What a great weekend! Big field of 24?
We had 3 newbies. That totally kicks ass. I think that’s the most newbies we’ve ever had in a single month.
Alex Borroso is a buddy of Aaron’s.
Paul Bacon came to us via Porsche land.
Ty Young is a SCCA guy with a lot of experience.
Alex and Paul were in comp school Friday. Ty got is comp license based on his SCCA ticket.
The weekend started out a little rough. I found a big screw in one of my trailer tires as I was doing last minute checks before leaving Savannah.
Saturday was kinda lame. Qual was a zero. My 7yr old rain tires are hard as rocks and having skipped the rainy practice, I was just out there seeing if the car worked. The only guys I beat in Qual were those that slept in. Really, lol, I mean it. Look at the grid sheet.
Saturday’s race was fun, but it was short. A Thunder Roadster got beat up at the green. This was a start group ahead of us, so we never even got the start. It took 10min to clean up the mess. I spent most of that time chuckling over the flag confusion. First Red and Yellow for a restart, then double-yellow for a restart, then the Green came at the Tower, not down the front straight like we were expecting.
10min later more Thunder Roadsters had trouble and we went to FCY while that mess got cleaned up.
The restart was fun. There were 4 of us behind 2 Miatas. The Green got thrown as the SpecE30’s were just topping the hill under the bridge so we charged forward. The Miatas were slow on the uptake. The SpecE30s charged into the Miatas at the exit of 12. I think we were 6 wide as we all passed the Miatas pretty much simultaneously. I had a big grin on my face.
We had a great time Saturday night. Thanks to AR for the steaks. So awesome.
Sunday Qual went well. Most everyone had trouble getting clear track, except for me. The track was damp and drying. I made a calculated decision to drive like the track was dry except for staying off exit gators. I ended up Qualifying 5th which given the side of the field, is like some kinda magical shit. 2 of us chose to try out the turn 5 exit gator but that worked poorly for them. Incredibly, damage was minor.
Sunday’s race was a blast. I had lots of really fast guys behind me so it was going to be a matter of losing as few places as possible. Most of the race went pretty darn well for me. There was some close calls when folks passed me and I had to give them some room so we could all survive. The scariest one was in turn 1. There was a 2 car train trying to take the turn from me on the inside and I was determined to not slow down more than necessary. I didn’t want both cars to take me. I barely held on to the track.
A couple laps later I had Issa in front of me and Sandro behind. I didn’t know what Sandro was doing back there, but once he caught up, I waved him by like I usually do. He went up and fought with Issa a bit, but didn’t seem to be trying very hard to pass him. It looked to me like Sandro had decided to just play with Issa for a bit instead of continuing his charge to the front. Sandro passed Issa. I was chuckling at Sandro’s hijinks.
I quit driving hard. I figured if they were just going to play around, there was no sense me taking it seriously.
As we came around for the White flag, Sandro, slowed down and let issa catch back up and pass him.
The checker flew. I caught up to Sandro so we could exchange hand signals and silly grins. Which is when I saw that it was the newby Alex Barroso, not Sandro. Holy shit. I’d waved by a rookie fresh out of comp school. I’d not just, with a couple laps to go, rolled over like a patsy, I’d actually waved him by. Sigh.
