Grattan Labor Day Weekend

[Eagle7]

Originally posted by Greg Gauper:
Marty, are you off your logbook yet?

Yup!

Lessons learned:
* Watch out for pro racers - they're not too careful.
* You guys drive a lot faster than it looks from the cheap seats.
* I think I NEED to get me some Hoosiers. I know I couldn't drive the lines I saw the Hoosiers run with my Kuhmos.
* This is a whole lot of fun.

Saturday I qualified 19th and finished 19th of 23 cars. I was chasing an AS Mustang the whole race (we were running at the back). He’d open up a big lead on me in the straight, and I’d catch him as soon as we hit turn one. He held me up at 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, and 12 but I couldn’t figure out how to get past him (safely). Finished 4th of 4 cars in my class.

Sunday I improved my lap times by 1.5 seconds, and qualified 16th of 20 cars. In the race when they dropped the green flag the guy in front of me hit his brakes and nearly everyone went by me. I came out of turn one in front of about three cars, but behind that same Mustang, and we started the same thing all over again. But this time I also had the cars behind me to battle with – an ITE Taurus, an AS Mustang, and an ITA Cavalier. I kept them behind me most of the race. Around the next-to-last lap a CRX took my line (and my momentum) at 11 while he was lapping me and the two cars behind me followed him around. The 280Z pulled off with a brake fire, so I finished 3rd in class and got a trophy. I was only about 7 seconds behind the 2nd place ITS car (another RX-7), and I thought I’d made a lot of improvement, so I’m pretty happy.

What's up with those ITA cars? A Saturn and the CRX were running about a second off the ITS track record and lapped 3/4 of the American Sedans and 3/4 of ITS. Had a lot more juice than I did in the straights.

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Marty Doane
ITS RX7 #13
CenDiv WMR

[ddewhurst]

Marty, that #50 green Saturn gets the job completed wherever he races. The fast CRX's are CRX's. Can you say overdog in ITA?

Have Fun
David

[ITA_CRX]

You win a nice plaque that says Cen Div Champion.

I have one from last year that says 6th Place.

The Saturn and I were off the pace for ITA. We should have been consistently in the 31s. We were just lucky no one fast showed up. We would have been crushed.

Marty, were you the guy on Sunday that asked me how the ITA cars were so fast after the race? If so, nice to meet you.

On a positive, I have almost all the body damage fixed on my car so I should be good to go for Mid-Ohio this weekend.

Jamie

[Eagle7]

Originally posted by ITA_CRX:
You win a nice plaque that says Cen Div Champion.

I have one from last year that says 6th Place.

It's a very nice trophy, but nothing about champion - 3rd place.

<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">The Saturn and I were off the pace for ITA. We should have been consistently in the 31s. We were just lucky no one fast showed up. We would have been crushed.</font>

Yikes! What have I gotten myself into?

<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">Marty, were you the guy on Sunday that asked me how the ITA cars were so fast after the race? If so, nice to meet you.</font>

That's me. Nice to meet you, too. I hope in the future I can see more of you on the track. Just saw a flash as you went by. Great run.


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Marty Doane
ITS RX7 #13
CenDiv WMR

[Cougar Racer]

Hey fellas, I got some good onboard of the spin during Sat. race at the start and of Jamie and the pretty teal mustang at the start of Sun. race, of course because I was the little red cougar following behind you guys all weekend! All in all great weekend and I had a blast racing with you guys, well sort of..lol

Craig Capaldi
#56 Mercury Cougar ITE

[ITA_CRX]

Craig,

Were you the Cougar who had his bumper knocked off on Saturday?

Also, since you had a nice view of the incident, what was your take on the contact between the Mustang and myself.

Jamie

[Cougar Racer]

Ya, that was my bumper in turn 2, that was after a little bump from some unknown driver, since I had cars on both sides of me I was more concerned about hitting someone then who was hit me at the time, needless to say the onboard of me all crossed up is pretty cool. Hmmm....my take on the contact, while it was happening I was thinking HOLY @#$%, these guys are out for blood on the first lap already, but after watching the video at home again my view changed. I'll be honest here, Going into 3 you looked a little aggressive for the first lap, after that you DID NOT look at fault for any of it. After coming over the jump I was right behind you and was going to follow you through, you CLEARLY were fully underneath the Mustang at the start of the esses, then it looked as if the guy in the mustang either got a little loose and used the side of your car to correct, or he just plain old hit you. Thats when I decided that in my best interest I best not try and follow you through! lol. But honestly, it really just looks like you were both racing really hard, just my .02

[Erik Cross]

I had fun racing myself (only IT7)!

Now off to Mid-O...

[SUYTRacing]

Pretty good conditions... sunny with cool temps. A few track records broken in my group.

Not sure why any of you were afraid to run because of speed differentials. Maybe its because I'm used to running at Waterford, but Grattan is WIDE! Plenty of room for everyone. My first season road racing was in a ITD Festiva, often in the Waterford closed wheel co-driver race. Imagine an ITD Festiva and a GT1 car sharing the road there!

Jamie, I didn't see your incident until I snapped this shot, so I can't comment:

http://tinyurl.com/mldt

Ed.
57 ITC Honda Civic



[This message has been edited by SUYTRacing (edited September 08, 2003).]