Cat National Review
Well another weekend and another trip to Road America. To tell you the truth I would go back there every week if I possibly could. The track just never gets old.
My friend and crew Rob and I made the trip again down to Elkhart Lake for what looked to be a beautiful weekend. Weather was great and the car had a few modifications to help with cooling so we expected a good weekend of fun. 40+ cars entered in the run group promised to make this a awesome weekend.
Friday - Arrived around 8pm Friday evening and got to registration and tech just fine and then got the car unload. Hooked up with Mike B at tech and talked for a while wishing more F1000's showed but we planned on having a good time. By the time we got done talking it was pretty much dark so we headed out to eat and then got back and unpacked all the camping material and were ready hit the sack after along day.
Saturday - First qualifying was at 9:50 and of course even though we thought we had everything ready as I started the car up we remembered we needed to check our tire pressures. Doh. Rob ran over and grabbed the gauge and grabbed some pressures and we were ready to rock...of course I forgot to turn on the video camera so of course no video from Q1 one. Good news was I immediately on lap two out was 2 seconds below my best time from the June Sprints weekend. I felt SOOOO much more comfortable with the car and just getting seat time has helped a ton. Before I was along for the ride now I actually was making the car do what I wanted. Sweet session with lots of open track and the ability to lay down lap after lap dropping times. Finally got down to a 2:15.5 something which actually ended up being my fastest quali time of the weekend just due to the temps going up in the afternoon and the tires going off. One thing that I desperately need to work with is cronic understeer in slow turns that dont have any aero in effect on them. The car just pushed big and makes you pick up throttle late. Anyway Q1 came in and was happy. Most importantly temps for oil and water were right where they should be. the new ducting worked!
Second qualifying got underway at 2pm and the heat on the track was way up from the morning. The car wasn't making nearly as much power and I had run the tires off by the 5th lap and the understeer was just getting worse. Traffic and yellows also filled this session so time stayed about the same but there was some good lapping and I will post video here a little later. Net was Q1 times were better.
End of the day I was really happy with the progress my team (aka friends paid with beer) had made on the car. We dropped times massively and got it balanced right under aero...all we need to do is work on that mechanical grip understeer issue and we should be able to start really click off good times. Overall pretty happy for where we are at figuring out the car after only 3 races on it! Walked down and talked to Mike and things weren't going so good for him. Never good when you see a man with a dremmel and bits flying off your front wing. He continued to have overheating issue so we talked about some ideas and changes to the side pods and him and his great team set to work on what they had planned.
Sunday - Watched some of the group 2 race with DSR cheering on the old car with Dave Knaack at the helm and then got busy mounting up the new tires and preping the car. One thing this car constantly needs is tightening of the suspension bolts. Literally ever single session I come in with a good majority of the jam nuts loose. So check list item one is to snug them all back up.
Lap 2-4 :P I pulled out a little gap and set off to getting passed Kirk K. Had a great battle for two laps trying to work past him. The F1000 doesn't pull on the top FC's nearly as much as the lower ones and at the top end its nearly the same (frontal area issue I presume) and I had to work to get him. Kept getting good runs tucking up behind him out of T3 but he got a good clean block on me on the inside of T5 and the time lost breaking back across the track to try and go around the outside just cost me to mcuh. So set off hounding him the rest of the lap trying at T8 and T12 but no dice. Meanwhile I believe that Tomasi was right behind me and slipped pass into T12 as I didn't protect after trying to get Kirk. Got Tomasi back down the front straight and finally got Kirk down into T5.
Lap 5-11: It was off for the other two FC's in front of me and probably the absolutely best race ever in my short career. Brian B (I believe) and one of the Blue and Orange FC's where having a great battle ahead of me and I joined in. I didnt want to do anything stupid and ruin their race as obviously they were battling for class position but I wanted to get by and get some clean air cause the car was faster. I tried a few laps into T5 but with them working each other was blocked so tried the outside once and slid wide which let Tomasi get along side me up the hill and now there were four of us in the battle. Lap 6,7,8 we all went two or three wide down the straight each time I pulled out of the draft I just couldn't get by and finally with lap 8 culminating in all of us three side into the braking zone at T1 at 146 on GPS data. Hit the brakes and Brian went by and the blue car and I went though side by side or close to it. Tried again into T3 but just didnt have the run but got a good exit while the blue car put two off and finally got by but still all four of us were nose to tail. I tried Brian into T8 but just didnt have the run and then got a good run into Canada but f'ed it up under braking and locked up so couldn't do anything. Got a good run up the Billy Mitchell bend and was tucked in under him at T14 and finally got him on the front straight. Kept the hammer down and immediately dropped the lap times into the 2:15 flat range which would have been a damn 2:13 something according to the predictive lap timer until I cocked up huge into T12 and thus all of us were back together.
Last lap I pulled out a gap again and then coming into the carousel saw the double yellows come out as I headed towards the kink...frantic waving yellows there. At that point I saw what I can honestly say was the worst hit I have ever seen. I came around the turn and there was literally a silver lump on the side against the wall...took me a second to figure out it was the cars engine and rear wheels. From there down track was the rest of the chassis upside down with the driver in it. By the time I got to Canada we had a red flag and I stopped. So what I hoped was going to end in a pretty pumped up race ended up with a lot of thoughts going out to the driver in the other car. In the end I hear he was knocked out on impact after a front wing breaking and going under his front wheels meaning he hit at about 125 head on. He came too and got out of the car himself and was fine after the accident. Needless to say all this money for HANS etc is all worth it!
At the end of the weekend man I was pretty much on cloud 9. I took home my first national win and finished 7th overall out of 40+ drivers with only one super human Nikki Coello driver FC ahead of me and a few Atlantics. The car worked awesome all weekend and once again my crew I owe a HUGE Thank you for helping me out once again. Without you guys (Rob this weekend) I couldn't be doing this!!!
Can't wait for this weekend in Saint Louis this coming weekend. Sorry for being long winded but this craps just to fun to not be pumped about it. Just gotta keep getting the seat time in and Coop your ass is in trouble next year at the Sprints. :P
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