Road Atlanta Super Tour 2024

[Purple Frog]

Sportsfans,

On the spur of the moment Mrs Frog and I up and decided to drive the GR86 up to Road Atlanta and visit many of our old friends. We heard that Tim Minor was wandering down from Virginia, and the Aiken family had crossed over to the dark side and bought a new FE2 for Porter to play with, so we loaded up and drove north Saturday morning through a fierce rain storm for a bit.

We missed Saturday's FC race. We heard that right before the race it started raining. All the field switched to rain tires, except Minor 88. Turns out Minor discovered his rain tire were a lot smaller in diameter than his dry tires and he couldn't drive the Citation with the floor rubbing the pavement, so in an act of foolery or bravery he went out on drys. Dixon won Saturday in his Citation, and Minor finished undamaged.

Sunday dawned bright and chilly. A wonderful Road Atlanta day. The group FC raced in went out at noon. The group contained FA, P1, P2, FX, FC, FE2, and maybe four other classes I can't remember this morning. Lap one, the field all got through T1. OK. Same with lap 2. In Lap 2 Minor clicked off a 1:25 in the FC lead with Dixon in pursuit. Then the carnage began. And we had another un-interesting parade of the remaining cars driving around behind the pace car, each restart only lasting a hot lap. There might have been one green lap to the checked flag as the race ended because of expired time on the clock. Ho Hum, yawn.

Unfortunately the biggest tussle took out Matt McDonough's Radon in a major way. No love for mixed class racing. When the leaders are already mixed into the back-markers for a restart, things happen, usually not pretty things.

Minor took the win. Dixon fell back after getting clipped feeling like something was amiss at the rear of his car. Hartley MacDonald was second, and Eric Presbrey was third.

The fields were large last weekend. But, some run groups were made up of many classes, so some classes had only one car. Both paddocks were very full. Some take-aways: OMG in GT1 there now are Lamborginis, and McLarens. SM still severely damages a few cars. The FE2 fields are large, as are SFR. Road Atlanta is still the great racing surface I have come to know and love, but the surrounding area has been developed beyond any vision we might have had in 1970.

It was great to see old friends like Steve Davis and James Lee. We decided to avoid Hotlanta traffic coming home, so we carved back roads south from the track for a enjoyable scenic drive through the likes of Winder and Social Circle, not popping out onto the super slab until we were near Macon. Good times.

[Purple Frog]

Pictures of the cast of yesterday's follies. Dixon's Citation and MacDonald's VD

[Purple Frog]

Before and After Matt McDonough's Radon

[Purple Frog]

Presbrey, Rocco, Minor

[Purple Frog]

Those from South Florida seem to forget how cold it can get in North Georgia in March. We spotted the one and only James Lee hanging out at T10. Regardless of what the picture shows he was still upright. I'm thinking maybe James could afford to buy a winter coat if Jim Morgan would pay his prep shop bill.

Didn't get a picture, but Wanda Cecil is still working registration. She was nice enough to let us late straglers check in. Good stuff.

[E1pix]

Well done as always, I love it.

[Tim Minor]

It was great to see Mr & Mrs Purple Frog.It was like having Chris Aconmaki in the pits again.
As for the weekend,we had a decent FC field and I want to thank everyone who came out to support the event.
What I didn’t like was the lack of support from the officials not taking action against the drivers who repeatedly caused the stoppage of our group and for not talking to some of the drivers who were up to 7-8 seconds off the pace in their own class.I realize we all need a place to race,but without some sort of action to make it safer for everyone the club continues doing the same old thing.I’m not saying that they can’t race but with No recourse the same thing will continue to happen.
we all have cameras and the stewards,certainly look at the times like the competitors do,so can’t they at least ask the question,why are you Always not on pace with your class.
I would still like to see everyone in FC turn out for our next 3 events Pitt Race,Mid Ohio,Sprints and Hopefully we can get an FA/FC
group,but with out you the drivers this will not happen.
The ball is your court.
Sincerely
Tim MinorFc88

[Matt M.]

Good to see you again Mike

[Purple Frog]

When we got to the track Saturday the FC race 1 was over. So in typical SCCA mode everyone just sits around waiting for the next day. I shot some pictures of what we do... tinker on the cars or most just talk.

[E1pix]

Dang it, now us minions wonder who’s who.

[DaveW]

Dang it, now us minions wonder who’s who.

Photo titles name the subjects.

[E1pix]

Oh Geez, I left my thinking cap in my other suit… again!

Thanks, Dave.

[brian styczynski]

It was great to see Mr & Mrs Purple Frog.It was like having Chris Aconmaki in the pits again.
As for the weekend,we had a decent FC field and I want to thank everyone who came out to support the event.
What I didn’t like was the lack of support from the officials not taking action against the drivers who repeatedly caused the stoppage of our group and for not talking to some of the drivers who were up to 7-8 seconds off the pace in their own class.I realize we all need a place to race,but without some sort of action to make it safer for everyone the club continues doing the same old thing.I’m not saying that they can’t race but with No recourse the same thing will continue to happen.
we all have cameras and the stewards,certainly look at the times like the competitors do,so can’t they at least ask the question,why are you Always not on pace with your class.
I would still like to see everyone in FC turn out for our next 3 events Pitt Race,Mid Ohio,Sprints and Hopefully we can get an FA/FC
group,but with out you the drivers this will not happen.
The ball is your court.
Sincerely
Tim MinorFc88

At the SCCA convention they mentioned they would have "ambassadors" for the big classes like SM and SRF to go around the paddock and talk to underperforming or dangerous/oblivious drivers. They were getting volunteers from experienced drivers in the groups to ask questions or offer advice and report back to Stewards. I think it was a super tour only trial program for this year. I don't know how it is going or if they plan to expand it, but it seems like a good start, at least making contact with a problem driver before escalating. "Hey bud, I saw you spun 4 times that session, what's going on? What kind of setup are you running?"

But yeah, ignoring the 2% of cars that cause the most issues isn't working.

[Purple Frog]

Weird thing about this trip to the races...

For many years... well clear back to the 1960s... as I visited paddocks, worked in paddocks, had my own race car in paddocks... there was one scene that always repeated itself. There were always "old-timers" who drove into the paddock in nice sports cars and cruised through the paddock, usually on the big race day, stopping in front of certain teams and rolling their windows down and speaking with participants, then rolling on to some parking spot. At that point they emerged from their cars, dressed in Sunday attire, no sign of grease under the nails, and then paraded through the paddock with their lovely trophy wife, shaking hands and repeating old "war stories".

I fear I am now that guy.

Modern sports car... check
Clean clothes... check
Telling old stories... check
Beautiful trophy wife... check

[CheckeredFlag]

<snip>the Aiken family had crossed over to the dark side and bought a new FE2 for Porter to play with<snip>

Whoa, them's fightin' words!

[E1pix]

Weird thing about this trip to the races...

For many years... well clear back to the 1960s... as I visited paddocks, worked in paddocks, had my own race car in paddocks... there was one scene that always repeated itself. There were always "old-timers" who drove into the paddock in nice sports cars and cruised through the paddock, usually on the big race day, stopping in front of certain teams and rolling their windows down and speaking with participants, then rolling on to some parking spot. At that point they emerged from their cars, dressed in Sunday attire, no sign of grease under the nails, and then paraded through the paddock with their lovely trophy wife, shaking hands and repeating old "war stories".

I fear I am now that guy.

Modern sports car... check
Clean clothes... check
Telling old stories... check
Beautiful trophy wife... check

Not you of course, but in general I never trust anyone with clean fingernails.

But this does add much angst at dental appointments.

[EYERACE]

If one clicks on James Lee's picture.........he stands right up !!

[s800racer]

I fear I am now that guy.

Modern sports car... check
Clean clothes... check
Telling old stories... check
Beautiful trophy wife... check

sounds awful. #bragging

[s800racer]

Crashed cars and carnage at the track sucks. No one wants that and it doesn't have to be that way.

For those of you with Pinto engined FCs through 1997, you can run with VDCA at our vintage events. It's still mixed class racing but the carnage is STRONGLY discouraged and bad actors are put on the trailer. We'll be at VIR in two weeks. Not too late to sign up!

[Lotus7]

Crashed cars and carnage at the track sucks. No one wants that and it doesn't have to be that way.

For those of you with Pinto engined FCs through 1997, you can run with VDCA at our vintage events. It's still mixed class racing but the carnage is STRONGLY discouraged and bad actors are put on the trailer. We'll be at VIR in two weeks. Not too late to sign up!

wasn't limited to just FC, the whole event was a sh*t-show of double yellows and black flags....

[Purple Frog]

Talking with Butch Kummer yesterday... he said that for the whole weekend only one session went green for the whole race, all the rest had double Yellows.

Tim Minor reported that for the whole event he had less than two dozen hot laps.

WTF

reach your own conclusions.