It was great meeting a lot of our fellow Spec E30 racers for our first race at Summit, looking forward to getting to know everyone.
here is a video of Pete (the vastly more talented other half of our team) in turn 10, enjoy!
Thank you!
allenr
#3
Report: (you decide first if its worth your while ;))
This event showed 17 cars registered. That was more than any other class as chris said in another thread. Not only did we have a big turnout but the quality of the field was probably better than it has ever been at summit with the possible exception of last November when we had skeen and guest driver spenard. This weekend we had MikeD who came up to summit for the first time in over a season, Carter who didn’t have a car to run in that November event, and rookie Robert Grace who had shown speed in the first 2 rounds at VIR. We also had Vic (who would be running old RA1s) as another possible contender. I was interested before the event to see if anyone else would use RA1s and how they would perform, but all of the usual frontrunners stuck with 888’s and Vic ended up having too many car problems to know if they were an advantage. Also new for this event were the 2 “axis of oversteer” (http://axisofoversteer.blogspot.com/) cars and their two drivers who ended up showing surprising speed.
SATURDAY
Practice was difficult for everyone except skip, who knocked off the rust early and managed the fastest time of the weekend with a 27.9. I was getting used to a little horsepower increase and different track conditions since November.
My qualifying did not go as well as I hoped. I got one clean lap that came at the perfect time on lap 3 but I made a small mistake that cost me a few tenths. The saturday qualifying results show how competitive the field was. Cobetto was on pole with a 28.6, skip 2nd with a 28.7, me 3rd with a 28.8, and jon in 4th with a 28.9. Us four were about a second clear of the rest of the field. MikeD broke a rocker arm in practice and just missed getting out for quali. Cobetto didn’t practice and was said to be experimenting with tire pressures in quali, so we weren’t sure what his “real” pace would be :blink:…
In the race Jonny got around the outside of me at the start to pick up 3rd. We were single file with me in 4th and carter directly behind in 5th until T10. Summit really eats front tires so I tried to focus during the warmup lap on heating up the tires just enough but not too much so I would have everything possible to make it to the end. I could tell right away I hadn"t heated them up enough and I made a cold-tires mistake at the entry of T10 on lap1 that allowed carter to go side by side with me through T1. I kept the position but I now had to defend from McGrath into T3. This side by side action allowed the front 3 (cobetto, skip, jon) to pull away a little bit into their own pack :S. Carter stayed in front of McGrath and I settled in to try and reel in the front 3. I was pulling out a gap from carter but I was falling behind from the front 3. Jonny broke a rocker arm early on that allowed me to get by. My race was very difficult because I was all alone and had to keep my focus on maintaining the gap from carter in the 90 deg. heat. I was told Skip got by cobetto on the last lap, but cobetto passed him back for the win. That’s 5 in a row for chris but he’s the first to point out that they haven’t come easy. I finished a 3rd out of 17, which I thought was sort of an over-achievement considering how I drove :S.
Justin Silver and I were chosen to do a thorough dyno tech on Saturday. I had the MaxQ antenna thing put on my roof, and I was put on 2 different dynos after the race. One was the portable dynojet where I was told I made 145/145. The other was a permanent dyno at the garages where I made 125. I think the idea was to compare the different hp readings to eventually be able to use the permanent dyno at the track for enforcing the hp cap. There’s definitely some work to do there but I think this was a good step.
SUNDAY
So after making mistakes in qualifying and the race on Saturday that cost me a better (or at least more competitive) finish, I was focused on my problem areas for Sunday. My car balance was excellent but some were complaining of too much understeer. A few drivers tried changing their sway bars to the full stiff setting. Skip was one of those, as you can tell from my Sunday video!
On Sunday we continued the new format of a longer race instead of practice. Sunday qualifying was twice as frustrating as any other session I have ever had on track in my life. Half of that reason was because the car balance was perfect and I was driving pretty well, but I had 3 different very quick laps ruined by traffic. A not too quick 944 decided to line up first and tried to race me through the first lap with open track behind when I was clearly faster 
. I caught one spec3 who thought it would be a good idea to take a 30 mph cool down lap in the middle of the session . I still managed to qualify in 4th despite not getting anything close to a clean lap.
The other half of the frustration came from being DQ’d from the session for being 9 lbs underweight. Our calculations are very precise because we always start with a full tank and just add ballast according to the length of the session. We put enough weight in to be 15 lbs over according to my weigh-in after the race on Saturday. Somehow there must have been a mistake in the recording of the Saturday weight or a problem with the scales for it to read 24 lbs differently :S.
The qualifying results were similar to Saturday with cobetto, skip, and jon in the top 3. Rookie Pete Thibault turned a very competitive time and was promoted to the second row (after my DQ) in his first race weekend. That’s very impressive in this field :).
I would be starting on the back row in 16th place with Vic, who missed quali because of mechanical problems. We planned to get a good jump and pick some guys off early but I guessed wrong on the jump and only picked up 2 spots. I lost them when I went off to avoid an incident in T5 so I was back to last in the carousel. By the time lap 1 ended, I was 15th- second to last :ohmy:. I was disappointed but I just tried to settle in and pick off the slower cars at the rate of one or two per lap. Before I knew it the race was half way over and I was crossing start/finish in 4th place :woohoo:! I had passed Skip after he had gone off from contacting an unpredictable GTS car, and we had some good racing. He finished ahead of me but was DQ’d for the contact. The FCY came out with about 10 minutes left after Vic collided with a 944 that spun out and left a big dust cloud that blocked his vision. Some guys who saw the hit said it was the biggest they had ever seen. The 944 was launched into the air. That car and Vic’s looked completely totaled to me. Cobetto had pulled out a comfortable lead, but skip and I were catching carter and jonny when the flags came out and ended the race. I may have had a shot at them if we had gone green, but my tires were really starting to give up. I drove ten-tenths the entire race to get through traffic and the left front would not have been happy about holding that pace for a few more laps. I didn’t really have a clean lap, but my fast lap was still faster than cobetto’s in that race. I’m still a little shocked that I was able to come from so far back to catch the leaders in such a short time, but they may have been saving their tires better than me. Cobetto also reported transmission problems later in the race. MikeD had some kind of fuel pickup issue. Kappy and Whit (renter) had contact in the race but both finished, though Whit was later DQ’d.
video: http://www.vimeo.com/4348590
Congrats to cobetto on another sweep. That reminds me that I hold the title of “the only driver this year who has kept chris from winning” (with a little help from MikeD). The only race chris didn’t win this season was the one where I knocked into him ;).
I think Cobetto, Carter, and I were the only drivers to finish anywhere near the front in both races. Overall it was a pretty good weekend for me but I think for the group as a whole it was not so good. Most of the guys had some kind of mechanical problem, DQ, contact, etc.
But there’s always next time. Almost everyone who was there plans on being at Hyperfest in june, along with several others who weren’t there. I think we can hope for 25 cars and more great racing. Maybe someone will even beat cobetto…
victorhall
#5
FARTBREF wrote:
[quote]Thanks for the report, is Vic OK???
Al[/quote]
Man please, it takes more than a little metal to metal with a porch to hurt me! I’m on travel for work, so will get my recap in later, but it was a rough weekend. Had motor issues all weekend, then the wreck. Here’s what I wrote up for the salazar boys:
Car was down on power on Saturday. I had a pretty uneventful race, getting passed by the world. Stephen was the man, and came over until 1:30 am trying to help diagnose the problem with a wide-band O2 sensor…car was running REAL lean (15.6 a/f at full throttle). I threw some parts at it but no luck getting the power back. Skipped qualifying on Sunday to try to fix the car to no avail, but headed to the point to mix it up with the backmarkers. Was having a really fun race, but with about 3-4 laps to go, a 944 went off in the carousel, kicked up LOADS of dirt, and I had my Days of Thunder moment. Drove into the dirt while surrounded by cars. Couldn’t see a thing for a solid 2-3 seconds, to the point that I didn’t even know where I would pop out, or if I was headed into the grass. Clouds opened up, and there was the 944, inches from my front bumper. I T-boned him at 40-60 mph? Crushed his car, which spectators said got 5 feet of air and almost rolled over.
Our car 54 is pretty busted up, but fixable, and man, my neck is SORE!!
-Vic
jusilver
#6
I had just passed Russell and Whit through T1 & T2 and was not far behind Vic. I too came through the dust cloud with zero visibility. Just as it cleared up, I could see the 944 falling down from a 45deg angle and landing on its broken-off front wheel.
It’s too bad that happened… Vic was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was sure we had at least 6-7 more laps left in the race and I was just getting into my groove. Regardless, it was a fun weekend and I look forward to next time!
MikeD
#7
victorhall wrote:
[quote]FARTBREF wrote:
[quote]Thanks for the report, is Vic OK???
Al[/quote]
Our car 54 is pretty busted up, but fixable, and man, my neck is SORE!!
-Vic[/quote]
Man it was good to see you again. I was ok yesterday but today my left shoulder hurts pretty damn bad. I think it hit my lower window net restraint in the wreck :S I need to look into that.
Ok for the recap:
After 2 years of absence from Summit I decided to attend this race in an attempt to keep my 2nd place standing in the points championship.
I started the weekend off with a broken rocker arm 1 lap into Saturday’s practice session. Thanks to Paully we got it fixed pretty fast and just barely missed qualifying. I really appreciate the help. I wouldn’t have been able to fix it 1/4 of the speed Paully did. Big thanks to Carter for the spare rocker arm shaft as well. The junkyard motor’s rocker arm shaft had seen better days. So I started at the back of the pack. The car started to sputter on the out lap a problem i’ve had ever since I took the adjustable fuel pressure regulator out at the beginning of the season. Not sure what is causing it but it’s getting rather annoying 
I figured since I was in the back I could try and get a good start which I did. As I came through 10 the flag dropped as soon as I saw the stand. I managed to get by a few people on the first lap and then came up on Vic. His car seemed to be having some issues as I had no problem getting by him going into 10. I made up a few more positions and started closing on Carter and McGrath. I had no gone from last to 5th. As I was coming out of the carousel I noticed McGrath giving Carter some room so I decided to try and follow Carter under McGrath through 8 hoping that he saw me down there. He didn’t and he hit me on my drivers side door causing him to spin. I collected him again as he was spinning and we both went off track. I was able to get back on track and regain some positions to finish 9th with my front bumper sticking straight out. :woohoo:
We worked on the car Saturday night and got it ready for Sunday’s race.
Sunday was a little nicer than Saturday. I managed to qualify 6th with the car feeling a little odd. The sputtering was getting worse so I knew it would be tough to maintain my 6th place position during the race. I managed to get by the axis car at the start and attempted to follow Carter. I was keeping Carter in sight when I got behind a SPEC 3 which was almost impossible to pass with the sputtering on the straights. I managed to finally get by the Spec 3 and then tried my best to drive clean and maintain position. Everything was going well and then I saw Robert in my mirrors. I knew he had come from last place so he must have been turning some quick laps. I tried to keep him behind me but knew I didn’t have to car to stay in front. He had no problem passing me coming out of 10 onto the straight. Skip was right behind him as well and he also got by me. Skip had gotten pushed off by a spec 3 the lap before. So Robert got by and then I figured I was safe. Nope…Grace pops up in the mirror and now i’m praying for the checkered flag. I managed to hold off grace and the race finished under yellow.
I was really impressed with the speed everyone has at Summit. I hope I will have the car fixed so I can try and play up front at Hyperfest. Chris especially did an awesome job all weekend. It’s anyone’s race now. The competition continues to grow and that’s a good thing.
cheers,
victorhall
#8
Pic of the damage. Anyone got a donor E30 with a straight front clip? I also will be looking for a pedal set, as I bent them in the wreck - I have that pic at home…will post it soon…pretty creepy.
-Vic
edit - we have to change this image screener in the forum…it is weak sauce. 
victorhall
#9
Pics of the 944 damage:
http://44cup.zeroforum.com/zerothread?&id=3247
Most importantly, everyone walked away ok…should be some exciting video from the Spec E36’s behind us.
-Vic
944_Cup
#11
Direct link to 944 pix: http://44cup.zeroforum.com/zerothread?id=3247&page=2.
Vic: Have a guy here in the DC area that can do the parts swap over by Hyperfest for a really good price if your interested
allenr
#12
Sunday results are finally up:
http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1108414&perclass=1
allenr
#13
Here’s a mid-season points update of the top six drivers after 3 of 7 events. I factored in one of the two drops.
Cobetto: 500
Davidson: 413
Hunt: 405
J. Allen: 403
R. Allen: 399
S. Bennet: 378
It’s a close race for 2nd! Cobetto has said he may not do the whole season, so this second place battle could be for the lead.
DMoses
#14
Damn vic if it wasn’t for bad luck you would have no luck. get it fixed and make sure you make it down to the Lowes race.
victorhall
#15
HAHA - Tell me about it Damion!
Shoot - I would LOVE to make it to Lowes, but have a friend getting married that weekend anyways…gonna have live vicariously through you guys!
-Vic
MikeD
#16
Turns out that after removing the body panels the frame on my car is bent. It got shifted to the left about 1in. I was wondering why it felt funny on Sunday. So hopefully I’ll make it to Summit in June.
Here’s a pic Robert’s dad took of the beauty on Sunday :silly:
