Rockingham thread

#7

I had an up and down weekend. Saturday was great. I qualied 7th for the first race. Al was nice enough to spin on the first lap which opened the door for me to get by Laura for 6th. Laura was faster and I fought the whole race to keep her behind me. Having Al behind her and trying to pass surely helped. After that, I just tried to keep it clean as Mike Skeen went off in T3 and a lap or two later Mike D. went off in Fishhook. Voila, 3rd place!

The second race I started from 7th again but was able to get around Laura after a few hard fought laps. After that, it was weaving through traffic until I caught up with Al and Mike D who were having a tough time with traffic. Mike went off on the outside of T3 again and I was left to molest Al’s bumper, chicken and all. I followed him for a lap almost sneeking by in the banking before they through a red flag for a grass fire under Mike’s car. All hell broke loose when the Miata in front of Al and I checked up hard when the red came out. Needless to say, two beautiful Toyo’s lives came to an early demise locking up before I gave Al a love tap coming to a stop.

That was the end to the race and Sunday sucked for me. Add a totalled Konig to the three ruined Toyos! Thanks THSCC for the great curbs!

Big congrats go to Mike D. for finally winning his first races. The early race on Sunday was an incredible win for him, wait till he posts the finish.

All and all it was a great finale for the Rock. Travis was slow and everyone should watch out for Indy Jim. He was really fast especially with it being his first real races! I almost fogot to mention that I won the drawing for a free AFM bore inspection. I passed, must be why I’m down on power. Carter, make sure you thank Jr. from all of us for his tireless wheel and car cleaning while you guys were there. The ugly red wheels never looked so good.

#8

Lots of fun, especially the inverted start for the enduro. With 4 races you get to do some fun things!

Will post more later as work is overbearing right now.

Thanks to all the racers that participated. Who knows, if the Rock was only once a year (and a full 4 races) it may be worth the trip.

Regards, Robert Patton

#9

Alright, here’s my recap:

Race 1:
I was on pole and managed to hold onto it until I locked up the LF coming off the banking and went off. I came back on with a severely flat spotted tire and decided to retire because I was afraid of an issue on the banking. I’m a little glad I came in because it was very bad. I was depressed because I was sure I just screwed up, but after talking with George Doughtie, I think I may have an issue with the ABS (well, obviously, but we think it might have actually held pressure rather than cycling the pump) because I couldn’t get the wheel to start rolling again. I’ve never really tracked an ABS car before and not had much problem with lockup, so I may just disable the system if I can’t solve the problem.

Race 2:
Started on pole again and held off Patton for the whole race. He was faster through the infield because my tires weren’t worth much, but it was enough to keep him back until the red flag, which ended the race.

Race 3:
Started third with Mike D in front of me and Patton outside pole. Followed Mike through the banking hanging Patton out to dry on the outside. Forced the issue on Mike headed into the infield and managed to come out with the lead. LONG CAUTION in the middle of the race for an RX7 that hit the wall on the banking. Back to green with 3-4 laps (?) to go. I lead until the last lap when we caught some SLOW Porsches on the banking. I was on the bottom and was planning to squeeze under the first p-car, but he came down in front and the Mike/Patton train went around the outside. I finished third. It was a helluva lot of fun, but a little disappointing at the same time. Truthfully, I didn’t have the pace on the infield at all Sunday, so I’m sure I wouldn’t have even been in that position if the whole race went green.

Race 4:
Inverted SE30 grid. This was so much fun. I started on the bottom and managed to pass JP headed into the banking. Patton had a huge run and went around both of us and I followed him along the bottom to pass several people. Gave him a little push past a few more before T3. The video will give the details better, but Patton and I were up front within two laps or so. He then hit a curb and had a wheel go down. Immediately after that, I had a caliper bolt come out. I’m stumped on this one; it’s happened twice with this car and never on any others I’ve run. I guess I’m going to get new bolts and use some locktite.

Video coming sometime tonight hopefully.

#10

I found the results here.

#11

Here is the video from sundays morning race. It was my first win so I was pretty excited at the flag. On the last lap it could have gone either way and I just decided to take the high line even though the wall looked like it was closing in on me haha. I’ll post more footage from inside and outside of the enduro later. My buddy darrell got alot of footage from the side of the track during the enduro.

#12

My highlights aren’t that exciting since I was battling for 7th in most of the races.

However on Sunday a blown fuel pump fuse sidelined me and prevented me from qualifying. This proved to be good luck however since the aforementioned inverted start from qualifying gave me my first (and probably last) pole position. Patton was nice enough to not even let me lead an entire lap. (However he didn’t get by me on the apron.) I guess if he’ll steal 3rd place from his daughter I shouldn’t expect anything less…

The enduro was a blast. I managed to sneak by Al after he had passed me earlier in the race with 5 or so laps to go. My car started starving out on fuel in the infield and something was going on with the brakes too. I managed to stay ahead of him up until the last lap, had the finish line been maybe two hundred yards further ahead he would have gotten past me.

I still feel like I got thrown in the deep end of the pool, I’m sure some other exciting stuff happened but I can’t remember it. It was fun just to watch everyone battling up front. And nice to meet everyone including a guest appearance by Carter and son. I look forward to more battles between Beertech and Malt Liquor Tech. It is the spec E30 version of the Ferrari / Porsche rivalry.

I was to stupid to remember how my video camera set up worked, and forgot my camera as well. If anyone has any photos I’d love to see them.

#13

MikeD wrote:

[quote]I found the results here.

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=220511[/quote]

Thanks :slight_smile:

#14

MikeD wrote:

[quote]Here is the video from sundays morning race. It was my first win so I was pretty excited at the flag. On the last lap it could have gone either way and I just decided to take the high line even though the wall looked like it was closing in on me haha. I’ll post more footage from inside and outside of the enduro later. My buddy darrell got alot of footage from the side of the track during the enduro.

sweet pick!!

nice work, congrats!

#15

My videos:

Race 1 (too short):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8062398493421866424

Race 2 (kinda boring):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6893165008394269913

Race 3 (stupid P-cars!):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2797675386025196639

Race 4 (best bang-for-the-buck entertainment):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8379020195070137366

#16

My videos:

Race 1 (too short):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8062398493421866424

Race 2 (kinda boring):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6893165008394269913

Race 3 (stupid P-cars!):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2797675386025196639

Race 4 (best bang-for-the-buck entertainment):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8379020195070137366

#17

Heartbreakig Mike. From hero to Zero just like that:(

#18

DMoses wrote:

Yeah, it was a bit disappointing, but still good fun. Wish I could’ve come out of the weekend with just one more win for the Toyo Bucks. B)

#19

Rockingham is far from the most beloved track, and the low turn out seems to have knocked it off the list of tracks NASA will be returning to in the future.

It’s a shame because it’s a fun place to race. Not too technical—but pleanty of pucker factor.

I’d love to have had the chance to have done better while I was there.

#20

Recap of my weekend:

Race 1 - boring for me. I qualified 9th and
ran by myself the entire race.

Race 2 - at the start I finally convinced myself that I had to go flat out through the banking and I just gritted my teeth and did it. I had fun racing with Travis and IndyJim but my race ended prematurely when I mangled a bottle cap wheel on the exit of 3 (same place JP killed the Konig in race 4). I’ve got video of this race and will post later.

Race 3 - see video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8241411154806401896&hl=en

Race 4 - Kind of boring race again for me. Raced with IndyJim for a little while - I passed him and then he passed me back. Shortly afterward I started dropping back due to fuel pickup problems in turn 4. At least a half dozen time the car would totally die in the turn - time for a fuel pump.

Overall, a fun weekend! I got some great experience and enjoyed some moments of close racing.

Steven

#21

Steven540i wrote:

[quote]Recap of my weekend:

Race 1 - boring for me. I qualified 9th and
ran by myself the entire race.

Race 2 - at the start I finally convinced myself that I had to go flat out through the banking and I just gritted my teeth and did it. I had fun racing with Travis and IndyJim but my race ended prematurely when I mangled a bottle cap wheel on the exit of 3 (same place JP killed the Konig in race 4). I’ve got video of this race and will post later.

Race 3 - see video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8241411154806401896&hl=en

Race 4 - Kind of boring race again for me. Raced with IndyJim for a little while - I passed him and then he passed me back. Shortly afterward I started dropping back due to fuel pickup problems in turn 4. At least a half dozen time the car would totally die in the turn - time for a fuel pump.

Overall, a fun weekend! I got some great experience and enjoyed some moments of close racing.

Steven[/quote]

Nice video! Thanks for posting it. Man what was the acura thinking towards the end of the video? I thought you were gonna collect him. What a bad move on his part. Nice driving though!

#22

He was trying to get into the pits - He got stuck on the outside through turn 7 and I guess he decided there was enough of a gap to sneak into the pits. It definitly made for an exciting moment since I realized I had to swerve at the same moment I was shifting…

I’ll also add that based on Laura’s driving in the second race that I’m suspicious she may have given me the pass on lap 2.

I’m not sure what I did wrong to cut the end of the last lap off, but considering last night was the first time I had ever downloaded a video to the computer, edited it using WMM, and then uploaded it to Google, I thought it was OK. I got to spend some time playing around with WMM but that will have to wait until after the second car comes to life!

Steven

#23

Nice videos and good driving guys! As usual, it was another great Southeast weekend. After taking a day to recover, I realize that for once, JP might be right…I was kinda slow…he actually finished ahead of me in one of the races. Canterbury got fast, Indy Jim was fast, Pallister (one AWESOME new E30) and E.Davidson both shaved significant times off of what they started with, so did Scott, Al was mixing it up, Laura was fast, Robert=fast, Skeen=fast, and M. Davidson finally got the monkey off of his back with 2 wins! BIG Congrats Mike!! Somehow I managed to stay in the top 5 all weekend with Robert whoopin me by 10 ft for the win on Saturday(after Skeen and Davidson were out of the picture). When it was all said and done, Malt Liquor Tech whooped up on Beer Tech…again.:stuck_out_tongue: See ya at CMP.

#24

uphkrsrcraz wrote:

Thanks man. I couldn’t catch you in qualifying on saturday haha. I had a blast this weekend and I wish we could go back but VIR north is going to be awesome.

#25

Well, as for my weekend, all the races are starting to run together. I can’t remember what’s what.

Race 1: JP and I had a great time battling it out for 3rd. He used his "racecraft" to keep me behind him successfully for the remainder of the race. While I’m disappointed I couldn’t pull off a third place, JP and I had an awesome time and he deserves it. Way to go JP.

Race 2: Don’t really remember much of this one except I ended up sixth.

Race 3: I was asleep. You can see such in Canterbury’s video. I don’t know what I was doing. Fortunently, I finished the race which is what really matters, but I was just asleep behind the wheel. Then the 10 minutes of pace laps for an accident didn’t help. Oh well, I’ll try harder next time.

Race 4: I was smiling from ear to ear when I got out of the car. Davidson and I had it out for a majority of the race battling for first. I had the best time racing against him and am proud of him and myself for our finishes. I could not have asked for a better end to a weekend. And, to top it off, I beat dad! There is no better victory because now I beat him fair and square and not because of a technicality like in our BMWCCA race. Sorry dad, should have let you have it on father’s day! :slight_smile:

Looking forward to CMP now. All I can say is I’m feeling good, so everyone better bring their "A" Game.

Laura Lou
#911

#26

Anyone pick up an extra (blue) chair? I completely forgot mine.