23 replies to this topic

[Danny Steyn]

So many people had great weekends at Road Atlanta, others not so much!

Congrats to Pat Sandlin, this gray haired 60 year old grandpa was up on the wheel all weekend and sure kicked some serious butt taking the win in R1. Cliffie and Andrew Charbonneau had a good lead going into T10A on the last lap and Cliffie made a late and deep passing attempt in T10A and spun in front of Andrew, allowing Pat, Andrew Carbonnel, Voytek and Alex to get by. I had a good race with Jeff Labounty and Selin Rollan but we were way behind the leaders.

Congrats to Cliffie for keeping it together and getting the win in R2. Cliffie, Pat and Alex checked out early and the rest of us were all fighting for 4^th place. I qualified in 6^th, went back to 12^th and slowly came back through the field to finish 4^th.

For me the two best things about the weekend was

• The rise of new talent, and
• The exceptionally close and clean racing.

Bruce Anderson Jr. had a breakout weekend with some great qualifiers and awesome racing. Pat McGinnis was also up in the top 10 until he slid off in T1 behind me. Selin Rollan is going to be a great driver and proved his talent with great finishes in all both Nationals and by winning the Enduro. Not bad for first time at Road Atlanta.

As for the driving, I will post my video of Race 2 when I get back from my trip, as it will show you the level of trust between the drivers in SM. Literally touching bumpers through the turns, fighting for positions, but never saw anyone around me do any blocking, or any chopping. Close respectful racing. Even though I was way off the pace, this was still one of my most enjoyable weekends of racing, as I had to fight for every position and no-one gave it up without a fight. Heard the same from drivers behind me as well - all seemed to come away from the weekend with great stories of position changes and good clean racing.

Thanks to Tom and the team at OPM for the great support, to Mike Rossini for bringing the dyno to help tune the car at the track, and Glenn at Traqmate for the great system that getting even better with the new software release.

[Bruce Andersen]

What an exhausting weekend. I am not sure what was about this event (talent pool, the track, me not getting a corner correctly), but I don't think I have worked as hard as I did to break into the top 5 before (includes the Sebring and Homestead nationals). It was also great to be mentioned on the PA when I got that great lap in Sunday mornings qualifier.

As Danny said about clean racing, there were no double yellows during either SM races or the ProIT race. Kind of amazing for a Double National of this caliber and at Road Atlanta.

[Danny Steyn]

My in-car video from Road Atlanta this past weekend. Very close clean racing. Started 6th, dropped back to 12th after missed shift at T7, and slowly claw my way back to P4.

Drivers that feature in this video are Steyn, Drago, Charbonneau, Carbonnel, Anderson, Rollan, Burdzy, Labounty, Cottrell and McGinnis. Brown, Sandlin and Bolanos run away with this one and don't feature, except briefly at the start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWpZfNQ8Wlk

[SMRollan]

Thanks for the kind words, Danny.
I had a great time learning the track.....WOW what an amazing track lol
Now just gotta work on the little things to get those last couple of tenths