LRP NARRC Runoffs

[Tkczecheredflag]

Reporting in from UCONN Parents Weekend.

ITA -Hawthorne passes AB for a last lap victory-waiting for details from the racers.
TK

[Andy Bettencourt]

Wet but drying track. Top 5 chose everything from Dries to intermediates, to full wets. I went 'safe' and grabbed some R888's of of one of our rental cars. When Shane and Jeff rolled up on dries, I had wished I had joined them.

Shane and I gapped the field pretty quickly and we ran nose to tail the ENTIRE race. I think I led 30 or teh 32 laps - just not the last one! He got by me a couple times but was help up in traffic in the downhill and I got back by each time. When it was my turn to get held up, he made a great pass while taking the 1 to go board. No chance for me to get him back.

Shane deserved the win as he was faster than me in a few critical spots and drove a great race. 32 laps of his car velcro'd to mine. As a pair, we lapped the entire run group.

We have the car really hooked as is evidence by the Q time. Wished I had a chance to reset the track record again...

[Andy Bettencourt]

BTW: Denise Vanburen is within 8 10th's of some pretty crafty drivers in her Escort GT!

[Greg Amy]

When Shane and Jeff rolled up on dries, I had wished I had joined them.

Gotta be "tight" with THE Weatherman, man...

[Seabee]

Nice work Shane and Andy.

Dam Honda Nation.

Great running with you guys and ITA all year and look forward to next year.

[JLawton]

I wasn't sure I had made the right choice the first couple of laps. Max got me on the start but knowing he was on Dirt Stockers i knew I only had to be patient......... But apparently not patient enough........... Went off in the left hander on about lap three, managed to come back and grab third. The car was SO on the edge the whole race. My butt cheeks are sore from clenching them the whole time!!

I do appreciate everyone's consideration when I came back up through the field. Everyone showed some great sportsmanship.

Shane and Andy were on fire!! Congrats to Shane. Well deserved.

And I'm VERY happy breaking into the 1:01s!!! Kessler put a hell of a set up on. I only wish it was dry for the race!!

Fun weekened!!

[dazzlesa]

kessler maintained honda civic si wins narrc runoffs in ITB.
i do appreciate somebody kickin the beehive.
results
rick
nat
richard g
tim m
paul c
it started to rain again 15 min before our race. that gave me the advantage i needed.
dave g fought me hard at first, later overheating ended his day. nat had put drys on the left side and rains on the right. as the track dried it actually worked, i think.
too bad we did not have a qualifying race saturday. it would have been wild. its not that often that so many fast cars show up at the same time.
it was definatly cool winning this race.

[BruceG]

Lot's of guys complaining in the pits about going out on rains and then no grip in the dry. Lou in IT7 told me he had no grip on his dirt stockers once the track started to dry and a friend in Formula VEE(they delayed the start to allow folks to switch to rains!!)ran on his new Hoosier rains and was chasing the wet line to get any kind of grip at all during their race.

Skip Barber has had a deal with the devil regarding weather for SCCA at LRP this year....LOL.

[gran racing]

ITA turned out to be THE race to watch. Congrats to both Shane and Andy.

Gulick in his IT7 car came in 5th in ITA, and nearly came in 4th. Hell of a run! (Rumors have it that was all because of properly set tire pressures ON grid LOL)

Rick in ITB kicked some butt out there. I'd love to know what it felt like using the dirt stockers vs. Hoosier Radial wets. I was doing absolutely everything no just to put the car off and was not happy with how it was handling. This summer I went out in full wet conditions and it felt much, much better. Don't know what was going on here. I had some challenges that I couldn't seem to overcome with an ITS car (I so wanted to hit him!!!!) Rick pulled away. Then the radio reports came in with Nat catching up. This was one of my first times having someone on a radio and it was quite helpful, although I wish Jake could have heard me. The car felt a lot slower, but maybe it was the tires getting dry? In the end I blew the motor and sat on the sidelines with just a few laps to go. Turned out a hose severed off which caused the engine to go. Not good. Actually, *%&@!!!

Nat with his Blethen (that's who I thought copyrighted it?) set-up (left wet tires; right dry tires) earned second. Nice job.

[gran racing]

Btw, what's the ITB track record?

[vwzx7]

ITA......man that was a fun race to watch!!!

[StephenB]

Btw, what's the ITB track record?

It was Rick P. with his alfa in the 1990s with I think a 103.3 unless of course you all beat that this weekend :eek: I turned a 103.7 in 2008 with Ken on my but in his 2002. Did anyone get in the 3s this past weekend?

How did ken do anyway, he has been fast all year in the pro-it stuff. Congrats to Tim on a great finish amoungst the fastest of B!

And to all the others congrats as well, I plan on finding out what events everyone is doing next year so that I can race with you more, this year was fun but only a few of us did the pro-it races, and I would love to mix it up with all of you again :026:

Stephen

[lateapex911]

It was Rick P. with his alfa in the 1990s with I think a 103.3 unless of course you all beat that this weekend

Stephen

EVERYone was in the 3s. I *Think* Dave Gran turned a 1:03.330. And IIRC, there were a couple others under 4 as well.

It was certainly a last minute, finger biting, hope for the weather gods to cooperate type of weekend. Unlike the June event, when it sprinkled and dried, sprinkled and dried, sprinkled..and I went out on dries...and it poured, I had the rains on and ready, with the car in the air ready to change to dries. And, with 3 laps to go in the group before me, I gambled and went out on Q tires, and while the first few laps were h-a-i-r-y, (1" off line and swisssh! off the course you went, just ask Jeff) I KNEW it was the right call.

An interesting race, one I wish I had had time to get the videotape running...but Dave Gran was airing up my tires on grid with under a minute to go, so...no video. . This is one race I really wish I was in an ITR car, and was in 3rd place just to watch Andy and Shane battle. Man, that must've been a fun one to watch.

I LOVE it when it rains because it shakes things up. In the A race we had guys on every tire possible: Race drys, Qualifying drys, intermediates, Hoosier wets, and Hoosier dirt stockers. Which made for wild racing. Wendell gambled on a wet setup, but it was too soft. So he cut a LF down in big bend. I was fully alongside Jeremy von Oy, who was getting held up by Wendells issues, when he came down on me at the last exit of big bend. I got on the brakes, but only could back out halfway. I took to the berm, so the contact wasn't nearly as bad as I had envisioned, no biggie at all! Jeremy came over to apologise later (Much appreciated!!), but no apology needed, one of those things. And I owe "Mad Max" an attaboy, and an apology for giving his rear bumper some love out of the left hander when I was on the throttle, and he either wasn't, or his tires were slipping. Close running, slippery track and these things happen. He was awesome in the downhill, that 240 really stuck well. And with the power he has, I couldn't get by. Oh well, it was fun trying.

[JLawton]

I LOVE it when it rains because it shakes things up. In the A race we had guys on every tire possible: Race drys, Qualifying drys, intermediates, Hoosier wets, and Hoosier dirt stockers. Which made for wild racing. Wendell gambled on a wet setup, but it was too soft. So he cut a LF down in big bend. I was fully alongside Jeremy von Oy, who was getting held up by Wendells issues, when he came down on me at the last exit of big bend. I got on the brakes, but only could back out halfway. I took to the berm, so the contact wasn't nearly as bad as I had envisioned, no biggie at all! Jeremy came over to apologise later (Much appreciated!!), but no apology needed, one of those things. And I owe "Mad Max" an attaboy, and an apology for giving his rear bumper some love out of the left hander when I was on the throttle, and he either wasn't, or his tires were slipping. Close running, slippery track and these things happen. He was awesome in the downhill, that 240 really stuck well. And with the power he has, I couldn't get by. Oh well, it was fun trying.

What really pisses me off is that after a couple of laps Max and I had gapped the field and I knew he was on Dirt Stockers and would be burning them up shortly. So I was being VERY patient. (and I knew I had no chance of running down the dynamic duo) I just got a little wide in the left hander and off the dry line............ Oh well, it made it more interesting!!

Yeah, that 240 could stick in the down hill. The one place I couldn't gain on him. He's come a long way in the last couple of years.

And to all the ITA guys (and girls) a few years ago you could have run a 1:03 and won the race. And nobody really said much about Andy's 1:00.8 in qualifying. Holy, holy shit!!! Kessler's motivational speach after seeing that: Forget about it, you'll never come CLOSE to that! LOL

I can't wait until next year!!!

[rthiele]

Congrats Rob for the ITR championship win! You ran a good and consistent season, well deserved. I tried to make it not too easy and keep it open to the last minute, but I had nothing this weekend.
Thanks for some good NARRC racing and CU at Pro IT finals.

[lateapex911]

What really pisses me off is that after a couple of laps Max and I had gapped the field and I knew he was on Dirt Stockers

Dirt stockers?? Really? I thought I saw something else on like molded rains, but not dirt stockers. If he was on dirt stockers, he's a god, and he burned those things down. No offense, he was clearly working that car, and made it wide where it had to be, but dirt stockers? I don't think so.

[BruceG]

It was Rick P. with his alfa in the 1990s with I think a 103.3 unless of course you all beat that this weekend :eek: I turned a 103.7 in 2008 with Ken on my but in his 2002. Did anyone get in the 3s this past weekend?

How did ken do anyway, he has been fast all year in the pro-it stuff. Congrats to Tim on a great finish amoungst the fastest of B!

And to all the others congrats as well, I plan on finding out what events everyone is doing next year so that I can race with you more, this year was fun but only a few of us did the pro-it races, and I would love to mix it up with all of you again :026:

Stephen

Rick Pocock is a very understated fellow. Fast as a whip in FF and ITB. Had him as an instructor in both Skippy racing school and SCDA and you'd never know what a great record he had on track from him, ever. His career came to an end last year in NJ with a bad crash in his Club Ford but a great instructor and nice guy.

Enough gay love on here, Rick...LOL

[Andy Bettencourt]

The new pavement has a TON of grip but we all had to dial out a touch of push to start bettering our lap times. Plus now we know to stay off the inside curbs in the uphill and West Bend...

Not a huge fan of a 2-day single but the 32 lap race was worth it!!!

[benspeed]

How about some ITS and ITR updates? Any times and finishing positions? Good battles?

Way to go Doc Bro on the NARRC championship - Rob Thiele, you are a consumate gentleman. Looking foward to the Pro IT at NJMP to polish off the season