Great weekend! Congrats to Frans and Cobetto for the wins, mechanical issues on Saturday and an epic battle on Sunday for the #74. Pair of 3rds. Write up and videos to come.
HYPERFEST!
FransH
#2
Awesome Hyperfest race weekend! 18 starters in our class; fun on track, in the paddock, and all around Summit Point Motorsports park with everything going on!
Thanks to DriveGear and all my competitors who helped me get the #87 car back online without missing a single session after my sudden and complete break failure in Saturday AM practice led to a meeting with the edge of the tire wall on the escape road of turn 1, breaking the rear axle. How cool is that when your competitors are helping get you back on the track?!!
Here’s a photo of a bunch of the SpecE30 group from Saturday. We tried to compensate for all the ugly racer mugs, with some better looking Summit Point SpecE30 fans in the front row! 
RGrace
#3
It was a pretty eventful Hyperfest weekend. The run up to Hyperfest started for me when my drivetrain exploded in New Jersey Memorial Day weekend. Thanks to a ton of help from my Dad, Justin at Undisputed Autosport, Bob Ott, Andrew Zimmerman and more I was able to turn the last wrench Friday at 4:00 and drive it onto the trailer. Friday at the track we packed ten or twelve E30s into about four parking spaces in the paddock…Trent organized a one-way system that worked pretty well…as long as you didn’t need to get to the scales or fuel pumps! The weekend was full of comradery and great racing…yes, in the SAME region! We had a 17 car field including the Axis of Oversteer guys, two DriveGear cars, most the regulars, and a number of new racers.
Practice was short for me as I was still shaking out some issues from all the work we had recently done. Frans had a wild ride in the DriveGear car when a brake line failed going into turn one. Luckily he walked away fine and the car wasn’t damaged too bad, the entire Spec E30 crew pitched in to change an axle, bleed the brakes, and a few other repairs to the DriveGear car before qualifying…annnnd then Frans put the battered car on pole, go figure.
I didn’t stay out for the entire qualifying session due the combination of high traffic and some suspicious noises from under the car. As a result I was started 5th, the start of the race was clean and I bumped Sean Curran all the way to turn one. I had a pretty bad exhaust leak from the start of the race but a few laps in I took a pretty good shot in the rear going into turn five under caution, this left rear poke knocked my exhaust completely loose; it actually broke at the flanges at the exhaust manifold. The 74 sounded like a sick boat and had no torque for the rest of the race. As a result I was unable to keep up with Frans and Mike D. They had a pretty sweet battle which Frans ended up winning. Congrats to Frans for his first win! (especially after going for a wild ride in AM practice).
Saturday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJPDa_apkTs
After the race we got the exhaust on the 74 welded up thanks to “Carlos the welder” and replaced the motor mount that got liquefied by the heat thanks to a spare from Rick Mariani. One of the sway bar bushings had also been burned off but to be honest if my Dad hadn’t told me I wouldn’t even have noticed. The car felt great Sunday morning…and sounded just as good! I had a decent amount of traffic in quali again and started P4 behind Davidson, Cobetto, and Frans. Mike D brought us down to a 2nd gear start, with a good view of the flag stand I had an awesome start and had the lead outright by the time we got to turn one. Cobetto reeled me in within two or three laps, the combination of him being wicked fast and a few lucky breaks getting through traffic allowed him to pull away from Mike and I by a few cars. Mike and I worked together to try and gain back the ground but then decided to have an epic battle with each other instead! Mike D. and I went back and forth, over and under, probably five or six times. It was an AWESOME battle that was very close. This was all during a 40 minute race in 94+ degree heat. Our battle lasted to the very end in a drag race to the finish line. I came up a bit short, Cobetto took the win, Mike D. second, and myself third. Third was slightly disappointing but the battle with Mike was so much fun it was hard to feel too bad about it. The race really reminded me why I race and why I race Spec E30! A man came up to me after the race and asked if I was driving “the orange one”, I said “Yeah, what were you in?” He then replied “I was in the grandstands! You guys put on a good show…” That was some good, clean, hard, on the edge racing. Good work Mike.
Sunday’s Battle: http://vimeo.com/12745714
All in all it was a good weekend, didn’t have the finishes I wanted but had tons of fun. Looking forward to seeing everyone at VIR in July (yes, that means you too Axis of Oversteer).
rsott
#4
+1 on the great weekend.
I qualified 8th out of 18 on Saturday and started the race on the outside line. Lost several positions at turn one on the start. Had great fun mixing it up with Rick Mariani and Justin Styles and fought hard to make the positions back before making a bonehead mistake chasing Brandon Hey down, leaving my breaking point way too late at turn 5 and giving all of the positions back as I went off in a cloud of West Virginia dust – giving the Hyperfest crowd some pre-Daisey Duke contest excitement. Finished 12th.
In Sunday’s race qualified 11th out of 17 despite being .362 seconds quicker than Saturday’s qualifying time (a testament to the quality of the field). I had a great start and made up several positions at turn one only to give them all away at turn 3 when I was surprised to find that pushing my my clutch pedal to floor failed to slow the car. Imagine that – depressing the clutch pedal doesn’t slow the car. Bonehead mistake #2 for the weekend. Dropped all the way back to 17th. Ended up finishing 12th.
allenr
#5
Rick looks a little out of place on the front row in that pic haha
Nice driving and thanks for the updates/vids.
Hopefully there will be a few more regulars at VIR next month… as the defending race winner i feel like i need to be there to remind yall who’s boss ;)
mrussell
#6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=allxa23Ebjo
Sunday vid, starting from 17th. Finished 5th. Ran out of gas before I could show curran what fer. Curran’s witty reply will no-doubt be, “If you couldn’t catch me in 22 minutes of pursuit, you weren’t gonna catch me at all.” Well, you may be right but I still want (yet another) rematch.
-Matt
MikeD
#7
Had a good time racing again. Definitely enjoyed the battle with Robert on Sunday.
Here’s my video from Saturday.
stevekappy
#8
Matt,
That was so much fun to watch! Thanks for the video… wow… I really need to get back into the car… 
-Steve
mrussell wrote:
[quote]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=allxa23Ebjo
Sunday vid, starting from 17th. Finished 5th. Ran out of gas before I could show curran what fer. Curran’s witty reply will no-doubt be, “If you couldn’t catch me in 22 minutes of pursuit, you weren’t gonna catch me at all.” Well, you may be right but I still want (yet another) rematch.
-Matt[/quote]
mrussell
#9
stevekappy wrote:
[quote]Matt,
That was so much fun to watch! Thanks for the video… wow… I really need to get back into the car…
-Steve
[/quote]
Thanks Steve, you were missed. Here’s my personal favorite video, Saturday rear-view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A0d-Qez67w
stevekappy
#10
Ok Matt… that was not fair… I do love your rear camera view… 
I am sure Sean liked it too since he got a great view of his driving style…
Ok… So I need a new seat and hopefully will be there for the August race. I am looking at a Kirkey and will scan the forums to see the perspective. If anyone else has their preference +/- on the Kirkey, please let me know.
…and hopefully I can get the car sorted by August…
-Steve
mrussell wrote:
[quote]stevekappy wrote:
[quote]Matt,
That was so much fun to watch! Thanks for the video… wow… I really need to get back into the car…
-Steve
[/quote]
Thanks Steve, you were missed. Here’s my personal favorite video, Saturday rear-view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A0d-Qez67w[/quote]