SCCA Spec Miata Season Opener 4/3/05

The SCCA ORC season opener was an absolute blast, with good weather, a car that felt well sorted, and excellent competition with some really good drivers. After missing the SMT practice session I was only able to qualify 12th, which was a bit behind where I was hoping to be. In the races, however, I was able to take it up a notch and ended up 5th in the 1st SMT race, 7th in the 2nd one, and was the top placing Miata in the ITA race. Not that I was pretty damned happy with!

The entire first SMT race, from start to end. I had a good start thanks to an excellent call of the green flag by my girlfriend Natalie (if you race and don't have a radio system - get one! It's sooo worth it) and had some rather exciting moments shortly thereafter. One of those was when Eric Vaughn, Peter Hsu and I proved that three wide into T6 really doesn't work! I tried to stay consistent throughout the race, which was difficult with Ed Railton on my ass for a good portion of the race, but being mistake free paid off in the end. I passed Eric coming out of T11 when he gave it a bit too much power too early and got loose, and was lucky to get close enough to Peter to pass him coming out of T10 on the very last lap because of him missing a shift. Great, great racing! - WMV (140MB) -

 

SCCA Spec Miata Challenge 10/17/04

Being my first time at Laguna in a Spec Miata, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I found that, while the track is still fun on a low powered car, it really magnifies any mess ups in the corners since nearly every turn leads onto a long straight of some sort. My best lap was a 1:50.3, which would have been a decent time any other weekend, but the track was *fast* so there were a ton of drivers in the 48s and 49s. I qualified 23rd, which was fairly disappointing to me, ended up finishing 17th in the first race and, due to first corner contact, DNF'ed the second race with bent control arms and a flat tire.

The entire first SMC race, from start to end. The start of the race took out 3 or 4 drivers before the first turn, which was a scary display from my vantage point. I started out pretty gingerly, due to slick and unknown track conditions...probably more gingerly than I should have. After picking up some speed and avoiding a slew of self-destructing cars, I was running in 13th or so. Unfortunately, the rain started about two thirds of the way through the race. Never having raced on dry tires in the rain before, I went two/four wheels off a few times due to brake lockup and dropped back to 17th as a result. Not horrible, but not what I was hoping for either. Sorry for the slightly off-center camera mounting! - WMV (162MB) -

The entire second SMC race, from start to end. Yet another crazy start, this time unfortunately resulting in a turn 2 contact incident for me. After passing a few cars through turn 1 and the braking zone for 2, I stuck my nose in under a car when I probably shouldn't have, got turned in on, and made contact with him twice. The first time resulted in him starting to spin, the second was front wheel to front wheel contact, sending me up onto his hood. The result for me was bent control arms and a flat tire. He kept on going to finish the race. Lesson learned about being too optimistic/aggressive on the starts, especially with this many cars... - WMV (11.3MB) -

The start of the first SMC race. The first seconds of the race, showing the mayhem between the start and turn 2! - WMV (2.8MB) -

 

Dave Leong's awesome ALMS photo gallery. No photos of my car, but some great shots of the rest of the action, including some SM stuff.