Saturday I won in my Dad's '92 Civic hatch, Edwin Ho was second in his '90 Civic hatch, and Bill Shearer was 3rd in his '86 CRX. That was the order we qualified in too so it was pretty uneventful.
Sunday was mixed up a little more since qualifying was so hard with all of the SM's and SS cars in our group. Edwin ended up qualifying first, Shawn Hobbs was 2nd in his Fiat X1/9, I was 3rd, and Bill was right behind me in 4th. There were 8 cars between Edwin and I so I knew it would be a tough race. I got into 2nd pretty quickly and began inching closer to Edwin. I was able to get around a couple of cars and a couple got around Edwin to put us nose to tail. After a couple of laps like that, I got past him under brakes into 6. I was able to get some Miata's inbetween him and me occasionally but not for long. For the last three laps we were left by ourselves except for one Spec Miata driver who was behind us for most of the race but kept driving like a freaking mad man on several occasions - I don't think he wanted to loose to ITC cars. He got past Edwin on the 2nd to last lap into turn 13 and decided he was going to try a very "brave" move on me going into turn 1 on the last lap.....in the middle of the ITC race.....and there were no other SM drivers around.
Obviously he had the power to get underneath me into the turn but I know my car can hold the outside of turn 1 so I gave him the inside complete with 1.5-2 lanes of room. He ended up driving in waaaaay too deep, his car got loose, and he tanked my back left corner with his front right. I went into a very nice full lock drift through the corner but manged to save it somehow. Just as I was saving it the still not quite under control Miata came flying out of no where into my front left corner and hit me really, really hard. My car immediately started spinning again and there was no saving it this time as she went around. Unfortunately Edwin was right behind me and he started spinning too trying to avoid me and the Miata. So now as the Miata drives off, he leave Edwin and I both spinning backwards across the track where my back right rams into his back left. Both of our cars still went so we slammed them into gear and fought to get back on track first. Well, Edwin beat me and got back to the line first - a good job by him.
Needless to say, I was pissed! In impound, Edwin and I watched his in car camera where you can see plain as day that I gave him room, he went out of control, and slammed into me. So after impound I went after the driver of SM #6. I found the car and it turned out the guy was one of OPM's rental drivers. Wow, a rental driver, there's a big surprise. He was no where to be found but I talked to Tom Fowler about it and he seemed less than pleased (also considering the guy already flattened the entire right side of the car on Saturday when he wrecked it). I had to go and get into my Integra though and run the ITA race so I had to let it go. I will still find this guy one day though.
Sunday was a prime example of why I left ITC though. The cars are fun as hell to drive but the entry numbers are low and the stupid classes they put you with are full of a bunch of pompous morons who think they're God's gift to the race track and have no respect at all for you in your "wimpy ITC car". Of course after having that point hammered home again, I went and had one of the closest, biggest fights I've had all year in the ITA race for 13 laps..........my Integra doesn't even have a speck on it.
