PCA club race

PCA club race

Aug 8-10, 2008

This race was just a week after the MOSPORT PCA club race in Canada, which was also my first time at a track. But as with MOSPORT, I learned a bit by studying youtube and the racing simulator at Farnbacher-Loles. Gregg Healey came out with F-L in his '05 GT3 cup car in GTC3. He had a tough weekend but was very fast.

As with Mosport, I started out slowly to learn the track. In practice 1, I was 31 out of 34 cars, I didn't even pick up the timing sheet. The track was much different in person. For practice 2 I moved up to 22nd by going 6 seconds faster. In the 3rd session I moved up to 13th, another 3 seconds faster with a 2:03 which put me in the thick of the GTC4 times.

The last session on Friday would be the practice starts and fun race, which would be a great learning opportunity for me. I started out 8th as several cars did not run the session. I held my spot for 4 laps then passed some GTC3 cars and moved up to 5th. I had Lawson Wilder in front of me for the last laps, he was really fast all weekend, right around the 2 minute mark, way ahead of the other GTC3 cars. I learned to carry speed through the fast esses from him and got into the 2:01s on my last lap, still on pretty used up tires from Mosport. Here is Lawson ahead of me:

Saturday morning was qualifying, so I put on a new set of Michelin$ and hoped to break the 2 minute mark. I got a good gap ahead of me on the warmup lap so I got a good run and knew the first lap was good, it was just over two minutes and I let out a WOOHOO over the radio when I came by. I got a few more laps in about the same time then came in to conserve the tires and car. My time was best for GTC4, and overall 7th fastest with four GTA cars, Chris Musante's GT3R, and Lawson ahead of me.

The race started off ok but I was asleep a bit at the green flag. Musante had a problem almost causing accidents but everyone got around him ok (I think his battery was loose?). After several laps of following him, I finally passed Barry Fromberg's fast GTA car, but I could only hold him off for a few laps. So I ended up 6th overall and 1st in GTC4 with a low 2 minute lap time. Corey Friedman won in his Grand-am GTA car with a very fast 1:56:

The second sprint race (I love weekends with two sprints!) would be more exciting. I would start out 8th, with the fast laps from race1 used for gridding. I would start behind Lawson and ahead of Barry but Barry got me on the start. Here I am following Barry with Lawson ahead of him.

But this time I got back by Barry on the first lap when he went off course at the end of the fast esses, you can see it in the video below. I then followed Lawson for a few laps (there is a break in the video for a lap) and got by him on the long back straight.

I got by Chris Musante on the following lap, also on the long straight:

Soon Ihad the very powerful GT1R turbo of engine builder Pat Williams in the 334 car ahead of me for five laps:

I finally passed him somehow in the tight turn 5 area, which allowed me to get a buffer to keep him from passing me on the long straight. That was about it for my race, I held that position to finish 4th overall with a fast time of 1:59.3 which was on the lap when I passed Musante. Corey won overall again. Here are my in-car video highlights, sorry that the video got darker during the race, not sure why.:

On Sunday we had qualifying for the enduro, I got a 2:00.1 for 8th place again. I settled into 7th place behind Lawson for several laps, with Barry getting between us, until Lawson pitted. I slowly worked up to the lead after about 30 laps as people pitted. Unfortunately for me, a full course yellow came out with some of my competitors already in the pits, and I was in the lead so everyone behind me got to catch up to me while I was behind the pace car. On a two minute track that is too much time to make up. After the track went green again, I had my pit stop. I slowed to a crawl at the pit exit when I remembered I hit my stopwatch a bit late and did not want to go under the 5 minute minimum pit stop time. I was told I was about 5 minutes and a fraction of a second, the shortest legal pit stop but not too smart, I could have easily had to come in for a stop and go penalty. But due to my late pit stop I lost too much track position and came out in 10th place, 2 laps down to the leaders who pitted under yellow and a lap down to the people who pitted before me and got to catch up to me behind the pace car.

That was a tough way to end the event but I had a blast at the awesome track and there was still a lot to learn to go faster. My return flight was cancelled so I stayed at the airport in Raleigh/Durham and came back Monday morning to get back to work.

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