Great Falls, VA July 15, 2010
Obviously car and driver are the two most important factors determining the outcome of races, but that intangible factor called racing luck should never be overlooked. Sunday afternoon in the MARRS 6 feature race at New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP) our string of good luck ran out. Kevin started the feature race from the pole in Piper Motorsports #6 and for the first three quarters of the race led every. But on lap 19 a spark plug wire was jostled lose and Kevin was forced to retire. Had the plug wire problem not arose there is no guarantee Kevin would have held off the second place car (Scott Brunk) for the remaining three laps to win, but Kevin was the fastest car all weekend and set the fastest lap in Sunday’s race before his forced retirement.
While we were (and still are) terribly disappointed with Sunday’s race, setting the race aside the weekend was generally very positive. The test day Friday was spent as usual on chassis set-up. We have raced the 1.8 mile Lightning course at NJMP only once before and in a different car, so lacking data we needed all five test sessions Friday to dial in the chassis. At the end of the day Kevin was the fastest Miata on the track.
Rain moved in late Friday night and by the time our qualifying session rolled around Saturday morning the track was wet and we were experiencing a light steady rain. Its generally acknowledged that the two best rain drivers in the current MARRS Spec Miata series are Kevin and Scott Brunk, but we expected some local New Jersey drivers (who know the track in wet conditions) to run right up front. After it was all said and done Kevin had won the pole over Scott by a mere 3 100ths of a second, but the third placed car was a full second and a half behind.
The nine lap Saturday sprint race for the Miatas was due to start around 3:00 in the afternoon. As the time drew near the rain stopped (actually, just paused) and the track began to dry leaving us with a very tough choice – should we run a wet chassis set-up and rain tires, or should we gamble the track will dry during the sprint race and set the car up for a dry track and mount slick tires. We waited in the pits mulling the decisions as long as we could. At the very last minute we made the decision to go dry. We quickly changed chassis settings, mounted the dry weather slick tires and raced to the starting grid. As we looked around the grid we quickly realized we and one other car were the only teams that made the decision to go dry, everyone else was “full wet.” We were going to look like race strategy geniuses or bums.
The race started with Kevin on the pole. Scott Brunk, on rain tires passed Kevin in the first turn. For next four laps Kevin had everything he could do to keep the car on the track. On the 5th lap the car lost all grip on the exit of turn 7 and Kevin slid off the track losing two more positions and a lot more time to Brunk who was now out front by himself.
But, the track was drying and on the next lap an important high speed bowl section of the track (called the “light bulb”) had dried enough that Kevin’s slick tires and stiff chassis began to work. On the following lap the equally important turn 1 dried and Kevin was now on a charge. With two laps to go Kevin set the fastest lap of the race, caught and passed Scott, and drove on to take the win.
We are now back in the shop and have three weeks off to completely rebuild the car before the second half of the MARRS season resumes at Summit Point August 7 & 8. One thing we will surely do is replace the spark plug wires!
We want express our thanks to our technical partners – Piper Motorsport, King Rat Motorsports, D&R Racing and WBR Graphics for all their support, and to OG Racing for their generous sponsorship. Also, thanks to Chris Windsor who supplied very accurate weather forecasts all weekend.
While we were (and still are) terribly disappointed with Sunday’s race, setting the race aside the weekend was generally very positive. The test day Friday was spent as usual on chassis set-up. We have raced the 1.8 mile Lightning course at NJMP only once before and in a different car, so lacking data we needed all five test sessions Friday to dial in the chassis. At the end of the day Kevin was the fastest Miata on the track.
Rain moved in late Friday night and by the time our qualifying session rolled around Saturday morning the track was wet and we were experiencing a light steady rain. Its generally acknowledged that the two best rain drivers in the current MARRS Spec Miata series are Kevin and Scott Brunk, but we expected some local New Jersey drivers (who know the track in wet conditions) to run right up front. After it was all said and done Kevin had won the pole over Scott by a mere 3 100ths of a second, but the third placed car was a full second and a half behind.
The nine lap Saturday sprint race for the Miatas was due to start around 3:00 in the afternoon. As the time drew near the rain stopped (actually, just paused) and the track began to dry leaving us with a very tough choice – should we run a wet chassis set-up and rain tires, or should we gamble the track will dry during the sprint race and set the car up for a dry track and mount slick tires. We waited in the pits mulling the decisions as long as we could. At the very last minute we made the decision to go dry. We quickly changed chassis settings, mounted the dry weather slick tires and raced to the starting grid. As we looked around the grid we quickly realized we and one other car were the only teams that made the decision to go dry, everyone else was “full wet.” We were going to look like race strategy geniuses or bums.
The race started with Kevin on the pole. Scott Brunk, on rain tires passed Kevin in the first turn. For next four laps Kevin had everything he could do to keep the car on the track. On the 5th lap the car lost all grip on the exit of turn 7 and Kevin slid off the track losing two more positions and a lot more time to Brunk who was now out front by himself.
But, the track was drying and on the next lap an important high speed bowl section of the track (called the “light bulb”) had dried enough that Kevin’s slick tires and stiff chassis began to work. On the following lap the equally important turn 1 dried and Kevin was now on a charge. With two laps to go Kevin set the fastest lap of the race, caught and passed Scott, and drove on to take the win.
We are now back in the shop and have three weeks off to completely rebuild the car before the second half of the MARRS season resumes at Summit Point August 7 & 8. One thing we will surely do is replace the spark plug wires!
We want express our thanks to our technical partners – Piper Motorsport, King Rat Motorsports, D&R Racing and WBR Graphics for all their support, and to OG Racing for their generous sponsorship. Also, thanks to Chris Windsor who supplied very accurate weather forecasts all weekend.
Numquam Cedere
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