a meager salary or two. Doing everything such that folks don’t bitch is, of course, impossible because everyone loves to bitch.
But if tracks consistantly go green at 8AM sharp and stay hot until at least 5PM, then I figure NASA has done as much as humanly possible.
Maybe next time tho we can hear “hey guys, we’re letting some Porsche guys come and help us pay for our weekend at RA. Because RA turnouts are lean in Aug and there was significant risk that we were going to have to charge a lot more.”
Then there’d be a chorus of “ya, lets those Porsche guys help pay for our track time because we’re all broke as church mice.”