NHMS Double 7/10-7/11

Very disappointing weekend. Pretty much lost second gear which made for a loooooong weekend. And to top it all off I trashed at least two rain tires when we ALL guessed wrong Saturday afternoon and went out on wets. But the racing I did have with Ed, Anthony and Brian was all great and clean!!

I know there were some issues with some SS cars, especially in the last race. I know I had my challenges...........

Congrats to Dan Sheppard, new IT7 track record!!!!

Eric, er, I mean Paul Curran in his ITB Volvo had the over all poll with ITS and ITR in Saturday AM qualifying in the rain. ITB races were some of the best of the weekend.
 
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It was a Bittersweet weekend for GSMmotorsports at NHMS.


BITTER

In qualifying Saturday morning, Bob Blake overcooked the oval in
strong rain on intermediate tires, spun, crashed LR hard into the
turn 2 wall, which spun him 300 degrees around to crash the LF hard
into the wall, ripping off the suspension. He was still traveling
fast enough that, even scraping along on three wheels, he went so
far into the turn 2 infield (near the truck) that there was no
need for even a local yellow. :(

After spending some time in medical, Bob was released and is totally
ok, if not a bit sore. The 82 car was not so lucky, and after
close inspection, the damage is worse than the below pics show.
So it looks like we'll be taking all the good bits out and building
another car, probably using the virgin GTUs that Bob has already.

The shame is that the car was at its peak, as was the 14 car, and
we were both looking forward to some very close intra-team racing
in the six races this weekend (3 ITS and 3 STU).


SWEET

In the 14 car, I was able to take home 5 wins (along with one
2nd place STU finish to Tyler Munroe's ITR/STU 325)

The best part of the weekend was winning the middle STU race outright,
staying in front of not only Tyler, but also Jon Leitner and
Keith Hammite in their EP cars

Working hard to stay in front of Jon's fast fast BMW caused me to
work hard enough to record a new STU track record of 1:14.901
during that noontime sunny 87F race :)

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Wow... there was some great racing this weekend. Although the CRX is still slower than I would like (the DL1 will show if it is driver, but for now I say ambient conditions), the finishing positions for the weekend were rewarding.

In summary, a spin in the Sat morning qualifying session left the CRX with a right front fender dent. With help and heckling from the IT7 paddock, two pick-up trucks and a come-a-long, we pulled the bumper back out and bolted the bumper cover back in place. Some racing tape held the lights in place and the car was ready to go again. Funny thing... two pick-up trucks and a come-a-long for a bunch of racers is like a light to a month... people came from all around to watch! LOL

Kudos to Ed for clean driving and even more kudos to Jeff and Brian. I had some great racing with each of them. None of us ever made it easy, but kept it clean and fair. The results from Sun morning show positions 1, 2, 3, and 4 crossing the finish line within just over 3 seconds. I am sure that left 3 of us saying... "If only I had one more lap".

Congrats to Dan for the new IT7 track record. That car flies thru the oval.
 
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Hi all!

Mixed resutls for me as well...

Sun Qual Race: from last (13th) to 10th... car goes into safe mode (6800 redline and no vtec) after I shift into 3rd going into the oval at 90+ mph (i.e 8.5K rpm... oops!). I stayed in 10th and battled it out with the blue Si even with the loss of power - good times.

NOTE: SS cars take some serious wide lines. I did the same in my stock TSX at LRP and can understand ... to a degree.

Did we ever find out what happened to Branscombe after lap 2 in the am race?

Sun PM NARRC race: from 10th to 4th within 8 laps. I had Anthony Rudd in my sights and I was closing it when the plug wire came loose into the uphill transition from 3 to 4... so I went from 4th -> DFL. The first 8 laps were AWESOME. Me and cars close up were weeving in and out around the Oval, going up the uphill and then I found some serious late braking capacity going into 3 (inside) - baller! I think it was great handling and passing by all - well... no one came up to me after the race and complained. :) Please let me know if I pissed anyone off. I spoke to those that I thought were questionable in their tactics (passing BEFORE green and dive bombing into corners with me along side them) - so we're cool. :)

Dan, the Van Buren's and Jeff Lawton were awesome to hang with. Great to see everyone - it's been way too long. I will keep my fingers crossed and hope we make WGI in two weeks...

Mickey
 
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Andy Bettencourt said:
Hint: If you could actually hold someone off in T1/2 at the start, you would be tough to beat.

Hint #2: UNLESS you use 3rd gear in T3 like you did on lap 1. LOL

Good vid.
Click to expand...


#1: Yup!! :lol:
#2: I figured coasting through there, trying to find second would be even slower........after I tried it I think coasting would have been faster!!! I finally figured out if I got on the brakes early, held the shifter in second, and sloooooooooowly squeezed on the power I could take my hand off to steer around the corner. In one of the earlier sessions I tried going through there holding the shifter with one hand and steering with the other.............. Uh, with no power steering and a welded dif that ain't gonna happen either!!! I think I went up over the curb at the transition! :blink:

I also found if I shifted from 3rd to 4th at 500 RPMs under normal, that shift would go smooth too......... most of the time!!
 
Heh heh heh....yes, I certainly did flat spot my tires on that next to last lap trying to dive past Fred. We both did a slide for life into 3. My tires were giving up the ghost by that late in the race. They've been on the car since last July....might be time for some new ones. Fun race with Fred. Hope to get the tuning sorted so I no longer sputter up the hill at 3. That kept costing me.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXyS1xjTcmk[/ame]
 
StephF said:
Heh heh heh....yes, I certainly did flat spot my tires on that next to last lap trying to dive past Fred. We both did a slide for life into 3. My tires were giving up the ghost by that late in the race. They've been on the car since last July....might be time for some new ones. Fun race with Fred. Hope to get the tuning sorted so I no longer sputter up the hill at 3. That kept costing me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXyS1xjTcmk
Click to expand...


I was wondering where the cone scuff marks came from on the left side of my car!! ;)

Fortunately plastic on plastic doesn't do a lot of damage!!! :lol:
 
Linda Kogan info

Sorry to break into this thread but it does have something to do with this past weekends race. Does anyone know how to contact Linda Kogan?
 
JLawton said:
I was wondering where the cone scuff marks came from on the left side of my car!! ;)

Fortunately plastic on plastic doesn't do a lot of damage!!! :lol:
Click to expand...

Sorry about that. I was trying to run clean, but I was a little bit busy, even more so with almost no grip left. I knew you were there, especially heading back to the main straight, and tried to give you enough room without scrubbing off too much speed. I needed every one of the little squirrels running on their wheels under the hood.
You guys were rocket ships.
 
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