Let’s see… Enduro Friday. I watched the enduro, and it was definitely highlighted by Steve “The Donut King of Augusta” Foushee’s dramatic, temporary, victory in E2. That’s one for the books!
Saturday: Misery. Standing around in soggy shoes and clothes in 40 degree rain under minimal shelter is not my idea of a fun way to spend my free time. Fortunately, my qualifying time made it worth it as I’m not an experienced rain driver. Qualified 3rd? Race started and Travis blew by me using visibility on the outside of the front straight/T1 and made up spots that I was never able to get back. Well played, sir. Racing on Saturday was loads of fun. Had massive trouble getting the car to go through the esses, especially up the hill in T5. That’s where DeVinney and Travis found the biggest gains on me and ended up ahead for the rest of the race. However, if Road Atlanta’s finish line were 200 yards further down though, Travis and DeVinney would have taken home many fewer Toyo bucks. I made up a lot of ground and had them covered like a stick of butter on a Paula Dean biscuit. Johan had checked out right from the start, reminiscent of a young kid named MikeSkeen.com… He was in a different league driving in the rain…I think he even won the race, overall. Crazy fast in the rain. No video, no traqmate, nothing more than just being able to get in the car and drive. Blame it on the rain, Millie Vanillie style - overheard on Robinson’s iPod.
Sunday: more misery. It was even harder to motivate to do anything, even wanting to bother to qualify. Bad sleep the night before, cold, wet… Not sure why I do this to myself when for the same money I could be in Costa Rica surfing for the weekend. The needle runs deep… Qualified for shite in like 7th or something. So bad, that even Jones was ahead of me <-- embarrassing to admit. Again, Johan way ahead of the mediocre crowd, DeVinney in second. No split starts. Another awesome time of racing, to offset the awful ambient conditions. Had a blast racing, even fun racing out of class, somehow mustered enough energy to flip on the camera. Too many yellows, some super sketchy incidents getting cleaned up through the esses. Cool though that we raced for the entire duration instead of doing cool down laps under twin yellows and also the track dried out as the race progressed. Here’s Sunday’s race:
Many thanks to Patton for letting us use his trailer as the SE30 changing room and hospitality suite. Alex, congrats on doing so well at Road Atlanta first time there, as a rookie… Very impressive. Condolences for seeing how Road Atlanta’s jersey barriers treat most people. Congrats to Jones for taking home the 6th place loot on Saturday. Congrats to DeVinney for the win on Sunday and Johan on Saturday. By the way, Johan blew the upper radiator hose on the white flag lap on Sunday by the way, which sent him into the wall at T7 for those wondering/hypothesizing. Steve D, thanks again for the beers. A bad precedent to set because all I remember is that every time you finish ahead of us, you owe us free beer.
Final thought: As I was doing about 110 mph down the back straight into 10a on Saturday, not being able to see literally anything except a big grey cloud of mist from cars that I’m pretty sure were in front of me, I was wondering what could possibly have made me do this?
