Watkins Glen PCA 2006 Club Race

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I had a great weekend. On Friday, the weather was perfect for me, rainy on and off, at times raining on 1/2 of the track and dry on the other part. - A Big Thanks to Steve Miller a fellow 44Cup racer, aka The Weatherman. Any race he goes to is guaranteed to rain. I was running in Group 1, where all the cars up to Class F were. With the slippery conditions I was consistently up front with all the F cars where an I class car shouldn't be.

In the practice starts and fun race it started out dry, but started raining just before the 2nd start. I was able to beat everybody into turn one and kept the lead. On the last start I stayed in front and it started raining even harder. I pulled away with just Gregg Wilson in his 911 EuroSC behind me. We left the field behind (with the help of fellow Team ECI member Mark Weining's 360 spin on the front straight scattering the field) and I eventually took the overall win. Not too bad for a 944NA in a field full of F & G cars. And this was on Toyo's no less. Man, I love rain!

Qualifying for the sprint was a mixed session with it drying out toward the end. I did okay and qualified 14th overall in a field of 60+ cars. should've been back around 40th or so if it had been dry. This weekend I was running in a new class: SP2. It's a a virtual clone of the Cup class in the 44Cup series. The good news is I can go back and forth with the car in the same configuration from series to series. The bad news is since its a brand new class, I was the only car in my class. That will change. The sprint race was dry, though the skies were dark, and I had kept the Toyo's on just in case. I had a good battle with another I car who got past me due to the horrible traffic. I got balked setting up the pass on the final lap by a slow G car who had the inside line to the bus stop but chickened out at the last minute and over-slowed, letting the other I car in. Due to starting where I shouldn't have, I lost the most places in a race ever, losing 21 positions in the race. Best time in the sprint was a 2:27.3 comparable with the other I class drivers.

I rebalanced the books on Sunday for the enduro by putting on my Hoosiers for the first time all weekend. Best time was a 2:21.7, almost a 6 second gain over the Toyo's. Still slower than Jersey Joe's record of 20.4 but traffic was horrible. The race was fairly clean with less double yellows than is typical at the Glen and I had a nice race rhythm going

The only glitch was when I came in for my mandatory 5 min pit stop about 1 hour in. I'm out of the car taking a drink while the gas was going in. About 3 mins in, I look at one of the crew and say "how much time left?" No response. Everybody's got a blank look and they all turn to me, "Aren't you timing this?" Arghhh! Last year we had three stopwatches in the pits, this year none. I had even radio'd in when I went across the timing stripe so we could be real accurate. We all just kinda guessed the time, and I added some more and off I went back into traffic. Normally I hit my own stopwatch in the car as a backup, but it died this weekend. Another thing to put on the checklist. The race ended fairly soon after that under another double yellow as another 944 turbo stuffed it coming thru the fast sweeper of turn ten.

All in all, for me at least, it was a good weekend. I had a bunch of I and H drivers come up over the weekend to talk to me about the SP2 class and 44cup. There was a lot of positive interest and I hope to see more join in. I won my class, setting the record at the Glen and have the trophy mug to prove it.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!