LRP 07.04.02

John Stims Memorial Regional & NNJ SCCA National

Regional (15 laps)

    .qualified 29/36 1:05.1

    .race 14/36 1:04.9

National (30 laps)

    .qualified 19/36 1:02.97

    .race 18/36 1:02.88

-------------------------------------

Very tough weekend, beginning with no test day as Racers Edge couldn't support it, and terrible heat on Thursday.  I made a mistake in qualifying for the Regional by staying too long behind a slower car.  Never put down a serious time.  

In SRF, qualifying is almost everything since overtaking is very difficult.  Because of a disastrous start (what else is new?), a number of cars didn't make it.  And subsequent good driving brought me in at 14th overall, 11th in class.

The next day, Peter took the lead in our test session and was an enormous help; i was able to get down to low 1:02's!  But, again, in qualifying, i could not get an open track (blocked by our own teammates!) and put a best of 1:02.97 in.  That unfortunately was only good for 19th; here we go again.

I drove a great race, finally passing a very overtly blocking white car number 04 (Empact Racing?).  He held up 4 cars for 10 laps, opening a huge lead for the cars ahead.  He also bumped me twice.  But i guess if you can't drive, you block.

When i finally got around him, i was able to close somewhat on the cars ahead but ran out of time.  I made a monumental blunder, though, pointing by what i thought was the race leader and an SRF following him, only to find that i pointed by earlier nemesis - car number 04!  NEVER AGAIN. 

Tony and Peter were not so fortunate.  Both had crashes and both have repairs to be made (as did our teammate Alan, who crashed pretty seriously in west bend the prior day).  Fortunately they are all ok.

We were joined by friends Bryan, Michel, and Jeff in the course of the weekend and this gave us a chance to share the scca/srf experience.  Budding SFR drivers?  Perhaps.