158 replies to this topic

[Jim Daniels - FIG]

WTG Tom (Blue) Long!! No offense to anyone but its hard to beat a real pro driver and my coach to boot!

Back to the shadows.....

[Glenn]

[Keith Andrews]

Jim, thanks for the recap. Sorry it was one of those races. Congrats on the strong run for East Street. Big congratulations to Todd Buras, just fantastic wheeling. I just added this to my bucket list.

[suck fumes]

what was teched? if anything?

[pat slattery]

Good job to Todd and all, I guess I have to get working harder on my 1.6.

Pat

[Bench Racer]

I'll post right after Pat, food for drago.

That was a fantastic race, congrats to all with the front 5 pulling the field in whatever order. Berry, Sandlin, Drago, Buras, Long. Had Voytek been able to continue there likely would have been 6 that pulled the field. To bad that Steyn & Tisseront couldn't stay in touch.

Drago, was there any tech & what was the tech? The world can wait.

& those that got all out of sorts when I asked Ron Allen, what do you consider a pro was after he named Tom Long as a pro. It was a QUESTION to Ron Alan, nothing more, nothing less.

[Mike Asselta]

& those that got all out of sorts when I asked Ron Allen, what do you consider a pro was after he named Tom Long as a pro. It was a QUESTION to Ron Alan, nothing more, nothing less.

Just PM him next time

[Andrew Charbonneau]

I have to say I hate being right sounds like a great race with a finish like my own for the national championship.

As I also said mixed feelings on mixed classes I do run both run groups sorry for both classes shame scca.


I will say it it was a single national not the runoffs. It should be a dosey

[JRHille]

Tom long is the man

[Andrew Charbonneau]

There always seems to be DRAMA with SM and Road America.



Voytek had a loose wheel and pulled off at the end of the pace lap, terrible for him, he was fast.

The short story with one to go I was on Craigs tail, literally 1-2ft apart going into kink at 110 mph. We entered behind a lapped Sm, don't know who. Craig and I were at Full throttle through kink. Two cars crashed in the kink, pretty badly. The lapped car checked up very hard with Craig on his bumper, Craig checked up even harder, I locked brakes and got into Craig, Craig into lapper, Craigs diff housing broke and could not continue. Neither of our cars are very bad, but the incident sucked, out of class VW and another SM in the wall, one on the left one on the right.





Humming autotecknick will be at the Runoffs in full force sounnds like a epic battle unfolding easy street may have flaws

Tom and Todd came through the wreck I was behind Craig trying to get him going but he was done with broken diff housing.

Tom was moved to third for passing under yellow or Contact, not sure which..

Really hate the way the race went and hate that Craig was unable to finish.

No one wants to win that way. No one should lose that way.


The only bright side is the top four cars were all from East Street, I would have preffered a fifth place finish in a better race as would most of the others.

I am fortunate to have great friends as Team mates! Congrats Todd, Pat and Craig.

Thanks for all guys...

Oh yeah, on last thing David Dewhurst, the SM world is waiting!


Jim

[Ron Alan]

I'll post right after Pat, food for drago.

That was a fantastic race, congrats to all with the front 5 pulling the field in whatever order. Berry, Sandlin, Drago, Buras, Long. Had Voytek been able to continue there likely would have been 6 that pulled the field. To bad that Steyn & Tisseront couldn't stay in touch.

Drago, was there any tech & what was the tech? The world can wait.

& those that got all out of sorts when I asked Ron Allen, what do you consider a pro was after he named Tom Long as a pro. It was a QUESTION to Ron Alan, nothing more, nothing less.

At 70 you know full well what your doing and typing Mr. Dew...I try to pull these same type of responses/excuses with my wife and it never works with her either. Are you an ex-congressman by chance? All kidding aside, since you saw the race first hand did the 1.6 have any trouble hanging? Sounds like Todd won though I believe he was running in 3rd at the time Berry and Drago got tangled up...but was he close?

[Bench Racer]

Are you an ex-congressman by chance?

[Jim Daniels - FIG]

WTG who ever won, its a race not a fast lap competition. Todd is very deserving. Lappers strike again, seems things never change...

[Danny Steyn]

Congrats to Todd Buras on the new lap record. Todd ran almost 0.9 seconds faster than the entire field, and his 2.44.1??? breaks Sandlin's old record of 2.44.3??

Also despite the mixed class crash, I do want to commend the SCCA's Chicago Region Jo-Anne Jensen for the way she conducted the Group 1 drivers meeting. She discussed 3 things with us

• For the 2013 June Sprints, Spec Miata will get its own run group. As she said, we have earned it........Thanks!
• The split start was negotiated with all drivers, and we all agreed to do T3/SSB and then SM/SSC. The split held up and it was really only by lap 9 or 10 that we started to lap the slower cars. Until then, SM had a clear track.
• Bump drafting - It would be considered contact and would be dealt with. She fully understood how difficult it would be to distinguish between two cars with a mm apart versus a bump and she said she would not rule with a heavy hand, but that they were watching.

In a lighter moment she conceded that if someone missed a shift and got bumped it would be OK, so a lot of drivers were predicting a lot of missed shifts!!!

In the race I suspect there was just as much BD'ing as before but just at more appropriate moments.

PS, Chicago Region, in the pursuit of safety, you really should put a full tethered safety harness on the guy in the start finish stand, if he leans out any more over the railing to check on bump drafting he is going to fall 20ft down into a conga-line of 45 Miatas running head to tail, missing shifts all the way along the main straight.

[Craig Berry]

Congrats Todd!....and both my team mates! Nice to be able to share notes, then go out race hard with talented guys.

I have to thank Jim for a car that's really good this year, and for the set up changes that were dead on!....except for Q2 when I did not take his advice and the car was terrible forcing me to overdrive, hit a curb and blow a tire.
Thanks as well to Tom, Tim, Tracy and all the OPM guys for the support all week.

The race....Started P9, but I knew the car was going to be better as long as the setup would allow me to get on the throttle early like i had been able to in practice. After driving Jim crazy about what tire to run, I went for his choice, not mine... Smart move, the car was really good. Worked up to P5 after lap one. The next few laps were some of the most intense I have ever experienced! 5 cars within inches and never in a line. We all swapped positions between almost every turn. From 2nd I had a great run out of 14 and moved to the inside of Long, who took me within 2" of the wall. Slipped by with Jim and Todd in tow. Finally got to breath for a few laps with a comfortable pace with Jim and Todd behind. Coming around the carosel I could see we were catching a soon to be lapped SM, I thought we were going to get lucky and catch him just out of the kink for an easy pass on the back strait.... just before entry to the kink I saw the yellow, then as we rounded the turn I could see halfway down the strait 2 badly crashed cars with pieces everywhere.... The lapper hit the brakes, I had to slow or risk going by under yellow, and I was focused ahead on all the debris. At this point the accordion effect occurred and Jim hit me, knocking me into the lapper and breaking my dif. In hindsight, with the speed we were traveling and not being able to see around the turn, I don't know what I would have changed.... Just really bad chain of events.

Overall good test for the Runoffs and always fun to see the guys.

[pat slattery]

Nice run and post Craig.

[Danny Steyn]

Really sucks Craig. You were the man to beat all week. You would have been tough to beat.

Also feel bad for Pat, but in a way he just had way too much good luck for one man. In STL Q1 his roof came loose and was able to repair before SM. Then he and Jim went out in STL Q2 to do just a couple of laps to see how much water was still on the track from the earlier cloudburst, and his exhaust down pipe broke on 1st lap, and OPM was able to get him fixed in time for the SM race ( next session). Pat sorry to hear about all the argie-bargie up front. And I know you will be back. Bye the way, Therese some smoke coming from your exhaust!

[DrDomm]

After driving Jim crazy about what tire to run, I went for his choice, not mine... Smart move, the car was really good.

Why did I think we had a spec tire?

[HoneyBadger - BrianW]

Why did I think we had a spec tire?

Spec tires have many different levels of wear. Each producing some very specific handling criteria at different tracks.

[chris haldeman]

That was Terrible luck Craig you ran a great race!!! And dr.doom there is a spec tire but not a spec condition of the tire heat cycle ect.. Use your brain!!!