Limerock is and always will be a special place for me, that is where all this got started back in 2005 with me attending Skip Barber Race School. Needless to say I was ecstatic hearing NASA-NE will be back and to boot unmuffled! For those who dont know Limerock has an extremely strict noise limit, 87db with my car over 95db have not a chance in the world to race there unless the sound limits are removed which is exactly what happened this past weekend. On top of that there are no track events on Sundays as the town Limerock is in has had this rule for ages and will never change. The July 4 weekend track activities started Thursday with a test/tune, Friday sprint race and a scheduled 3.5hr enduro, and double sprint races on Saturday.

Wednesday PM I was supposed to take the RV to Jim Schenck’s house and pick his car up, head to the track early Thurs AM (track activities for unmuffled cars starts at 1pm) but got a text from Jim saying he is extremely sick and cannot make it! Change of plans, head to the track Wed. PM. Pat McMahon was already at the track waiting for us and paddocked far end of the paddock at turn 1. After we got all settled Vinny, a fellow SU racer racing a stupid fast Trans-AM Camaro had us all hop into his golfcart and we went for a rather slow 2 laps around Limerock in the dimming light.

Thursday AM greeted us with threatening weather all day, but luckily for us stayed dry! There was a LOT of track time with many 30min sessions which all took advantage of. Brendan Dougherty helped me adjust the car by changing swaybar settings, adding spring rubbers all day. End of the day Pat’s dad came with his heavily modified Austin Healey we all settled into the RV to watch the rain and thunder come down quite hard with one eye on the weather map hoping Friday would not be a total wash.

Friday had fellow racers practice in the morning, qualifying mid-day, enduro practice/qualifying, race, and enduro. A dry practice was followed by a very wet qualifying for the sprint races with me the fastest cars of the Thunder group starting on pole. Pat qualified 2nd in class but would start in P4. After qualifying we didnt have much time to fuel/prep my car to head out to enduro qualifying, but at the last minute I set a decent lap starting 2nd in E0 class. The weather right before our thunder race was clearing up giving us false hope that we might have a drying race, but that was not the case.. started raining and was a good down-pour for the race. Pat was ‘convinced’ by his dad Bill to run the Hoosier Wet tires (they were on the Austin Healey as Pat had put them on his dads car initially opting to run dads R888 on Pat’s car) and with that advantage drove around everyone gapping the field easily. I was in 2nd most of the time until a late yellow bunched up the field. Heading to turn 1 I locked up the brakes headed straight onto the runoff road, unfortunately made the mistake of trying to take a shortcut through the grass back on track (did not work well at all!) As I get back on track a couple of cars pass by me including a ST2 Corvette in my class placing me 3rd at the finish. Pulling back into the paddock I head into the RV for a cheeseburger as I skipped lunch with all of the track day activities. Unfortunately the TimeTrial session between the thunder race and enduro start was cancelled and the enduro started without me still eating in the RV. Once finished with my delicious cheese and bacon infused burger topped with tomato and Sweet Baby Ray BBQ sauce it was time to race the enduro. I decided before that I was going to run the enduro solo with only Brendan crewing for me to fuel the car half way. Joining the race with a handful of laps down I settled into a rhythm cranking fast laps in the wet, 3.5hrs in the car and a pitstop for fuel we finished 4th overall and 1st in E0 class running 137 laps, only 6 laps down to the overall leader. After the enduro NASA-NE had a BBQ at the base of the tower and handed out awards and enduro class winners even got to spray champagne!! great time had by all.

Saturday brought with it sunshine and dry track, with two sprint races planned for the day! Overnight my cousin Ioana and her son Landon came to the track along with mom Mihaela and grandma Gizu and were all eager to see me race. With the weather cooperating we put on the racing slick tires (classified in ST2 I was allowed to run Hoosier 245/40/17 A7 tires.) Qualifying for the first race placed me 1st in ST2 with a 57.987 laptime! followed by a very fast Corvette driven by Paul P. in 2nd and Pat McMahon 3rd. The race was fast and furious with Paul using his power down the straight to pass me settling into a cat and mouse game of me being fast in turns with Paul having great straight line speed. Paul towards the end of the race had some blue oil smoke bellowing out the back of the car distracting him enough for me to scoot by him on the last lap. As I come full speed down the hill onto the front straight Paul on my bumper once again his straight line speed came through passing me right before the checker finishing 1st, with me 2nd by only .2sec in Race#1. Not a problem as the 2nd race looked to change the finishing order with me in p1. Unfortunately Paul’s issue was a broken oil line causing him to retire from Race#2. At the track joining us was John K. with his exotic FFR GTM #32, who still was tinkering with the rear tow. Figuring out the issue with a loosened towbar adjustment he was ready for race#2.

Wanting to get mom Mihaela on track in an instructor driven car I approached Joe Casella NASA-NE’s director about getting mom a ride on track at speed, with luck Bill Mandra was kind enough to oblige giving mom a ride in his beautiful BMW Z4 car. After her ride Mom was thrilled about her ride-a-long describing every part of the track especially liking the elevation changes. She has been at a couple of autox events before and has ridden with me in the FFR but this has no comparison and she much more prefers racetracks then empty parking lots filled with a sea of cones. Once again thanks Bill and Joe for giving this track experience to my mom Mihaela.

Race #2 was gridded by the finishing order of Race#1, start was usual but was plagued by a lengthy double-yellow flag laps to remove a fellow competitor hitting the tire wall hard at turn 1/2. The race finished with me 1st in ST2, followed by Pat in 2nd. John K. ran consistent laps finally having some track time with a much improved handling racecar. These race cars, especially John K.’s, take a lot of setup work and trial to get the optimum setup. He will keep working on it and will get much faster once the car is well sorted out.

Pictures: http://www.johngeorgeracing.com/gallery/index.php?/category/335

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