From Z start to Z finish

[pballance]

John Williams and Randy Shedd dominated the ITS race at Nashville turning some incredible lap times with all of the new curbing. Good, clean (at least what could be seen from turn 1 corner station) racing and they really put on a good show. They were 1 and 2 both days as I recall with John edging out Randy. :happy204: :happy204: :happy204:

Here is a video from lap two of Sunday's race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZW3cpn4Vo

Jeff Young had an interesting weekend. I will let him fill you guys in what happened but I can say that he made an INCREDIBLE save during Sunday's race

Thanks to Randy and John for letting me bend their ears and providing me with advice on both car setup and driving lines at NSS. They really did put on a good show.

Bill Denton, I never caught you at your car but the 7 looked great. :birra:

Hope all of you had a safe trip home.

[bldn10]

John and Randy were truly in a class by themselves w/ the fastest ITS lap of the weekend being John's 1:10.397 in Sun. qualifying. :026: Randy's best was a 1:10.973 in the Sun. race. Of the rest of us only Tom Rogers and Attila Lulcacs in Tom's orange, full-tilt SpeedSource RX-7 broke 1:12. Jeff and I had a good-clean-fun race on Sat. I had a good start Sun. and held on to take 4th, managing to somehow beat Mid-Am rival Mark Andrews (BMW) twice. Overall it was a fun event running w/ the SE guys. I think that darn track is growing on me.

[tom_sprecher]

Would you happen to have any more of that clip like the very tail end of that start? It was my 2nd race and qualified dead last but would love to get a view of my car on the track.

Those two lapped me and it was quite a while before anyone else did. Congrats !!!

[JeffYoung]

Paul, thanks for the props. Didn't feel incredible from in the car, felt really stupid actually -- threw away a good start with a dumb spin. Bill, really enjoyed meeting you and racing you on Saturday. That was the most fun I've had racing the same car all race long in a long time. Thanks on that.

The interesting part of the weekend was getting there. Me and crew Jeff Roussel were awoken at 5 a.m. Friday morning in Newport TN (outside of Knoxville) to the sound of police knocking on the door. No, they were not there to clear out the supermodels, the groupies and have us turn the music down. Some idiot had smashed the back window of my new Dodge Ram tow vehicle and had destroyed the steering column -- TOTALLY destroyed it -- all to steal an ITS Triumph! Damn, was that guy deluded.

We spent about 4 hours the next morning trying to get the local dealership to get the truck running. No luck. THe police officer, a great guy, told us that car theiving was a huge problem up there, and that if the dealership couldn't get the truck started, we could get one of the his trustees from the county jail to come out and get it fired......tempting, but we didn't take him up on it.

So, we're now stuck 40 miles from Knoxville, 150 from the track, and five hours from home, with a trailer and no way to tow it out of this methadone fueled den of theives. Plus, theif had stolen my wallet out of my truck (yes, STUPID to leave it there), AND my leather folder with my sCCA License and Logbook.

What to do? Rent a truck, no problem right? Well, most truck companies won't let you tow YOUR trailer with their truck. Finally found a Budget in Knoxville that would do it. Great! Let's go to Knoxville....uh..how do we get there? Hire some guy hanging around the dealership to drive us to Knoxville to rent the Budget truck for 40 dollars. Might ahve been the dude who broke into the truck in the first place, not sure.

Got to Knoxville, got the truck, drove back to Newport, hooked and trailer...and....BALL IS TOO SMALL AND WELDED ONTO THE RECEIVER, WHICH IS WELDED TO THE FRAME. End of story?? NO! Jeff R. comes to the rescue with the "ball condom" - a cap of sheet steel cut and formed into a ball to slip over the hitch so the hitch would latch. Worked like a charm. Got to Nashville at 9 p.m. about 27 hours after leaving Raleigh.

MANY thanks to SCCA for faxing a license replacement to me at the hotel, and MANY thanks to the Atlanta tech guys who did a quick annual and gave me a new logbook. Much appreciated.

After that, any racing was a bonus. Ran pretty good Saturday, but like Bill and Paul said, John W. and Randy S. in their Z cars were untouchable. I got 4th on Saturday, behind John, Randy and Harold Corbin. Had a great back and forth battle with Bill D, thanks again on that. On Sunday, had a decent start that I then blew iwth a silly spin in turn 1. So it goes.

See you guys at the SIC.

Jeff

[iambhooper]

Jeff,

Tough luck with the truck... that makes for a very bad begining to a weekend. Do you guess they quit when they learned they were stealing some car that no one know's how to fix? :D

Glad to see you were able to get to the track! Everything else can be replaced.

hoop

[pballance]

Would you happen to have any more of that clip like the very tail end of that start? It was my 2nd race and qualified dead last but would love to get a view of my car on the track.

Those two lapped me and it was quite a while before anyone else did. Congrats !!!
[/b]

Here is what I got Tom. It is not very good as it was shot from a plain old digital camera but it is better than nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1xyA0bA-i8

This is Lap 3 I think. The camera was placed on the Jersey Barrier and I started it when the cars were somewhere between Start Finish and the flag station on the out side of the track before you enter 1.

Jeff, You should have told me about your trouble in Tennessee and yes you did a good job on Sunday at 1. You never really spun fully, caught it, and continued. Not nearly as bad as several other cars I watched. All in all the Cars in your group seemed to be racing cleanly. I don't recall any calls about contact during that run group. :happy204: :happy204:

Sorry I didn't get to meet more of the IT guys that came to Nashville and I am even more sorry to miss racing with you gys. Next year I will be there :D

[lateapex911]

Geeez Jeff!

I HATE theives. The net/net on most thefts is that the victim loses lots of stuff that represents time and value to him, but the stuff means next to nothing to the theif. And even then, the theif sells it quick for pennies. it's an even better way of turning a dollar into much less than racing, but has no upside! And it's hugely disprespectful.

As a lawyer, i hope your experiences help kick some theives butt across the courtroom and into jail!

And interesting story about the cop!!! He'd put a prisoner to work!?!?! I'm not sure whether to laugh, applaud, or shake my head!

[DavidM]

Apparently Jeff stopped in the center of meth country without knowing it. He said the cop was nice about it, but car break-ins/theft were not something unusual in them parts. Hence the "trustee" in the jail that could start a truck with a busted steering column. Luckily the jackholes that tried to hot-wire the truck didn't know what they were doing. Definitely put a kill switch for the truck on my to-do list.

Lyman was the class of the field in ITA. He qualified in the the high 12s and was running consistent low 13s. Ricky Thompson ran on Sat and was in the 13s and Lionel managed a 14 flat, but the rest of us were in the 15s and 16s. I pretty much finished where I started in both races, but had good fun. The transition from the oval part of the track on the back straight into the bus stop just hammers my car, though. I cracked the fuel cell support in the trunk from the pounding. Last year I busted a fuel line. I'm going to have to think about it before coming back next year as the abuse my car takes from this track may not make it worth it for me. It was still a fun time.

David