Getting ready for Nationals fellow racers were eager to attend NASA-SouthEast Hotlanta event. In attendance with their FFR Challenge cars Mike Tuck, David Evans, Scott McKay and me. Chris Allen also attended with his SpecE30. Brendan Dougherty, Joe Camire and Pat Wehmeyer were also in attendance to help wrench on cars. The weekend laid out in typical fashion, Friday test day, Sat/Sun practice/quali/sprint races.
Friday gave racer test/tune over 6 track sessions giving us plenty of time to work on car setup. Chris never been to the track before had an off early in the sessions, having to get his car fixed by a local repair shop. I worked on car setup changing springs, suspension settings, tire pressures.
Scott and Pat showed up early Sat AM (around 3am to be exact) with Scott’s FFR missing a fuelcell. Pat and Scott worked to get Mark Dougherty’s fuelcell (which Brendan an I brought with us from PA) installed in Scott’s car and were ready for practice on Saturday. I had a great session messing around with Matt Isbell and his ST2 Corvette (was braking in a new engine) slicing through traffic with a best time of 1:35.821. Qualifying saw me P1 with a 1:36.787, Mike Tuck 1:39.666, David Evans 1:45.121, and unfortunately Scott broke the new engine. He worked the weeks before thrashing on FFR#64 as it has not run in two years putting a new engine in, changing gears, etc.. The failure was another broken crank. I feel the fact he used a Fluidyne balancer (same one I have used at VIR March this year and had issues) caused his engine to break. The race Saturday had us doing a standing start, me gridded in the middle of the top American Iron runners as the green flag waved saw me easily jump into 3rd from 6th. Finishing P1 in FFR the race was uneventful as I watched a great battle in front of the AI guys duking it out corner after corner the whole race, not wanting to mess them up stayed behind the lead pact. Mike finished 2nd with David 3rd. Chris Allen got his SepcE30 fixed and finished 9th out of 19 cars! not bad starting 15th. Scott McKay rented a SpecE30 for Saturday but was fraught with issues like the window net falling having to come into pits to get it fixed, then getting hit by another car towards the end of the race. Scott had enough, packed up headed home with his broken FFR.
Sunday’s qualifying saw me P1 with a 1:36.288, Mike in the 1:41’s and David in 1:45’s. The race this time was a flying start me still in the middle of the AI cars not wanting to be part of their battle again backed way off early in the race giving me a gap to them eventually on the last laps catching AI cars back. The finishing order was the same as Saturday. Chris Allen qualified 7th and was looking forward running with the front pact of SpecE30, when unfortunately on his 3rd lap was taken out by a Porsche 944 in the same turn 3 he had issues with on Friday. This time the car could not be fixed as the hit with the wall bent the frame substantially, luckily all of the safety gear kept Chris safe easily walking from the wreck.
With the NASA Nationals end of the month (Aug 29-31) getting valuable tracktime was key in getting driver and car ready for the big race. Signed up are 9 FFR Challenge cars ready to battle it out on the track for top honors. Stay tuned for live streaming from NASA Nationals!
Pics from weekend: http://www.johngeorgeracing.com/gallery/index.php?/category/295
Videos:
Chris Allen incar: