Lime Rock PCA Club Race

April 30, 2005

This was my first time at my home track in my new GT3 cup car. The paint was just barely dry in time to make the race after the crash at the Road Atlanta IMSA GT3 cup race. Here are our cars under the Farnbacher-Loles tent.

In the practice sessions, I started out slowly as the track is BUMPY in the GT3. 1st session got a 59.6 which is only a second faster than the 73 RS can go. But others were slow too, I was 2nd in GT3C just a few tenths behind Paul Orwicz with Bill Chadwick's 935 and Nick Ventura's 914/962 batmobile ahead of us, in the 56s. My car was TOO LOUD so we put a weird supertrapp type muffler extension onto the stock muffler. We had gotten these for all the cars as the Cup cars are usually too loud for Lime Rock. It did not seem to help much but they let us run anyway... the LRP sound limits are too low for even a stock 911 to pass.

2nd session I got a 58.9 but Paul got a 57.4 and I moved down to 5th place. I was still not pushing the car, just feeling it out. In one of these sessions, my new right side nearly got taken out by Nick Ventura going into Big Bend. Here is his car spinning out :

He passed me on the right just before the apex of turn 1, then I broke and moved left. I came to a stop just behind him:

The Third practice was for gridding for qualifying so I wanted to do better. I started to push it in the slower turns and try to carry speed in the fast turns and got down to a 57.4 which was good for 3rd place just ahead of Paul and behind Bill and Nick. There were four more GT3 cup cars behind us.

There was rain in the forecast for Saturday, so they gave us nice long FUN RACES Friday afternoon. I started out 3rd but passed Nick's 600HP car on one of the first starts, I guess he has turbo lag. I may have been able to pass Bill on the outside of Big Bend for the lead, but it was just a fun race so I was not taking any chances. After all the starts, I was still in 2nd place but after the final start, Nick got by me on one of the straights. Then Gene McGillycuddy passed me in his powerful 996 GT3RS bodied 930 turbo. Soon Paul got close, he was pushing very hard and got alongside me several times but I also drove hard and was able to keep him behind me, waiting for the checker to come out. Lap after lap there was no checker, and I continued racing hard. It finally came out and I could relax. It was a very long fun race, longer than many sprint races at Lime Rock, 16 laps! My best time was 57.2 on the 9th lap, which is tough to do with someone on your rear bumper. But on the same lap, Paul was able to get a 57.1 (drafting!).

Friday night I went home and when I awoke it was wet, looked like a lousy day. I decided to stay home and do some work to pay off the bodywork, and so I could have an event with NO DAMAGE and a good finish, for once. Only seven cars in our group raced in the wet, with Gene winning over Bill.

Feeling better about my chances in Mid Ohio in two weeks, as I was running very well against Paul.

Here is Spencer on Saturday wondering where I was and how he could drive my car without anyone knowing...

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