Round 4 - Driving Impressions Pro-IT

[TimM ITB]

Can anyone enlighten as to "facilities" at the NJ track? I normally "camp" in my trailer. Showers, food, etc available at the track, or do I need to spend the money and plan on finding a hotel?
thanks,
Tim M

[rsx858]

Tim, NJMP has excellent facilities. Tons of power stations and air conditioned bathrooms! The showers were not completed by the first event but i would bet they will be available for this race. Also there were plenty of vendors and i believe a food place over by the carting track? someone correct me if im wrong. Overall I was very impressed.

This track is worth the trip!

[tdw6974]

Any layout map that would be available ahead of time so have a better idea as to where to go oncew we find the entrace.?

[rsx858]

http://www.njmotorsportspark.com/images/siteplan.png

[tdw6974]

Thanks Matt!

[dtanthon]

Still time to register.
Get the prize fund up there!:026:

Thanks,
Darrell

[RacerBill]

Can anyone enlighten as to "facilities" at the NJ track? I normally "camp" in my trailer. Showers, food, etc available at the track, or do I need to spend the money and plan on finding a hotel?
thanks,
Tim M

Tim: Great to hear you are back in the hunt. Missed you at the IT Spectacular, especially since I am in ITB now. But I broke a hub on Sunday in the last race.

Have to see how fast I can get 'er fixed!!!!

[benspeed]

So here's the Pro IT recap from BigSpeed Racing. Qualifying was a solid session with hardly anybody running off as far as I could tell. A FULL 30 Minutes by the way! Track was fast but a little greasy at turn 5 which is what I call "The Hump". I can't remember the whole order but Rooke was P1, Thiele (?) in the black and green BMW P2, Driscoll or Henderson in P3 & P4, King P5, Stewart P6, Phillips P7.

On the start it looked like Rooke got a nice jump and was about 4-5 car lengths ahead of the leaders. I got ahead of Stewart and then blew turn 5 at the hump and Stewart motored away. He and King got ahead by about 5 seconds and I was never able to make any of it back so I just ran as many consistent laps as possible. Looked like King and Stewart had a dog fight for about 6 laps and King got ahead to run down Henderson. They swapped spots several times with Hendo getting P3 at the line. Seemed like those boys traded some paint but in a friendly way. Driscoll and Rooke also had a great battle. Spoke to Matt Rooke after and he said he had the lead and just made a mistake on the last lap, ran off in the S turns and Driscoll rolled home with the win.

I think the finishing order went:

Driscoll P1
Rooke P2
Thiele P3 ITR P1
Henderson P4
King P5
Stewart P6 ITR P2
Phillips P7

Great to be back in an IT race - the Pro IT series was fantastic with about 25 cars registered and 22 taking the field for a full 40 mintues, 58.9 miles of racing on a beautiful road course. I can't say enough about Lightning - what an AWESOME track. Add in the air condistioned bathrooms, brand new concession stands, tons of paddock space, 60 mph go Kart racing, and the THUNDER track - this place is the mecca of road racing.

NJMP IS OUTSTANDING!

A special thanks to all the competitors and PDX participants who came out. The NNJR region was really looking at some financial risk due to the car counts. I think we will lose a lot of $$ but we will survive. I like to quote our Regional Executive, Darrel Anthony, "We measure our success by the smiles on the faces of our drivers and workers." Darrell and the race team put on a fantastic event together and made some excellent management decisions to mitigate financial losses. The racers in the Northeast are very fortunate to have such a great team managing these races.

It was great to see the South Jersey team there helping run the event - awesome group of folks and great teamwork. Now if we could consolidate North Jersey and South Jersey - we'd be really kicking butt. That oughta be another thread...

[Robert Zecca]

Dear Guys,

Thank you to everyone who helped out at the PDX. It was a great event and we got many positive compliments. Matt Rooke you kick butt!!! Ben your new car is very quick and looks great. More guys need to find these IT cars out there. Thanks for coming out and for all your support on the forums.

Cant wait for our next event. I am hoping to have my 92 Lancia Delta EVO 2 as the pace car. This will get this series some great exposure. Good things are coming.

Thanks again to all who supported NNJR this past weekend. The workers and stewards from SJR, Philly, NER, NYR and NNJR are incredible people. I had an opportunity to work pre-grid and loved it plus I got to meet all these great SCCA people.

Thanks guys from the bottom of my heart.

Sincerely,
Bob Zecca
www.teamdi.com

[wdether]

So here's the Pro IT recap from BigSpeed Racing. Qualifying was a solid session with hardly anybody running off as far as I could tell. A FULL 30 Minutes by the way! Track was fast but a little greasy at turn 5 which is what I call "The Hump". I can't remember the whole order but Rooke was P1, Thiele (?) in the black and green BMW P2, Driscoll or Henderson in P3 & P4, King P5, Stewart P6, Phillips P7.

On the start it looked like Rooke got a nice jump and was about 4-5 car lengths ahead of the leaders. I got ahead of Stewart and then blew turn 5 at the hump and Stewart motored away. He and King got ahead by about 5 seconds and I was never able to make any of it back so I just ran as many consistent laps as possible. Looked like King and Stewart had a dog fight for about 6 laps and King got ahead to run down Henderson. They swapped spots several times with Hendo getting P3 at the line. Seemed like those boys traded some paint but in a friendly way. Driscoll and Rooke also had a great battle. Spoke to Matt Rooke after and he said he had the lead and just made a mistake on the last lap, ran off in the S turns and Driscoll rolled home with the win.

I think the finishing order went:

Driscoll P1
Rooke P2
Thiele P3 ITR P1
Henderson P4
King P5
Stewart P6 ITR P2
Phillips P7

Great to be back in an IT race - the Pro IT series was fantastic with about 25 cars registered and 22 taking the field for a full 40 mintues, 58.9 miles of racing on a beautiful road course. I can't say enough about Lightning - what an AWESOME track. Add in the air condistioned bathrooms, brand new concession stands, tons of paddock space, 60 mph go Kart racing, and the THUNDER track - this place is the mecca of road racing.

NJMP IS OUTSTANDING!

A special thanks to all the competitors and PDX participants who came out. The NNJR region was really looking at some financial risk due to the car counts. I think we will lose a lot of $$ but we will survive. I like to quote our Regional Executive, Darrel Anthony, "We measure our success by the smiles on the faces of our drivers and workers." Darrell and the race team put on a fantastic event together and made some excellent management decisions to mitigate financial losses. The racers in the Northeast are very fortunate to have such a great team managing these races.

It was great to see the South Jersey team there helping run the event - awesome group of folks and great teamwork. Now if we could consolidate North Jersey and South Jersey - we'd be really kicking butt. That oughta be another thread...

Ben,
It is very good to see you out in IT again.

Thanks to all the Pro-IT competitors for putting on a great show Saturday. There were good battles throughout the running order. I hope the Pro-IT series continues to grow. I would like to thank Bob Zecca and DA for being the driving force behind putting this series together.

I agree with you Ben, South Jersey and Northern New Jersey regions should be combined.

[rsx858]

Awesome weekend, this series is seriously the best! Huge thanks to Bob and Darrell. It was great seeing everyone come out for this event. Very cool to have bigspeed Ben back is the mix , as well as some new faces in the ITS group. Congrats to Autotechnic for a hell of a weekend, Rob that was a great battle! Hope to see everyone at the next one!

[Weaver7]

Yes I must say the track is AWESOME...Also congrats Matt on the win Sarurday in the regional how did you make out Sunday? Also a special thanks to Bob and Darrel for making the Pro-IT possible. Hope to see everyone at the October event!

Bill Weaver
ITS# 63

[rsx858]

Hey Bill great seeing you as always, will you be up at the funone? looks like its gonna be a Huge race.

My win in the qual race was certainly the high point for me. I was a bit less fortunate on sunday. Rob and I were on the front row with the big bore guys who quickly overtook us when the flag dropped then just as quickly started holding us up lap after lap. Rob maneuvered around me after a lap or two and about 4 laps in my temps mysteriously spiked and i had to pull off. Not sure yet if i toasted the motor but im pretty sure the water seal is busted because the motor ate up most of the coolant and no visible leaks.

might be rebuild time for me, hopefuly ill have it together by the glen. Hope to see everyone up there!

[dtanthon]

The track is GREAT and we have a GREAT series. I had a blast and improved my times each session. October is going to be even better.

Thanks for all the support. We can make this series even better. We are working on the October schedule for the dual Pro-IT and regional races. We are packing the weekend full.

I'm working on the prize money for this event and will get the checks mailed out within a week (I hope).

Thanks,
Darrell

PS - Tell us what we can do better and we will try to make it happen.
PSS - 2009 will NOT have the scheduling that we just has, we can't have 2 events likethis on the same weekend. No one benefits from that. We (NARRC and NJRRS) will ensure the 2009 schedule works for all members.

See you in October, going to be a blast at the Jersey Road Racing Classic (JRRC), or as we call it the 'Jerk'.....

[Robert Zecca]

Check out our pace car for the next event:

[rthiele]

Thanks to the organizers, we had lots of fun at Lightning! The Pro-IT was great as always, in the Regionals we had some issues with the big bore cars holding things up. Understandable to combine classes when there is not enough registrations and it should work out - if the drivers understand that there is other classes racing as well and act accordingly.
Suggestion to address this in the drivers meeting next time we have IT and SPO, T1, T2 combined in one race and I'm sure everyone will watch out.

@Matt: I did not know that I have to take the impression "eat my dust" literally ;-)

[wdether]

Check out our pace car for the next event:

Cool car Bob, I look forward to seeing it at the track.

[rsx858]

@Matt: I did not know that I have to take the impression "eat my dust" literally ;-)

thanks for not holding a grudge! as always it was great racing with ya, that is of course when im not sending you spinning through the dirt..

[rthiele]

Don't worry Matt, nothing happened and there's plenty of space at NJMP

[robits325is]

Awesome weekend, this series is seriously the best! Huge thanks to Bob and Darrell. It was great seeing everyone come out for this event. Very cool to have bigspeed Ben back is the mix , as well as some new faces in the ITS group. Congrats to Autotechnic for a hell of a weekend, Rob that was a great battle! Hope to see everyone at the next one!

Yeah I had a lot of fun - good racing! See you at the next event!

Rob