183 replies to this topic

[joe varble]

 In Car from saturdays race?

[Keith Andrews]

Sunday's results  http://scca.cdn.race...SunRace-GP1.pdf

 

[38bfast]

Novak had an impressive run for the first time running RA.

[Joe (dad) Jordan]

Justin as someone who raced against you i the late 90"s in speedvsion cup, then motorola cup in miata's I was very excited to see you win the June Sprints!

 

Sorry your dad was not able to attend but I can garranty he was excited and ecstatic at your win!

Thanks everyone for the kudos. It's great fun finally being able to run at the front with such tough competition. I've been racing Miatas since before there was a SM class,(late 90s in the Motorola Cup) and this is surely my biggest win. Ive been running the Sprints in some type of car every year since 1998, so it's been a long time coming and this is a major life event for me. I definitely felt bad abandoning my 1.6 this year, but we had got everything we could out of it and knew it wasn't going to be enough to compete at the front of these big races.


I love this track. Here's to another great race today!

[Ben Anderson]

Wonderful fun at Road America this weekend.  First time at RA with an SM.  We bought a 1.6 from a individual in the midwest in an effort to have some fun in this class.  So far - mission accomplished!  Great class, great friends, great racing.

 

We now know that the car had a bad brake master cylinder this weekend.  Brake bias would change from front to rear during the braking zones.  I was perplexed - plenty of rear bias on initial braking then massive front bias on turn in.  Oh well, at least we now know the culprit.

 

In qual we didn't have any dance partners. No one wanted to team with a 1.6 (i don't blame 'em!).  So disappointing start in P16 without a draft.  Great fun in the race moving up a few spots (following Todd) before the '99s eventually swallowed us up slowly lap by lap.  P12 finish and great fun.

 

Met some great folks - thanks for your kind words.  Really bummed for Danny and his misfortune this weekend.

 

Quick rough edit of some sat race vid below for those not able to make it:

 

 

-Ben

http://benandersonracing.com

[MPR22]

First time at the track, beautiful place, great people, I didn't even get to go to the local hotspots and still had a great time.
Started out in the new X Factor Racing.com build with X Factor Racing head. Put the car on the track with no issues from the build, ran perfectly all weekend. Thank you Chris Haldeman for working so hard to get it ready for Sprints. 3 weeks from start to finish with a little help from our friends Honey Badger, Craig Ashcroft (Uncle), Sean McAllion, Trevor McAllion and of course the Pat Factor, my dad.

Chris put a training wheel set up on the car for my first 4 sessions. Drago comes by Friday afternoon and asks how do you like the track, are you scared yet?  The honest answer was no, what is there to be scared about?  I asked Chris to free up the car for SM Qual 2 and things started to click. I was able to get the true sense of the speed necessary to run with the big dogs. The Kink wasn't just some other little turn anymore it was quite an eye opener.

Qual 1 sucked. We went out last and I got broke off from my buddies Haldeman and Reynolds on lap 1 and spent the entire session trying to find a drafting partner. Qual 2 was mot much better. I had to start with folks i was unfamiliar with as they set the grid by the previous days efforts. I was in quite a bit of traffic and I had one of those good laps going that would have put me in the mid 2:45 range and ran into some traffic that had an off and forced me to take evasive action. Mid 2:46 had me something like 24th for the big race. It looked like rain might hit us Saturday and I went to talk to the Zulu Rain Warrior for some tips. Danny Steyn is one of the nicest and most helpful guys you will ever meet. He took the time to show me his 2010 Sprints race and explain his process for finding grip at a new track in the rain.   He has detailed notes for every track he visits, his notes on RA qualifying confirmed what I experienced in qualifying, pull off and find a drafting group that works with your capabilities. Solo is super slow!!

STL qual 2 we freed the car up some more and started cooking, about 3 laps in the brakes were getting really bad kickback. I'm following Danny into turn 3 and I go to brake and I have nothing, turn and pray was my solution and it worked as I was able to slow enough to get it pointed up track and take the emergency exit at the end T5. Come back to the paddock and find my left rear brake caliper hanging on by the hose with no piston in it. The pin backed out with all the rumble running I was doing. I put the brakes on the car and didn't lock tight the pins in. Another lesson learned this weekend.

Race 1, I got a good start and pushed though several positions into turn 1. At the end of lap one. I went wide at 14 and came back on off pace. I was so focused on Skip Brock's bumper that I flat ran into Pat McGinns. Never saw him my fault completely, scared me to death watching him struggle to get the car to stay off the pit wall. So sorry about that Patrick, didnt get a chance to tell you at the track, wasn't sure who it was, just new it was a black car. Drago stopped by today and told me who it was and that you had left for the weekend already. I like to deliver my apologies in person but ingurss this will have to do until i seeyou again. I got back on it and put my head down, caught back up to skip and worked with him to bridge up to the next group ahead which had Anderson, Powers and Sandlin. One there I was fight my brakes again. Decided to cool it and not take any chances running too hard. Got back to the paddock and went to chane pads. Found bits and pieces of pads on left side. Don't run Cobalts past half pad, the rivets cause structural weekness in the pad and it falls apart under harsh conditions. Love the product they just need a warning label. More later, need to tske the wheel from Chris for a while.

[Craig Berry]

Way to go Erik! Cannot say enough about my team mate/friend and the weekend he had! 2nd Sat and 1rst Yesterday! Congrats to Danny as well, he drove a strong race.
Very strange weekend, 3 of the 4 East Street SM's had issues both races. The good news was that Eriks car was great all weekend, along with his driving. I am not near as good at describing the blow by blow details as others on the sight, but I will say that for most of the race yesterday with the issues on the front corner my car made it wicked scary and I was very fortunate to get 3rd, and very ready to get out of the car.
I would like to thank Jim Drago for all the hard work and knowledge he provides for the entire team, my Dad, Robert Lloyd, Ricky, York, and my team mates Pat and Erik.
In spite of our issues this weekend we had tons of fun, but I will be bringing the biggest super soaker water gun I can find to the runoffs! You had to constantly watch your back around our tent!!!

[DrDomm]

Now that you've all made it through Road America, it's time to register for Watkins Glen!

[Jim Drago]

For the team and customers it was great weekend.  Erik never had the level of car he has now and he is putting up the results to show it.  It was very nice for the team to have two wins and two podiums both days.  I am proud that we have built the Sprints winning car every year from 2007-2013 except for 2010 when Danny won.  Craig led most of both races and was fortunate to survive yesterdays race.  Pat and I struggled with really weird issues all weekend. 

 

Also like to Congratulate Matt Reynolds who won the Sprints for the first time in his EP car. I think he finally has that car sorted and has a great shot to win EP this year at the Runoffs.

 

My weekend in short form...  I can come up with lots of strange issues, problems and excuses. In the end it just comes down to some weekends you just get beat. This was one of those weekends.  Hopefully we will come back in September with a better prepared car and driver. 

 

The STL car was a lot of fun, but still very temperamental .. I managed to turn my fastest time in that car( 35.1) almost a full second faster than the runoffs last year with an extra 90 lbs and running out of fifth gear on the straights, still some tuning issues with some misfiring at high rpm.  When the tires were still fresh, I was able to completely flat the carousel and with a really deep breath, the kink as well. I have not looked at the data, but it was faster than I would like to be going there.  I had the Sprints all but won and the ignition started breaking up, so I had to pull off out of the lead. This is why so many of us love SM, these cars are wound too tight and seems like lots of problems that we usually never see in SM 

 

Other than years when assisted off the track, I have never finished worse than second at Road America since 2007.  This year going three dnf's was a tough one.  

 

For all those who still believe that Road America is a nothing more than a big dyno, I have to chuckle. If you can not negotiate med to fast right handers perfectly with an extremely well set up car, you have ZERO chance at Road America almost regardless of HP in our class.  

 

Also like to congratulate Danny and Voytek, both dove extremely well and were able to run right with us or better. They will be tough in September. 

 

Good to see lots of the old guys around and meet some new ones!

 

Craig, as far as the water gun goes.. I am thinking like a back back tank that lawn care companies use, but it needs to hold 100 psi and 10-15 gallons of water.

 

I was bucketed from the top of the trailer at least 2-3 times and hosed down completely at least two or three other times, all while stressed with a bad weekend

 

 

Jim

[Ron Alan]

{I was bucketed from the top of the trailer at least 2-3 times and hosed down completely at least two or three other times, all while stressed with a bad weekend  }

 

I want to see the video of that!

[Jim Drago]

{I was bucketed from the top of the trailer at least 2-3 times and hosed down completely at least two or three other times, all while stressed with a bad weekend  }

 

I want to see the video of that!

 

I was doing set up on Berrys car, all were hot tired and sweaty..  My 5 year old god son with a water filled fire extinguisher sprayed me in the ear, full blast from about 6 ft away and emptied it on me.  I was looking for a wrench to throw at someone until I saw it was him. His father Stearns pulled a muscle in his sternum laughing and rolling on the ground

 

The bucketing was hey Jim, look at this tire on your new trailer.. I think we need to replace before we leave.  I bend over to look and bam! 5 gallons of water on my back  

[Bench Racer]

all while stressed with a bad weekend
Jim

That's why I water level levelness checked your scale pads during your race on Sat. Only missed 10 minutes of the race.
...............................

 

 

A side note from the production races site.

 

"

Not sure if anybody noticed that the Prod group was part of history yesteday. According to the final race results Todd Lamb in a STL Miata ran a 55.833. Thats that first time a car has gone under the 1 minute mark at RA. At an average speed of 261 mph you could say he was literally flyin!!!"

 

[Jim Drago]

That's why I water level levelness checked your scale pads during your race on Sat. Only missed 10 minutes of the race.
...............................

 

 

A side note from the production races site.

 

"

Not sure if anybody noticed that the Prod group was part of history yesteday. According to the final race results Todd Lamb in a STL Miata ran a 55.833. Thats that first time a car has gone under the 1 minute mark at RA. At an average speed of 261 mph you could say he was literally flyin!!!"

 

 

 

I think I am calling  on that one.. I think you were afraid to try the water level as you know I had you covered That would have been the highlight of my weekend

[Bench Racer]

I think I am calling  on that one.. I think you were afraid to try the water level as you know I had you covered That would have been the highlight of my weekend

I drove by a couple times Fri. and from the looks on faces there was stress radiation glowing.   Checking on the sly proved the point betwen us to me. Sorry you wern't around.   Naw, it would not have been the highlight of your weekend.

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Checking on sly means nothing... they only need to be level right before you put a car on them... not after they been used and the car knocked them out of wack backing off the scales...

Regardless of wheat her they are level or not, one car that was on those very scales won and took p2!!!!!!!!

I think dats all the point that needs to be made between you two.
Sprinces' are over now so we can all move on to the next race. Sorry for Jim having 2 hard luck weekends in a row. Only means next time will be super terrific. 3rd time always the charm. I am just glad I Didnt do the spinces' weekend on so many different front to personal, and equipment reasons.

Glad to hear everyone made it out of there. Danny I know I give you a lot of hell but sorry about your luck on sat. Seemed you had it handled, I know you put so very much into the effort. Keep your head up your day will come!

[Todd Lamb]

I was driving the yellow #68 car when I did that. (Seriously dude, you had the nerve to bring that to a national?!)

[Todd Lamb]

Fun weekend. Met and raced with a lot of cool people! Bummed we didn't make the Supper Club trip but we will for Runoffs.

I got some good super soaker video. Will try to upload later.

Thanks to Ted Cahall for letting me play on Sunday. It was a tough tough run to the front and once I got there I had nothing left for the top 4.

Congrats to the podium guys!

Will be home in an hour after two weeks on the road coaching. One weekend off and then back at it for NJMP MARRS.

Can't wait for Runoffs and more man drama!

[Michael Novak]

The#68 is very strong, I watched it come from third by himself to grab he win from me at MIS.

[Bench Racer]

Some accuracys of hand held laser levels.

 

+/_ 3/64 inch at 3.3 feet

 

+/_ 1/8 inch at 30 feet

 

within 1/4 inch at 75 feet

 

Accuracys seem to be all over the map.

 

Coach and Drago, what is the brand and model of your hand held laser?

[Matt Reynolds]

Also like to Congratulate Matt Reynolds who won the Sprints for the first time in his EP car. I think he finally has that car sorted and has a great shot to win EP this year at the Runoffs.

 

Jim

 

Thanks for the shout out Jim.  We have been working really hard on developing the car, and I have been really hard on the car, which has slowed our progress some.  I believe we achieved our goal of seeing where we were at, where we need to be, and what we can do to get there in both classes.  SM gets deeper every year and I would expect a much larger turnout at the Runoffs than last year. 

 

I want to thank Carbotech Brakes, Jesse Prather Motorsports, Race Engineering, Prodigy Motorsports, Mazdaspeed, and Hoosier Tires for their support.

 

-Matt