Team WTF?! - Road Racing

Written by Pinecone
Sunday, 14 May 2006
MARRS 1 (Mid Atlantic Road Racing Series) weekend at Summit Point started out in true Team WTF?! fashion. Arrived at the track a bit late on Friday and missed the first practice session. No big deal. Getting into the car for the second session, I asked twice about the tire pressures and was assured that they were set and checked. Now the new tires had some early problems with pressures going down quickly, but my set has not had a problem, so the assumption was, pressures fine early, pressures fine now. Yeah, right. For the first couple of laps, I took it easy getting everything up to temperature. The car felt a little loose, but not too bad. It always feels a little loose with the current setup. I picked up the pace and went into 4 (the Chute) flat out and WHAP! Around it went. Spun down the left side of the track and was doing fine, until the guy I was following braked for 5. So we came together and damaged my right front corner, his left rear corner. Back in the pits, the left rear tire had 9 psi, versus the 31 hot we look for. It turns out the metal valve stem got loose and as the speed went up, the valve leaked air. Everything was fixed over lunch and was able to take the afternoon sessions. The car still felt a bit loose. Not too bad, but a little slower than expected. Qualifying on Saturday went pretty well. Still wasn’t happy with the fell, but managed to qualify 14th out of 32 cars. We ran Group 7, so had a nice leisurely morning, before heading to the track. The start went OK and I was running well, but unable to gain any places. As of lap 4 there was still a 15 or so car train (I was in13th due to a car not getting underway off the false grid). When I came over the hill between 9 and 10, the leaders were in 10. “WOW! Awesome,” was the thought. Followed closely by, “oops, if something happens up front, I am close enough to be involved. Oh well enjoy it.” Then exiting 5 a car ahead got way loose. The car in front of me tried to duck below and pass, but spun in doing so. I went high, but got the right side in the dirt and spun. Got it turned around and going again. The lap charts later showed this dropped me to 20th. So I was now chasing Elizabeth Miller (who runs the FATT program at Summit) and while I couldn’t quite catch her, together we ran a nice pace. We both seem to run faster with someone to chase or pace. We managed to claw our way back to 13th and 14th by the finish. While the finishing position was not the greatest (the guy who got loose that we were following managed to finish in 6th) the race was still a memorable high point. The claw back up from 20th to 14th in a spec class is a nice accomplishment. Team WTF?! SRF will miss the double regional at VIR due to work/professional conflicts, so the next race is June 10 – 11 at Summit Point. Come see the fun, and you don’t even have to get up early, as we are the LAST group to run. Next step with the handling is to have the shocks dyno’d and rebuilt if needed. I think they will need it.