Car fixed, time for a race!

 

Pat McMahon and I made the long haul from NH to NJMP Thursday.  Typical race weekend starting off with Friday test day, Saturday/Sunday race days. Joining me in the RV are my parents, and Nick Derosa (fellow racer running his BMW in GTS2)

Friday there was a lot to test on the car. Make sure new front spindles work at track speeds, new brake master cylinder pedal feel, really test rear suspension further, and for me to get back to driving a racecar. All the sessions went well testing on old Hoosier R7 275 tires.  The last session tried new Hoosier A7 245 tires and instantly gained 1-2sec/lap! this is the tire I will be on for the races Saturday and Sunday. The skinnier tires allow me to run more horsepower, trying something new this weekend to keep up with Pat and the Corvettes!

Saturday I decided to skip practice, first time on track was qualifying and set a 1:26.598 laptime , Pat in P2 1:27.434 , and Adrian in the Corvette in P3 1:27.934.

The race start was pretty frantic starting P5 overall, a hand full of fast cars in front of me, and some that would do pretty good in the race behind! Fending off the ST2 competition in turn 1 I shadowed the cars in front maintaining their pace. Adrian got around Pat and was hounding me for a couple of turns but I was able to keep him at bay. Mid race I built up a good gap to Adrian and was able to easily maintain it. All the changes to the car made it handle great! I had so much grip, you can notice on the video, I am not sawing at the wheel hunting for grip, steering wheel is steady now! car is handling great. The race ended with a red flag (means all racecars must come to a controlled stop) due to a massive incident on the front straight. The leading car overall got into it with another car while passing it.

I win the race Saturday in ST2 and because the cars in front of me got disqualified for either causing the accident, or missing red flags, I win overall! The first race with all the new bits on the car! not bad at all. Adrian finished 2nd, John Robbins in his Mitsubishi EVO 3rd, and Pat 4th.

Sunday qualifying session was combined with a practice session, I went even faster and got P1 for ST2 and 2nd overall running a 01:25.977. Adrian in P2, Pat P3, John Robbins P4. Race set for another exciting battle!

The race started of great with me in the lead of ST2, but Adrian was hot on my tail. Adrian got around me and started to gap me. I was able to stay up with him but half way through the race the cars handling changed to severe understeer, me fighting to make the car turn into the turns causing my laptimes to drop to the 1:30 range. Pat caught me and easily passed me. On the second to last lap, in P3, the car suddenly had a bad vibration coming from the rear of the car so I pulled it into the pits not knowing how bad the damage was. Finishing one lap down placed me 5th in ST2. I get out of the car and the front drivers side tire is completely corded!

Not a bad weekend! the engine ran great, the oiling system upgrades worked flawlessly, dry sump eliminated my oil starvation issues! Brakes were unreal, and cars handling at least on Saturday was phenomenal. Running smaller tires was a learning experience and will need to work on getting longevity out of the tires so they make 2 races.

Post race inspection of the car found sticky drivers front brake caliper causing excessive drag on the brakes wearing pads to almost nothing and possibly cording that tire early. New caliper has been ordered!

Next race is Palmer Motorsports Park in MA July 22-24. All are invited to spectate to the closest race track to home I visit this year.

Pictures:  http://www.johngeorgeracing.com/gallery/index.php?/category/375

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