Mid Ohio PCA 2006 Club Race

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No surprise there. I've never been to Mid-Ohio when it didn't rain sometime during the event, race or DE. And I've been going there since 98. But it all worked to my advantage. I like rain.

Twas a mixed result weekend. The only dry sessions were both races. I put the car on pole for both races, which was good. In the enduro qualifier - which was first- one of my fans clipped my radiator hose and split it. The same thing that happened in Road Atlanta. Need to take a look and see what's going on there. Got a used hose from Denny Wasser, another I stock competitor and replaced it. Unplugged the fan for now to prevent a re-occurance, don't need both fans on a cool and rainy weekend. When out for the 60 min enduro, I was leading when my temps spiked again and I had to park the car. I think we didn't bled it enough and it burped and overheated. Ran fine the rest of the weekend after rebleeding. So at the back of the pack for the enduro, not a good thing.

Qualified on pole next day for the sprint. Another wet and mixed session. It kept raining and sprinkling and drying and then sprinkling and etc. For several hours I (along with everybody else) obsessed about tire choice. With 15 mins to go, I made a decision and went with the Hoosier Wets. The forecast was more rain. Sitting on the grid it was sprinkling, which was a good thing. But it soon stopped.

Somehow it got screwed up ahead of me on the pace lap so my I class competitor Scott Bove who was 2nd on the grid, got a spot ahead of me when we came round for the start and was ahead of me when the green flag flew. I took him on the inside into turn one and kept him behind me.

We battled for about 10 laps, but I was able to keep him behind me. Unfortunately the track was drying and my wets were going away. Scott kept pressuring me and forced me into an error. I went wide and slid off the track just before the carousel. I kept it straight in the mud and grass and brought it back onto the track but lost a couple of seconds to Scott. I tried to keep up, but with the drying track I had no grip and was getting loose everywhere and Scott disappeared into the distance.

Gregg Wilson in his F 911SC was on Michelins and toward the end of the race it was so dry he collected the fast lap of the race. Mark Weining, in his F class 911Sc, started 4th on Hoosier wets, and was able to move up to 3rd. On the last lap, Marcos Amongero, another I class driver with intermediates or dry tires, came up on me and I wasn't able to keep him behind. I finished 3rd. 15 minutes after the race was over it started pouring again. If that had happened in the race I would've been golden

Ah well. That's Racing!

Onto the Glen ... (but first I have to clean all the mud off)