NARRC Run Offs

[CRallo]

shoulda asked this earlier...

if someone has a free minute, could they please put me on their crew list and let me know they did so???

thanks!!!

Chris Rallo

[73itb]

Give me a call on my cell 860-307-2353. I'll see if I can change a name on my list. Matt Bannerman #73 ITB

[raffaelli]

Ouch, Chris, you can borrow my green truck. It's a 2001 GMC Sierra with the 5.3 engine. Not currently clean though. You'll need to supply a 2" reciever/ball and pin though. Just slide it out of your truck. Email me (see below) if you want to make arrangements, and I'll shoot you my phone number. I'll be up late and up early, so email anytime... It's in Southport, CT right now. You can pick it up anytime, I'll just leave the keys available.

Open trailer/CRX right?

Thanks for the offer Jake!

[raffaelli]

Ummmmm, interesting run group 4 today.....errr was that a Miata? Hunter ok?

[jimalley]

Somebody take pitty on those of us who wimped out, and post the results and story of the race!

[Tkczecheredflag]

ITA Results

Shane H 102.0
Joe D 102.9
Marc C 103.0
Tim K 102.9
Craig M 104.3

First let me say congrats to Joe Diminno our new ITA NARRC Champion - Nice one Joe.

Next Congrats to Shane Hawthorne (my esteemed garage mate and friend) - Drove an incredibly quick and talented race today. I was with him at practice on Tuesday, he cracked a 101 - I knew he was the one to watch - fast car, great driver, home track - nice one Shane.

Track was dry at the start, although big heavy clouds moved in while in false grid. We had a fair amount of light rain to drizzle during the race - made things a little slippery but the track did dry out again. We were all on dry tires and setup.

I heard Andy B had a small off, cracked his splitter and started to overheat (not sure I have my facts straight). Jeff L had a minor off in lap one (might of been reacting to my off too), limped around and finished but the car was not quite right after making contact with the tire wall in driver left. I went to the beach on lap one in the left hander - got a decent start to grab P-2 (for about 3 seconds) - Joe D was protecting the inside line - I used the traditional line thinking Joe might wash out after apex, I came in too hot and deep, lit up the tires on the lefty, almost got stuck in the swamp but managed to exit station 5 around P-17. Then all hell broke loose arounf L-15. Apparently Richie H got two or four off drivers left, in West Bend, spun and ended up on drivers right at the bridge, Justin Curry was coming through, picked his line and T-boned Richie - There might have been annother Miata in there too - not sure - guys please confirm what I heard. Richie's car is trashed, the passenger door was completely removed for the car on impact, floor pan bent, the X door bar was exploded and hit Richie's arm - both cars a shot. Not a great weekend for Richie.

I'll let the other classes chime in - A great NARRC season again - the regions should be proud of putting on a good show.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Congrats to Shane on the win and Joe on the Championship. Still have the mud on my helmet from Lawton's off...can't wait to see that video...oye!

After the restart, the tires came back in and we were running Shane down. Some kind of fluid got me loose in WB and then the DH and I put 2 off. Stayed straight but blew the splitter off and it took the factory undertray with it. A piece of that got plugged in front of my radiator and temps started to rise. Brought her in at 220+. Couldn't get the temps down even by short shifting. Fast lap is a small consolation... not!

[JLawton]

Congratulations to Joe for his ITA Championship. No doubt the boy drove the wheels off the car (literally and figuratively). He certainly didn't have a fast car (except in a straight line) but he is a racer and always came through when it counted. Of course, now he thinks he's the next tGA.

Also, props to Shane Hawthorn. He was on FIRE yesterday. He drove the sh*t out of that little CRX. I enjoyed watching him from my position on the other side of the armco.

And how about Chris Milton-Hall?? Qualifying third in the rain!! Very impressive.

Mark Cefelo, in a rear wheel drive car, on Toyos, gets the pole in the rain. Very impressive driving.

Glad Richie was OK after his huge hit. As Greg said, he was 180 degrees from dieing. Some of the scariest damage I've seen on a car. Both drivers walking away from that wreck goes to show that our safety equipment does work. Anyone have video?

The ITB/ITS race was also a good one. Nat Wentworth in a borrow car for the ITB win. Rick B gets collected by a bunch of spinning ITS cars from his pole position on the first lap, gets knocked back to DFL or close to it and charges back to a fourth place finish.

"Good Guy" award of the weekend: Dave Zaslow lets Nat borrow his car so Nat can finish his run for the NARRC Championship. Sorry Dave, I don't mean to ruin your reputation, but that was a class move!!

Also, great job to Don Dumon in the Kessler Engineering prepared SM winning his race easily (or at least it looked easy watching!!)

[dominojd]

Congratulations to Joe for his ITA Championship. No doubt the boy drove the wheels off the car (literally and figuratively). He certainly didn't have a fast car (except in a straight line) but he is a racer and always came through when it counted. Of course, now he thinks he's the next tGA.

Thanks guys for the props. It was a great season.

Props to Shane for the dominant performance. I wasn't catching you if I had another 50 hp.

And Jeff I do not think i am even close to thinking I am the next tGA. I know I am better. Yeah I know 1 week and 6 days to go.

[philstireservice]

Big Congrats to Joe D, on Hankooks from PhilsTireService (shameless plug)......He never gives up.

Glad all the other ITAer's made it out safely !!

I have known for a long time that Dave Zaslow is a classy guy !!! Congratulations to Nat !!!

[RSTPerformance]

Nat-

he big question... what is faster, more fun, and easier to drive; The car with years of domination - a Volvo's from the 70's or the new underweight VW's of the 90's????

Congrats to all the winners and I am glad Richie and all involved were ok.

Raymond

[moto62]

I just got off the phone with Richie H. He is ok. Just a massive headache and some soreness. He said he was knocked out for a few seconds and actually considered continuing with the race after he came to. The car was still driveable Wayyy to go Joe. Congrats on the NARRC and congrats to all the class winners. Now let's get some videos going so I can see what I missed.

[JaxonMotorsports44]

Congratulations to all the participants and winners of the races yesterday. It was fun for me to be gridded right behind AB... My new motor for my HP car is very fast, and I was looking forward to seeing how well I could keep up with Andy as the race progressed.

I got a front row seat for Jeff L's off-on-off-on-off-on again in the left hander... that was wild... Having an open top car is a problem when huge puddles of water are hitting you in the face... Holy water Batman. Nice job collecting it several times and not getting hit by anything or anyone. I would love to see in-car of that. Unfortunately my water temp was showing 240+ so I brought it in during the full course caution. Luckily it turns out the sending unit lead melted to the header and was giving false readings. Phew...

Nice work Shane!!!! We met at Tech on Thursday evening and it was good to see that the hard work from Tuesday to Thursday paid off.

[RSTPerformance]

After reading the other thread about the cage it got me to thinking.... How/why did richie get hit (t-boned) in the door??? From what was said ,he was off line, stopped and it was a direct hit in the door... Did the driver even attempt to go around the car?

More importantly can we learn from this??? If any of us are given no choice but to "t-bone" a car, where do we aim??? This certainly shows us to do everything possible to avoid a direct hit on the drivers door...

Raymond "something doesn't seem right about this..." Blethen

[lateapex911]

Yes, the hit on Richie certainly seems avoidable from his description of his location, and from the responding flaggers comments as well.

perhaps the driver came around West Bend, and jumped off the throttle, started to spin and just locked them up and "Boom", that's all she wrote.

According to the flagger i spoke with, the car was all locked down before the contact.

It seems that just driving normally would have been better.

[benspeed]

Hey guys - how about an ITS update? It was eating at me all weekend that I didn't go.

Cheers

[NATW]

First of all I want to thanks Dave Zaslow for letting me use his car, as said earlier a very classy gesture. I blew the motor in my Volvo on the 2nd lap of qualifying in the morning session. Dave got to the track in the early afternoon found out about my situation (I was in 2nd place in the NARRC championship ,50 points behind Ken Hubbard and was going to be watching the race) and offered me his car. I can't thank him enough. I manged to qualify 3rd behind Rick Benazic and Richard Gleason. I didn't get the greatest start but I was lucky that I was gridded in an even position which left me on the inside of the lefthander on the 1st lap (if you study the results 1st, 2nd and 3rd were all in even grid spots and benefitted from it, my condolences to Rick who was otherwise in a great position to win the race, and the other guys who had the same bad luck) , at that point an ITR BMW spun and stopped broadside in front of everyone on the outside of that turn. I checked up a little and Ken Hubbard got by me on the inside, I was close behind going up the hill and into west bend, but he made a slight mistake and went wide at the down hill and I was able to drive by. The rest of the race was pretty routine until I got caught up behind some cars I was lapping, suddenly Ken was on my bumper and we went though the left hander 3 wide with me coming out ahead. I was able to put some good distance on him at that point because he got caught up in traffic too.

Raymond, to answer your question Dave's car was AWESOME!!, it was very easy to drive, it was on rails the whole race and I didn't have the slightest slip or wiggle until the last couple of laps when it got pretty wet, and then only minor crabbing of the front wheels in big bend, I don't think I would have won in my own car. Its going to be hard to get back in my tank after this ride,

Dave, thanks again and again, I'm going to owe you forever.

Nat Wentworth
2008 NARRC ITB Champion

[lateapex911]

You know, Nat, that says buckets about your skills as a driver, in that you:
- Had the confidence to race another guys car in the "NARCC Crash-offs" as they have been called occasionally, and-
- WON the darn thing in a car that has to be way different than your normal car. Heck, they are what, 20 years apart, and RWD vs FWD!?

And as you pointed out, wow, Dave sacrificed his own race to loan you the car. That's huge. Nice job Dave.

Congrats!

[lateapex911]

I think I want to also give the NY Region some props for the quality of the goodies. I was thrilled to be able to FINALLY take a checkered flag lap at Lime Rock -my first ever there- and when i came back to the pits and stopped to give it back for the exchange to the dinky "keeper" flag, they waved my by. Wow, nice flag! Then I went to get the trophy...nice surprise there as well. Not any old plaque deal, this was a nice curved glass piece, similar to the one got at the IT -Fest. Then they handed me a huge bottle of champagne! I would have been happy with a beer!

Nice job, NY Region!

[dazzlesa]

first off congrats to Nat. he raced hard all year. Ken and i gave all we had to catch him. i also agree that daves moves was class all the way.
for my weekenend , i think it was a race for me to loose. on tuesday the car was flying. then the provisional ITB pole in the rain and the pole in the dry. 7th out of 30 with the closet B car in 12th. the race started with a good mist. we get to the left hander and a car in front of me taps the ITR bmw spinning him right in front of me. i slid into him and get hit from behind. it takes a moment to get going again but the field is gone. from that point on it felt like a circus show. cars all over the place. i had no idea what positon i was in as i passed car after car. i drove my ass of trying to catch up. near then end of the race i had a great battle with charles for 3rd. charles had titanium balls going through the down hill. i am bumbed out that my chance ended so quickly but i am glad to leave with my car having only a bloody nose. nothing a big hammer and some tugging wont fix.
glad to hear that Richie is ok. Marc did some amazing drifting while qualifying exiting bigbend. congrats to joe on the ITA naarc win. shane kicked some but. thanks also to Matt kessler for getting the car to rock.