What a weekend... I for one am very satisfied with the show our team has put on this weekend. The race I had on Sunday also has definitely by FAR been the most intense, close and fun race I ever had. I never drove so hard for so long in my life. More about that and it’s unfortunate ending in a moment.

First off, Louis did a great job qualifying in 3rd for the sprint and defending his position through the whole race to finish behind Tom. Tom was leading on the first lap, until Bob Stretch got him in 6. He then slowly pulled a marginal lead on Tom in the first half of the race. I’ve never seen Bob drive so hard - he was all over the curbs in 10a and 10b throwing that car around in spectacular fashion. Tom on the other hand was very calculated and clean as he did not once even touch the curbing. This seemed to have paid off since in the last half of the race, Tom was closing the gab. Bob’s car definitely had worn down. With 3 laps to go, up front it was Tom on Bob Stretch’s tail and further back was a 3-car battle for 3rd. Then, it happened - Bob pulled off with 2 laps to go as the Nissan experienced mechanical problems. Ya have to be there at the end to win the race! And so, Tom Fowler won the race and my co-driver, Louis came 2nd.

Sunday, Bob fixed his car and qualified on pole for the enduro. I got 2nd place, but right on my back bumper was Walt Puckett (good buddy of ours - also raced in WC with the Saturn program for 3 years) and beside him was the Road Atlanta hotshot Dwight Kelly. Both of these guys did not run in the sprint. We were in for one heck of a race! From the start, it was wild. In front of me two ITS cars got together, which resulted in a Z car to slide across the track. It was headed straight for me and hit me hard in the door. Somehow, I did not spin out and kept going. We were still running in 2nd place until a restart about 5 laps into the race where the 3rd place Integra driven by John Wilding and Dwight Kelly passed me. I then tried to get around an ITS car in turn 5 - hey this is the ARRC and I couldn‘t let the Integra pull too much of a lead. Of course as I kind of knew it before I made the move, he would not see me coming even though we were side by side before the turn-in. So, seeing him coming straight for me I went over the inside curb, but we still made a little contact. I thought I had some body damage that would cut the tire, so I really lost focus for the next 2 laps. I believe 7 or 8 cars went by me during this time, including the 4th place ITA honda driven by Puckett. Then, 13 laps into the race, I heard over the radio: “Stretch is out!! Stretch is out!!” I couldn’t believe it! So we were now in 3rd. But then on the backstraight I looked and saw Puckett two cars up and way up in the distance going into the braking zone with about 7 ITS cars in-between us and him was the leading Integra in ITA. I knew this will be one heck of a race! Well, even now after watching the (most action packed I ever had) inboard video I don’t now how I did it really, but at the 1 hour mark I came in the pits in 1st place with about a 5-7 second lead. What also helped us was that my only clear lap of the whole race came right before our pit stop. I was also reminded over the radio to push as hard as I could right now and so I gave it all I had and turned in a lap that was only within 0.3 of my qualifying time in the much cooler morning. It was also just 0.7 slower than what Stretch's fastest lap of the race! - which really made my day. Now it was Louis’ turn. He was in for a real tough time also since he did not have to race against these two guys in the sprint on Saturday. So as the race went on, the top 3 were all within a few car lengths of each other, with us leading. Towards the end, the Integra was slowly eating up at our little lead that we had, but I knew Louis would do everything not to let it go by. Then, with 15 minutes to go, Louis radioed in saying the exhaust broke off the car and the car was loud. Apparently it was still attached to the car, but was now just hanging under the car and as fate had it, it completely broke off right in the middle of turn 12. It hit his back tires and spun him around head on into the inside wall at 12. Nobody could believe it... it was one hard hit. The Integra then radioed in and confirmed what we thought - he saw the muffler fall off and hit his left rear. The Integra then just barely missed it himself since the exhaust was now laying on the track in 12. Louis was perfectly ok and even had a clear enough head right after the crash to grab the fire extinguisher from the car and put out the oil fire underneath the car. After the restart, there were 2 or 3 laps to go and the Integra won ITA. And that’s our bittersweet story of the 2001 ARRC.

What I got out of it was the fact that this great quality of competition that we never had all year long, really pushed me to drive hard. Not only that, it was a pleasure to race these guys in ITA. Everything was absolutely clean and fair and several times we were went side by side in places I would not even think of going through with anyone else. I think for the first time I experienced that familiar term we refer to as the “zone”. I’m just real sorry our luck ran out sooner than we wanted and had this terrible ending to the weekend.


[Modified by Hracer, 5:49 PM 11/12/2001]

 

Alex... Sorry to hear about the car. How bad is it?

I had an awful weekend. To summarize... I ran out of fuel in the sprint with two laps to go and I think I blew a head gasket or something on the 10th lap in the enduro.

I'll follow up later with more details. After my early departure from the enduro, I was so disgusted with my whole weekend I got in the motorhome and drove straight home (1 stop for fuel) to Michigan (hey, I was in "endurance" mode anyhow). I got in at about 6am this morning and at 8am got an emergency call from one of my clients so I had to go fix their network.

Scott

 

I'm sorry to hear about your weekend also... Guess luck has its ways!

Our #2 car is damaged bad enough that right now we're considering finding another CRX tub and transfer over the parts if it comes out to being cheaper this way.

 

A weekend to forget…

The test day went great. I got four full (dry!) sessions and picked up a lot of speed over my last visit in September. With all the traffic, it was tough to get a clean lap and determine what my lap times were like. I was able to look at some of my data on Thursday night and determine where I needed to go faster for qualifying. Unfortunately, the way you use the curbs resulted in the destruction of my wheelspeed sensor. Without a spare, my data was pretty much useless for the rest of the weekend.

On Friday morning I qualified with a high 1:47. Not spectacular but not bad for the first session. I knew what I had to do for the second session. I drove better but the track was slower and I could only match my morning time. Not too many people improved in the afternoon. Oh well, looks like I’m starting tenth.

I decided to go out for the emergency practice on Saturday morning and was able to get into the 46’s. I felt good about the race because I’m always faster in the race and I knew Colin Botha would never make it 20 laps (more on him later). I was aiming for a top 5.

I got a great start in the race. I had a run on the Nissan in front of me and was just about to lift so I wouldn’t hit him when he moved over to block on the inside. My momentum carried me past that row and I made up two positions. As soon as he pulled out though, my windshield was instantly smeared with about a quart of Redline that was dumping out of the bottom of Colin’s car! Going through the Esses, Colin spun (on his own oil) and kept changing direction. I had to come to almost a complete stop to get around him. That allowed the cars in front of me to pull out a big lead… so much for latching onto the faster guys.

After that, I had Tom Blaney in front of me and a blue CRX (driven by some guy who blocked me twice during qualifying). I was catching Tom when he spun in 12! I thought history was repeating itself. It was almost a carbon copy of the accident I had with Bob Moser earlier in the year. Tom dropped a wheel and spun. I was committed to the corner and couldn’t brake until I got to the exit. I couldn’t tell which way Tom was going and had to slow way down in order to get around him. That allowed the blue car to catch me. We had a good race for a couple laps until I got around some backmarkers before T3 and he got stuck behind them all the way though the Esses.

With the two spins I got caught behind, the leaders were way ahead now and I was just holding my position. With 5 laps to go the car started to sputter in the higher G corners. I couldn’t believe it… I was running out of gas! I was trying to hold on but, with two laps to go, I almost lost it in 12 when the car stumbled. I called it a day. The fuel gauge on my car had stopped working intermittently but we had no reason to believe it was inaccurate. It is! The car was filled (to the gauge) but it wasn’t full.

On Sunday morning, I just couldn’t find the speed I wanted. I saw you come up behind me and waved you past to see if I could learn something. On the next lap the car got really, really loose in a couple of corners (water from the overflow on the tires). Then I got a high water temp alarm so I came in. We took out the thermostat since we’d had problems with them before.

The start of the enduro was insane! We took the green and I looked up to see a red BMW with what looked like a great start… on the grass! Going into T1 there was a bunch of smoke and parts everywhere… I missed that crash, then there was another one. I didn’t get video of the sprint race but I should have some from the enduro. I’ll make some clips of the start. After the FCY, I had a great race with an OPM CRX until my water temp problem came back. We’re not sure what the problem is yet… I was done though.

 

Here's my view of the wild enduro start...

http://www.jasmund.com/incar/arrc1.mpg (4.2 MB)



[Modified by sjasmund, 10:46 PM 11/12/2001]

 

Very nice! That says it all. I don't understand why people are going so crazy at the start of the arrc enduro!? They can keep it much cleaner in the sprints! Last year 3 or 4 cars were totalled, with a tolal of at least 7 or 8 involved at the start of the enduro. I was just lucky that it all started with the car that was right behind me to my right! I have some incar footage also, but it will be a little while until I have the time to make some video captures to post.

Check out http://www.arrc-online.com/ for results and also http://www.arrc-online.com/photos/race_g9.html to see pics from our incident in turn 12.


[Modified by Hracer, 12:33 AM 11/13/2001]

 

I had originally heard that the race would be started at the end of the straight to avoid what happened. Apparently they changed their mind or I we got incorrect information.

My teammate that ran the Group 8 enduro said his start was really ugly too. He had to come to almost a complete stop in T1 to get around the carnage.