Runoffs...

[reidhazelton]

Sooo....no Runoffs chatter. No Runoffs thread. Only 11 or so cars at an East Coast track. Ouch. What gives?

[John Nesbitt]

I can only speculate, but I suspect that some decided to leave before the hurricane arrived.

Messaged with friends working the event. Conditions deteriorating - not Florida bad, but bad enough. If the Dan River floods, Turn 1 could be underwater tomorrow.

[Joefisherff]

https://cdn.connectsites.net/user_fi...pdf?1664562563

[John Nesbitt]

Track shut down for over an hour due to a major oil spill on a wet track. Could not have happened at a worse time. The 3pm race (STU) cut short. The 4pm race group (T3) just leaving the grid now (5:10). Conditions look severe - hard rain and high wind.

[Purple Frog]

Ian has turned the Runoffs into a boat race.

[Dave Harmison]

If I heard right, FX is now first thing Saturday morning?

Should be “entertaining “. But only 5 cars.

[Stan Clayton]

Ian has turned the Runoffs into a boat race.

You talking sh*t now that you live up at 236' MSL?

[swiftdrivr]

Bad conditions, small field but not a bad race. It didn't compare to some of the battles at Road America in recent years, but "conditions were not conducive" as they say. Bummer that one of the best tracks in the country has had terrible weather both times and hasn't been able to produce a great show.

BTW: Anybody know the time for the pole lap?

[Messenger Racing]

Yes FX is now 8 am Saturday - we are here with Trevor Russell who finished second in FF earlier today and is running in FX and FC as well. Holding down the awnings and riding this mess out. Everyone stay safe.

JM

If I heard right, FX is now first thing Saturday morning?

Should be “entertaining “. But only 5 cars.

[Mschumi101]

Bad conditions, small field but not a bad race. It didn't compare to some of the battles at Road America in recent years, but "conditions were not conducive" as they say. Bummer that one of the best tracks in the country has had terrible weather both times and hasn't been able to produce a great show.

BTW: Anybody know the time for the pole lap?

Jonathan turned a 1:59.2 on Day 3 if I remember correctly. Tim was a 1:59.9, I was third at a 2:00.1 from Day 1. It was a fun race, but very tricky conditions. Had it been dry there were 6-8 of us in the hunt based on time and would have been a crazy draft battle! I missed the setup a bit in the wet and couldn't get my car to turn, so fell down the order. Felt competitive though and was a fun race! Maybe next year we'll be dry... Would love to see more cars on the grid, but the cars that were here were very high quality!

[swiftdrivr]

"Maybe next year we'll be dry."

Let's hope so. It was fun to watch!

[Purple Frog]

Stan wrote:
You talking sh*t now that you live up at 236' MSL?

Stan, I moved away from the coast. I consider this new location an investment in the future. I'm thinking it is future beach front property.

[problemchild]

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. The racing has been really good and really entertaining.
Those who want to whine about the weather, should just go home.
Jonathan drove a fine race just as Brian did in FV and Alex did in FA. Kudos to them and the other 16 or so other Champions crowned so far.

[DaveW]

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. The racing has been really good and really entertaining.
Those who want to whine about the weather, should just go home.
Jonathan drove a fine race just as Brian did in FV and Alex did in FA. Kudos to them and the other 16 or so other Champions crowned so far.

Congrats to the winners AND finishers. Reminds me of the '72 ARRC (now Runoffs) at Road Atlanta during Thanksgiving weekend. 39F and rain for the FVee race. That was also a tropical storm that was passing through. In tech afterwards we froze our butts off as Frank Schultheis (Fvee & FF tech guru) did a ~4-hour total teardown of my engine in the open-sided tech building, which is what they did back then.

[swiftdrivr]

I seem to have a memory of someone {DW?} pulling off in a long ago runoffs, because they were on stickers and couldn't get them warm enough to wear off the stickers. I think it was sleeting at the time. I have a vivid imagination and a lousy memory, but I think that is accurate.

[BLS]

Congrats to the winners AND finishers. Reminds me of the '72 ARRC (now Runoffs) at Road Atlanta during Thanksgiving weekend. 39F and rain for the FVee race. That was also a tropical storm that was passing through. In tech afterwards we froze our butts off as Frank Schultheis (Fvee & FF tech guru) did a ~4-hour total teardown of my engine in the open-sided tech building, which is what they did back then.

I was there, watching you win And freezing my butt off. I remember the Zink tent had one of those kerosene heaters blowing away trying to warm things up. I stood inside for about ten minutes and almost passed out from the fumes...

[problemchild]

While I have no sympathy for the drivers racing in less than perfect weather, I certainly appreciate all the volunteer workers and crew who have to deal with foul weather. It was no treat for the FC teams loading up in the rain today after being on the road for 10 days, the last 3 in the rain. Nolan Allaer won the FC race, Trevor Russell won FX, and Bailey Monette won FE2. Trevor Russell won FX and finished 2nd in both FF and FC.

[E1pix]

I was there, watching you win And freezing my butt off...

Me, too, right after the braking point entering Turn 3.

Was 12 then... and truth be told, probably still am.

[DaveW]

I seem to have a memory of someone {DW?} pulling off in a long ago runoffs, because they were on stickers and couldn't get them warm enough to wear off the stickers. I think it was sleeting at the time. I have a vivid imagination and a lousy memory, but I think that is accurate.

That was at Mid Ohio in year 2000. I had GY 120 compound tires on, and could not get them warm - I was a moving chicane because I was so slow. It was like driving on ice. So I retired to the paddock after 14 laps of the 20-lap race.

[kea]

Congrats to the winners AND finishers. Reminds me of the '72 ARRC (now Runoffs) at Road Atlanta during Thanksgiving weekend. 39F and rain for the FVee race. That was also a tropical storm that was passing through. In tech afterwards we froze our butts off as Frank Schultheis (Fvee & FF tech guru) did a ~4-hour total teardown of my engine in the open-sided tech building, which is what they did back then.

Dave,
I remember seeing a photo in the Detroit News (they did a good job of covering Motorsports in those days) from Road Atlanta that year, showing trees with icicles hanging from the branches.

[E1pix]

Did one of those icicles have a stopwatch and a program, and look about 12?

[mboian90]

This was my first year of road racing and my first Runoffs experience was quite the adventure. I learned a lot, met a bunch of people and formed a host of opinions on things. Some of those things I didn’t even know I needed an opinion on . I could probably talk for hours on the entire thing so I tried to keep it to the most entertaining stories:

1) Apparently if you opt to walk for the course walk you will be the only one actually walking. One of those "I missed the memo" moments. To add some comical insult to injury, someone then came around when I was geographically as far away from the pits as possible to remind me of when the track closes.

2) My “crew” consisted of 2 of my close college buddies. This was their first time being at an SCCA event and neither had seen my car in real life before it rolled off the trailer. I had prepared the impound bag-o-tools and gave instructions to one of them on Monday. I got called to impound on Wednesday. When asked if someone was on the way with tools I replied with something like “I hope so but realistically probably not”. I think I managed to borrow something from each person under the tent. About the time I started putting things back together my “crew” came wandering up (with no tools) probably because the cooler was starting to get empty.

3) Unsurprisingly I found VIR a hard track to learn. I got in touch with my off-road racing roots by exploring all areas of the track, regardless of paving. On Thursday I performed a service test of the tire wall outside of Oak Tree which earned me a complementary ride in the wrecker. The most concerning damage was that the rack was locked up and the FL lower A-arm was trashed (I had spares for everything else). The rack was repaired using the precision application of a dead blow hammer, a cutoff disk and an assortment of files. The closest thing to a spare A-arm I had was a bent one I had pulled off the wall of shame as I loaded the trailer, "just in case". I straightened it on a jig that resembled a trailer frame and a floor jack and then Nick Fuhs was kind enough to weld on a reinforcement patch that I made from a split section of the trashed arm. In the last seconds of daylight Jay Messenger and the Russell’s let me use their platform to get things pointed straight.

I finished 9^th which is realistically about as high as I could have expected, regardless of the weather condition. Just crossing the finish sounded good after the previous day. I had a reasonable first few corners which I threw away when I sorta bailed in turn 11 thinking I was going to rear end the car in front of me. Other than that, the race was fairly non-eventful for me if you ignore the expected slipping and sliding.

Here's to 2023

Matt Boian
14 FF

[E1pix]

Great read, Thanks.

[M.Sauce]

I seem to have a memory of someone {DW?} pulling off in a long ago runoffs, because they were on stickers and couldn't get them warm enough to wear off the stickers. I think it was sleeting at the time. I have a vivid imagination and a lousy memory, but I think that is accurate.

Probably the 2000 Runoffs at Mid Ohio.The sleet started right as we were leaving the grid. Mark Jaremko and I had a great race for second but Chris was gone into a different zip code. I guess leaving his tires in the warmth until right before race time was very smart after all.We were all on slicks and the softest available,but 33 degrees and sleet made it a rain race and no tire temps.

[Stan Clayton]

Probably the 2000 Runoffs at Mid Ohio.The sleet started right as we were leaving the grid. Mark Jaremko and I had a great race for second but Chris was gone into a different zip code. I guess leaving his tires in the warmth until right before race time was very smart after all.We were all on slicks and the softest available,but 33 degrees and sleet made it a rain race and no tire temps.

I think that was the year I watched the CSR race while it sleeted and snowed.

And wasn't that the last MO race held that late...it was moved up like a month the next year?