2017 ARRC at Road Atlanta
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:33 pm
Well, Rob Garrison and myself were the sole ETR entries at the ARRC. Really nice turnout overall. Rob pulled a win in FProd in his 2nd Gen RX7. Congrats Rob!!!!
I had a great race weekend. 1st time back at RA in 28 years, and first time with wings in the Reynard FC (last time was 89' in the Z10 FF). Originally had 7 FC's entered, 5 actually showed up in a 30+ car field of winged open wheel and prototypes. As I learned the new track(to me) config, I made steady improvements, wing adjustments, mostly confidence building... trusting the down force. Was consistently faster than 2 other FC's, and one Ralt FB during Thursday testing P1-P4, and Friday Q1 & Q2. Third on the FC grid. Saturday's afternoon Grp 7 race, got a great start and put the 4th place FC a good distance back. I held third ~ 2/3 of 20 laps until faster than stink P1's & P2's and a F1000 and a $hit load of FE's started lapping, unfortunately pulling the slower 4th P FC's into my 30 year old aero draft. This 10 year newer Van Diemen had significantly lower drag and probably a little motor on me and he drove around on the back straight. I caught him in 10a & 10b, dogged him for two laps filling his mirrors and sticking my nose under at every braking turn-in and had to check up many times to prevent bump draft. 1-1/2 laps from the end, the Reynard developed a horrible wiggle from the rear where I was quickly loosing the LR hub bearing...now with unpredictable articulated rear steer at 130+, I managed to stabilize and drive up the out side of T1, passing the apex turn in and lost enough speed to drive off safely across from T3 corner flag station. Watched the last lap from there and then finished on a rollback. . Still had 1/2 second faster laps than the now 3rd place FC that got around. Always good to bring home a reusable car and driver. Next year
I had a great race weekend. 1st time back at RA in 28 years, and first time with wings in the Reynard FC (last time was 89' in the Z10 FF). Originally had 7 FC's entered, 5 actually showed up in a 30+ car field of winged open wheel and prototypes. As I learned the new track(to me) config, I made steady improvements, wing adjustments, mostly confidence building... trusting the down force. Was consistently faster than 2 other FC's, and one Ralt FB during Thursday testing P1-P4, and Friday Q1 & Q2. Third on the FC grid. Saturday's afternoon Grp 7 race, got a great start and put the 4th place FC a good distance back. I held third ~ 2/3 of 20 laps until faster than stink P1's & P2's and a F1000 and a $hit load of FE's started lapping, unfortunately pulling the slower 4th P FC's into my 30 year old aero draft. This 10 year newer Van Diemen had significantly lower drag and probably a little motor on me and he drove around on the back straight. I caught him in 10a & 10b, dogged him for two laps filling his mirrors and sticking my nose under at every braking turn-in and had to check up many times to prevent bump draft. 1-1/2 laps from the end, the Reynard developed a horrible wiggle from the rear where I was quickly loosing the LR hub bearing...now with unpredictable articulated rear steer at 130+, I managed to stabilize and drive up the out side of T1, passing the apex turn in and lost enough speed to drive off safely across from T3 corner flag station. Watched the last lap from there and then finished on a rollback. . Still had 1/2 second faster laps than the now 3rd place FC that got around. Always good to bring home a reusable car and driver. Next year