Summit DE to NASA race weekend

[bobt993]

We had a nice group of RTR members stay on to race with NASA Midatlantic this weekend.   Weather went from our balmy two days to horrible rain storm Friday night.  The paddock at Summit was under water at the entrance by a couple of feet!!

Weather for Saturday was only a little better.  Darren Mingis and Todd Reidd had a great battle in PTE and had pulled away from the field to decide 1st and 2nd place, but a throttle linkage cable broke on Darren's car to leave the victory to Todd with no further contention.  Conditions were really bad, but amazingly the German Touring group managed to complete their race with no incidents.  Tom Dymant did not bring rain tires so completing the race was a feat in itself.  Bob Turgeon managed a 2nd place in GTS3 with some really close racing with other GTS cars.  Jason Mahoney was chasing gremlins in his Spec E30 which he eventually fixed  before Sunday's race.

Sunday was somewhat opposite.  Sun and heat with long Sprint races (40mins).  
Darren and Todd had a similar start as Saturday gapping their group.  It remained close at the start, but Darren pulled away having prepped his car just right during the RTR DE jat Summit  before the weekend race.  Jason moved up the field in Spec E30 with a brave"grass pass" of several cars on the start.  Once Jason's car is dialed in he will be contesting for the podium. 

Ironically the GTS race that was so clean in the rain was not in the dry.  Full course caution consumed a big portion of the later part of the race allowing the field to bunch up.  Bob Turgeon pulled of a late pass while in 3rd to take (T4 of the last lap of the race!!) 1st with a bit of luck and misfortune for the two front runners. Tom started well, but was held up by a slower car under yellow never had a chance to recover. 

[ninjabones]

Congrats Darren... finally broke Todd's streak (what was it... 13 races?).  Good work in the enduro Bob... how about some video of the big move?

[Darren]

bobt993 wrote:

Jason moved up the field in Spec E30 with a brave"grass pass" of several cars on the start. Once Jason's car is dialed in he will be contesting for the podium.

He stole that grass pass move from me Though of course I stole it from Todd.....

ninjabones wrote:

Congrats Darren... finally broke Todd's streak (what was it... 13 races?). Good work in the enduro Bob... how about some video of the big move?

Thanks Glen! My camera was not working for some reason so I have no video. I'm sure Todd will be posting some though. Basically my car was just very hooked up with the Hoosier A6 tires and I could go places that Todd could not. We were battling a bit in the beginning but then I could see the rest of the pack keeping up with us. I tucked in behind him to give both of us a good draft so we could get a bit of a lead before contending. I didn't actually make a move again until we started catching the Miatas that were in a staggered start from us. By the end of the race we actually caught and passed the fastest Miatas which never happens. There were 3 of them battling out for 1-3rd and they were nose to tail! It was very difficult to time and pull off a pass and not screw up their race, and at the same time not slow myself down too much.

Todd never relaxed, never slowed down! He's like a tiger ready to attack at any hint of weakness. At the end as I was managing the Miatas there he was in my rearview about 10 car lengths back or so. A few more laps with a little more traffic and we would have been back into a battle.

[ninjabones]

How about some feedback on the A6's vs your experience in the past with the R6... did they hold up for the entire enduro?

[Darren]

ninjabones wrote:

How about some feedback on the A6's vs your experience in the past with the R6... did they hold up for the entire enduro?

I generally don't use up tires as much as some other people do and these A6's work great for me. If you slide a lot I don't think they'd hold up real well.

I get 4 good days on a set of the A6's. I had 6 days on the set I used during the RTR DE at Summit and they were down to the steel belts, totally destroyed by the end of the 3rd session on Friday. They are good right to the steel belts and when you get there you can tell.

It's sort of expensive to go this route but it's the cost of winning and also I won 2 free tires! So that helps balance things out.

[bobt993]

A6's are not good for a heavy car = 993.  Illegal in PCA, fine in NASA.   Good choice for qualifying if your real smart and get a fast lap in, then get off the track.   Will work on getting some video together. 

[fasthonda]

hi guys!

had a GREAT weekend at NASA!    sat was 'weather' day -- was it gonna rain or was it going to start to dry out?   i went with my dry tires;  shaved Toyo RA-1s which started at 4/32 (and this was their 5th weekend, so i'd guess between 1 and 2/32nds left).  the rest of the PTE'ers went with full tread RA-1s, except for darren who went with the Hoosier Rains!

i think i drove a great race on sat (i had qualified 2nd by less than a tenth behind Wade an SE-R;  it was mostly dry for qualifying);  during the race, i ran at 100%, slipping and sliding and trying my best to keep Darren behind me;  he was over a full second per lap faster than i was, but he had a throttle cable break and went off behind me in T1;  after that it was just manage traffic and stay ahead of one of the other 'fast' PTE SE-Rs (and it was raining more and more as the laps went on):

http://www.vimeo.com/6241200

sunday was dry and hot!  i qualified 2nd behind Darren (darren was flying!);  he had me by about half a sec.   i got a good start, and 'ReidSpeeded' everyone into T1 and got the lead!  Darren and i fought it out in a BIG way;  i gave him everything i had, but i couldn't hold him once we got into heavy traffic.  when he got around me, i tried my darndest to stick with him, but he was .5 secs per lap faster, and i slid back.  as he said, i had reclosed to within less than 1.4 seconds at the finish;  i wish there had been another 5-10 mins of racing!   awesome job, darren!!!!

http://www.vimeo.com/6244932

well, that's the quick report!!!   

todd

ReidSpeed

 

[ninjabones]

Holy crap... that was  a great race to watch.  Todd, you really went after turn 9/10 on that last lap; thought you were going to lose it there.  Darren, bet you were less than pleased with that yellow civic at about 28:40 that held you up and allowed Todd back onto your rear bumper. 

Todd, looks like most of Darren's advantage over you was in the carusel.  He'd gain about 100 yrds on you by the bridge and you'd make a lot of it back back up down the chute.  Was your car having issues with the bumpy asphalt or was that mostly due to Darren's A6's giving him just a bit more grip in those slower/tighter turns?

[fasthonda]

hiya glen!!!!

darren didn't have an 'advantage' in the carousel!  .......

he freaking CRUSHED me in the carousel!!!   he'd pull multi mega carlengths on me there;  it was horrifying to see from my point of view!!!  LOL!

my car is handling great;  i've got it dialed in really well.   what is happening to me in the carousel is compounded by several things:

1.  i'm way way heavier than all the other cars (i have to ballast up to 2660 min at the end of the race to stay in PTE, and that's with RA-1s on the car (sunday's race i came off the scales at 2682 lbs).  if i ran hoosiers, i'd have to be 2735 lbs).  most of the other PTE'ers are 200+ lbs lighter, and all are running on hoosiers or z214 hankooks (hoosier clones).  i'm the only Toyo man!

2.  darren's fresh hoosier A6s work alot better than my RA-1s (and we are both on the same width - 225s).

3.  i have a stock tranny with a stock diff;  no lsd or fd.  i'm pretty sure that darren has a good fd and a clutch type racing lsd.

i am pretty (very?) brave in the high speed turns;  T9, T10, T3, T4.  i can make time up in those.  there is a bit of sliding and slipping in those turns (both in wet and dry) to keep that pace.  one good thing about the RA-1s is that they will stand alot of drifting around without falling apart, wearing out, or burning down!  ha ha!

todd

ReidSpeed

PS  darren and i are going to have an epic rematch at VIR full!!!  right buddy? 

[Darren]

ninjabones wrote:

Holy crap... that was a great race to watch. Todd, you really went after turn 9/10 on that last lap; thought you were going to lose it there. Darren, bet you were less than pleased with that yellow civic at about 28:40 that held you up and allowed Todd back onto your rear bumper.

That was just an unfortunate situation -- going into T1 there was a Yellow flag when I went by. Todd saw it come out and go away so he know it was green. I was obeying the yellow flag until I realized there was no incident -- someone must have gone off and back on. Then I finally passed the yellow CRX (Keith). There was definitely a "holy crap" moment when I realized Todd was a lot closer than I thought he was! With all of the traffic between us I lost sight of him and assumed he was much further back!