It rained.  It poured.  The sky flashed with light.  Mother Nature said, “In Summit Point, Team WTF?! does you!”

The 2008 road racing season is off to a start.  For Team WTF?!, later than normal due to scheduling conflicts.  But it is off and running.  After a fine finish to last season there were high hopes for the SRF road race side of the Team.  But that was then, this is now.

The Friday practice went without a hitch, but using tires from last season and one mismatched tire due to the incident at VIR in October, the sessions were used to remember where the track went and how to shift, up and down.

Sat qualifying dawned with a nice day and the first session went smoothly. Having fresh sticker tires increased the grip dramatically.  Hooking up with a few faster cars ended up with a solid mid-pack qualifying of 10^th out of 20.  But this position was in a group that would normally be found well in front of the Team WTF?! effort.  So things were looking good.

Second qualifying session say the skies cloudy, wind picking up, and a serious line of thunderstorms coming.  A slight drizzle as the cars went to the grid boded well or nasty depending on how long the rain held off.  A slight drizzle with cloudy skies could result in a cooler track and faster qualifying times.  But sitting on the grid watching the skies flash with lightning did not give one a comfortable feeling.  Off the field went, for about 2 dry laps.  Then the rain started making the track downright wet on the backside, including the very high speed Turn 4, aka The Chute.  After about 2 – 3more laps in the slippery conditions, most cars pulled in figuring no faster times would be available and the high speeds would generate serious crashes.  The next couple of groups got hammered with heavy rains and winds.

Sunday race day dawned cool and overcast, even foggy.  Occasional drizzles in the morning kept everyone guessing, but Group 7 went off on a dry track.  The start went well, and I held my position by fending off a couple of tries by other cars.  The field settled down to a nice nose to tail single file back about 15 cars or so.  After about 3 laps, I found myself faster down the straight than the guy in front of me, so I pulled out.  BIG MISTAKE.  I did not have enough overtake to pull a clean pass, and the error cost me a position as the guy behind me got past in turn 1.  The bad news was he was slower than the pack ahead, so we were dropping back out of contact with the main front pack. So in the process of over driving turn 1, I managed to put a wheel off, and with the wet grass and mud, managed a spin and dropped back to about the end of the field.  Oh well, at least now for some fun working back up past the slower cars.  With 2 laps to go in the 16 lap race, I managed to move back up to 13^th and was closing on the cars in front, but wouldn’t be able to catch them.   There was an incident in turn 1 that put one of the slower cars right in front of me.  Not a big deal, but in thinking about when and where to pass, managed to be stupid in turn 5 and did an nice cross country excursion re-entering in the middle of the Carousel.  OK, just finish and get done.  But entering into turn 10, leading onto the front straight, with slightly muddy tires, a safer, slower entry allowed a car passed earlier to get a nice jump down the straight and there goes 13^th.  With less than one lap to go, there was little chance of getting around, so the final result was 14^th out of 19 finishers.

On to the next race.