Who Will Win? Forget about Road America this is the NARRC RUNOFFS!

[Dano77]

Of course IT7 is Norm, hes the only car entered.

[CRallo]

Of course IT7 is Norm, hes the only car entered.

That's not very nice... Showing up counts for something Damnit! And he has to go past half way to make it count... Sometimes easier said than done lol

Where is everyone?

[StephenB]

Of course IT7 is Norm, hes the only car entered.

even if you entered I still would have said him...

[gran racing]

Anyone know what time the registration booth is open until on Sat?

[Magical Trevor]

10:30, Dave. Seems Miatas are on their way to extinction this weekend. Group 2's morning session (STL/STU) was over after 3 laps when Nels Wangensteen had what would have been an innocuous spin to the inside off of the Diving Turn, had he not let off the brakes and allowed the car to coast back into the line of Jeff Campbell, who did nothing wrong/nowhere to go and clobbered the right rear of the uncontrolled car. Group 7 had Dylan Murcott enter the underside of the outside tirewall towards the top of the Uphill, and not long after the session restart Douglas Hirsch did the same in front of the corner station (5a) exiting the Esses. All are ok to my knowledge; be careful out there!

[gran racing]

Damn. And to think this is just qualifying.

Too bad for Jeff. I assume he's okay?

[Magical Trevor]

Wanted: One Honda Civic motor for alleged battering ram owned by a Greek. (as of Group 4 PM qualifying). (Edit: false alarm, just an oil filter line/fitting that made for some Days of Thunder driving for the field on the main straight, to quote Chris Rallo)

[RSTPerformance]

ITR/ITS/ITB update:

5 ITR Cars: Nimkoff BMW (1:00.165), Thiele BMW, Maynard BMW
9 ITS Cars: Stein RX7 (1.02.276), Estes RX7, Dedrick RX7
16 ITB Cars!: Washay VW Golf (1:03.462), Benazic Honda Civic, Wentworth Volvo 142

Second qualifying session coming around 5:30!

Shameless plug to "like" our Facebook page (RST Performance Racing) for results. Most stuff posted is about us but you can find images of the full results.

Raymond

[ulfelder]

Not sure how many ITA cars, but Andy Bettencourt had them covered with a 1:01.4 qualifying lap.

[RSTPerformance]

So the second qualifying found some guys on new tires...

Two unexpected things:

Still ITR has not broken into the 59's...

Tim Dugan got the VW Corrado into 1st for tomorrow's race!

The rest of the top 3:

ITR: Nimkoff 1:00.165, Maynard 1:00.195, Thiele 1:00.451
ITS: Dugan 1:02.194, Estes 1:02.245, Stein 1:02.264
ITB: Washay 1:03.418, Benazic 1:03.904, VanDenbirgh 1:04.000

We at RST Performance Racing are happy with Dugan first in ITS (not expected), Stephen making improvements with the RX8 turning a 1:03.076 (we expect more tomorrow!), and Raymond turning a 1:05.075 qualifying 6th out of 16 ITB cars (first time at the track in 2 years, used take off tires).

Raymond

[RSTPerformance]

I think for most of the day the IT cars were clean... Miatas in whatever class they dipped in were crashing all over though so the spectators (cub scouts) got some entertainment along with the tires to bring home

I only have the ITR/ITS/ITB results, here are the Top 5:

ITR 7 Cars
Dave Maynard 1:00.573 BMW
Robert Breault 1:00.810 BMW
Robert Thiel: 1:00.513 BMW New ITR Track Record
Jay Baier: 1:01.054 BMW
Stephen Blethen : 1:01.641 Mazda

ITS 9 Cars
Darrel Stein: 1:01.480 Mazda
Glenn Lawton: 1:02.822 Mazda
Joe Staddrlmann: 1:02.342 Porsche
Tim Estes: 1:02.152
Paul Omichinski, 1:03.551

ITB 17 Cars
Travis Washay: 1:02.962 VW New Track Record
Enrik Benazic: 1:03.986 Honda
Nat Wentworth: 1:04.375 Volvo
Eric Pedersen: 1:04.757 BMW
Raymond Blethen: 1:04.812 Audi

The rain held off to provide one of the best weekendsever at the Park... But it is raining now, hanging out in the upper field, getting wet... Good times!

Raymond

[kcolbey]

Group 8: A quick race report was that Thiel was catching Maynard, and finally got alongside down the front straight. They went side-by-side through big bend and I believe Thiel spun off (or was bumped off) into the left hander. Breault & Maynard made a good race after that. A late FCY bunched the field up and Thiel looked to have aspirations of getting the lead back (but he ran out of time.)
Group 4: SM2 in group 4 was another really good race. Jimmy Locke won with Ralle Rookey right behind. 3rd Vicktor Volpe, 4th Kenneth Payson
ITA Andy ran away; Brian Blizzard ran in the middle of the SM2 early but faded a little; Mickey took 3rd.
Group 1: SSM also had a great race, though it ended with a steward action. Names are escaping me at the moment, but the leader was in front the entire race. It can debating "one move" or "blocking", but it was a show nonetheless.

I have some pictures of group 4, I'll definitely post them later today.

[Ed Funk]

I was on pit road crewing for Steph in our B car/HP, that Miata was without doubt in my mind blocking! Moving from full left at the exit of the down hill to full right before start/finish and back to full left for the braking zone. The 2nd place car usually had a 2-3 foot overlap on the first move until he was forced to lift or drive in the grass or make contact. Definitely not trying to break the draft, 'cause he was not trying to avoid being in front of 2nd, he was blocking! Did he get a slap on the wrist or a position loss?

[mossaidis]

Started 3rd in class, 7th overall with a qual time of 1:03.1. I went inside at the start which ended being a bad decision, lost at least 4 spots. It was a 35 minute race so I took my time, passing others one car at a time. I saw two incidents, one behind me, one in front as well as 2 mechanicals. I ended 3rd class again, yet 6th overall with a personal best of 1:02.9. Not bad for being out of the season for 3 months. Granted there was heavy hitters missing in ITA, Shane Hawthorn, Jeff Lawton, Abhi, Jim Alley and others. I will take what I can get! I never saw Andy or Blizzard... they were gone and I no idea how close they were either in front or behind me.

[BruceG]

3 cheers for the OIL KING......LOL.Next time we won't give you the $44.99 special on the flat bed....and will charge you for 10 80lb bags of speedy dry for the front straight.

Nice work, Mickey. when we first looked at your engine after the dump, ther was so much oil, it was hard to figure where it was coming from!!

Bakalava really does work as a sealant.....LOL.:026:

[kcolbey]

Ed, No real disagreement there. I know the leading driver would call it one move, but in any case, yes he got a 1 place in class penalty.
Pictures of only group 4, all of the others I was in the tower working If you'd like one, or don't see your/your car in the pictures, contact me. Either PM or email will work, and I'll send you what I have.

[Knestis]

Would someone please point me at results when they are available, so I can do the ITNT points?

Thanks
K

[rthiele]

to add to Group 8 and Kyle's report (thanks!): finished my pass for the lead in big bend and got punted in the lefthander - square hit on the left rear wheel. I spun off into the grass and was lucky enough to avoid the car wash. Wheel was bent, but tire still ok. I fell back to 8th or so, ended up third.
On a personal note: I miss my usual clean Pro IT fellows where this would either not happen or would be an apology. Not cool. But hey, others saw much worse damage this weekend compared to a lost win and wheel, so no need to complain too much.

[vicktorvolpe]

Holy cow I made a race report!

I will have some video later of Mickey's car pulling it's days of Thunder moment (I was right behind, and had to go low, then go high, then perform a figure 8 with Mickey as he went for the runoff), and of the group 4 race.

I botched that start (3rd gear instead of 2nd), and then walked the car in the downhill on the first lap and let another ITA car get ahead of me. Luckily I made a clean move on the CRX (he was spun by another miata right after I passed), and then managed to get past Ken faster than I ever thought I would. From there on out it was managing lapped/broken traffic and the gap to Ken. Never saw Ralle or Jimmy for the whole race....they checked out and had at it.

Glad I brought my miata home in one piece this weekend. A lot of cars didn't pull that off.

Big ups so Mickey so we could represent a couple of boroughs on the group 4 podium!

-Vick

[StephenB]

A little race report from me (Stephen with the RX8)

I had a TERRIBLE first out session with the RX8 on Friday AM. I had never driven rear wheel drive at LRP, never driven a 6 speed at LRP, and just finished fixing the car from the wreck in April... So I was trying to learn a few things and take it easy. Had a ton of traffic and never figured out what gear I should be in and before I even got into any groove the session was over. Turned a lousy 106, about 3 seconds slower than I went in my ITB car... yikes this was gonna be a bad weekend.

Second session I went out determined to get better and I did! I started to feel more comfortable with the car but it was really really loose and I couldn't get on the power at all. It also ran super high oil temps (250-260) with water temps around 180-190. I was hesitant but started to throw the car around a bit and see how it reacted. Got down to a 103.4 with was .1 seconds faster than I ever went in my ITB car. yahoo finally that 20K was worth it... Ya not in my wifes eyes I was shocked to see that my buddy Tim in his corrado qualified at a 102 flat and pole for ITS. I was pretty bummed that I didn't think I could ever catch him and I just kept thinking WOW did I spend a lot more to build my car... what the hell did I do!! (I went into the weekend really really wanting to go faster than him, in fact we cared more about our race against eachother than anything else) So after we came in to prepare for Saturday we made a ton of suspension adjustments to see if we could get it to handle a bit better.

Morning warm-ups went well and I could tell it felt like it would be better. I was very excited about the potential in the race and couldn't have been happier with the decisions the crew made.

Race time came and I had a terrible start. lots of locked up tires in front of me, everyone 3 wide into turn 1 and this was the first race since the car got fixed... ya I was a pussy and backed off a tad! So after losing a bunch of spots on lap 1 I found myself following the ITB leader in my ITR car ;( what the hell I though to myself! My old Audi that I wouldn't even sell to anyone is right behind me with my brother driving... After that I settled into a groove and took off. I really started to understand how the car drove, what gears I should be in, and how fast I could slide it around some of the turns. I lead all the ITS cars with just the ITR cars out in front for a majority of the race. Oil temps still extremely high which is something that we need to look at before we get back on track again. I was still having a blast driving trying desperatly to catch Jay in his Turner ITR BMW and got down to a 101.6 which is only 1.1 seconds off the new track record set this weekend! I will be honest that I couldn't afford tires so I was wearing old giveaways from other drivers. In fact the front had 225 tires and the rear was 245's that sat in the snow last winter that I got from Steve U 2 seasons ago! With a new set of tires I really think this car has potential in ITR at a momentum track like LRP!

Overall a big success for me as the car ran well, didn't have any fuel issues (If you know anyone with an RX8 with issues let us know and we can help), and I had a blast driving it!

Attached are some pictures we took with the entire crew that I can't thank enough, the party we had a night with great in car video playing, the great boyscout giveaway (thanks Dave Gran for one of my favorite pictures of the weekend) and then the only picture I have of my car on track in the downhill. (If anyone has a picture of me on track let me know, I would love to get one!)

Stephen