Spec Racer Challenge - Lime Rock Pro SRF - 10.11.03

We were a preliminary to the NASCAR Busch series race.  What fun!  Thousands of spectators all over LRP, with the paddocks clogged with fans requesting autographs, asking about the class, the cars, and all manner of things.

Watching the Busch series guys was fun too.  This is a tight and hotly contested series, and these guys are not afraid of contact.  Their times were in the .56's.  

Friday's qualifying brought some bad luck in that a car had dumped oil all over the track in the downhill, a fast and dangerous area.  I was the second car into it and spun, and crashed into the first guy pretty hard. ( I'm told there were 6+ srf's all spinning down into this area until a debris flag went up. ).   We were lucky not to hit the wall, but it did mean front and rear suspension work (and later, some body work; not very bad, surprisingly).

I never got a clear run on Friday, and though the car seemed to be handling ok, i had poor times.  

Saturday's qualifying session was 15 mins @ 9am, and the best i could manage was a 1.02.112, placing me in 15th (of 23).  In this same session, the pole was taken by a 1.00.038!

During the race, my radio's failed, so i never got the GREEN signal; nor did i get help with the restart (we were 4 laps under yellow clearing a crash).  These combined to cost me positions.

I finished 11th, with a best lap of 1.01.527 (winner 1.00.517, so the track was worse than during qualifying). 

Because of the purse structure, this is an in-the-money finish.  horray!

My friend Tony Marinello qualified poorly also (17th) but ran a brilliant race, finishing 7th!

It was a great experience.  There should be data and photos here soon (thanks to Motion Dynamics, the organizer of this pro event).