Impressions? Where do I begin?

First thing is that racing is a different world. Adrenaline, pace, attitude, it is all nothing I had ever felt before. The comp evaluation brought it close but not all the way there.
Standing start was awesome. I got my *** rolled by Matt Dudak (sp?). But was grinning ear to ear going into 1 3 wide. The field spread out by the carousel but we were still close. I raced down the 4 door GSR until he went off in front of me in turn 1 and I had no one left to race. Karl had checked out and was pulling away from me. I tried to back off to save the car and when I did the front runners ran me down. Evans passed me in the chute and JohnW was not far behind. I tried to give as much room as possible to those guys as the went by. I accidentilly pinched Corey into 5 and felt like **** for doing it.
Coming out of 9 I was going to 4th and it wouldn't engage and then wouldn't go into any other gear so I pulled off track on one of the access roads. My weekend ended up being over with gear problems.

I was really upset with that. I felt a little let down by myself for no apparent reason. Bigger to me is that I felt I let Corey and a few others down that had tried and worked so hard to get me there. Especially after losing my temper earlier in the day when the car didn't perform well in practice and I flatspotted 2 front tires because I didn't adjust my braking. I embarassed myself by flying off the handle.

So I was walking around Saturday evening really dejected with the day questioning if I had wasted a whole weekend for this and ended up with a broke *** car. As I made my way through the HC paddock a lot of the racers made an effort to come out and talk to me and ask me how my first race was and also to say that they were glad to have me out there. That right there made everything worth it. You guys are great.

So a few thanks.................................... Corey, well a person could not ask for a better friend, he did everything he could to prepare me and the car for this. He spent many hours and money for "me", not mentioning getting his car ready. Anything Corey succeeds at he earns. You guys would absolutely not believe the passion and heart that Corey puts into this, and even when he has a crappy day he manages to smile about it and find some good. I enjoy having to live up to his skills and track presence, it is a great motivator.

George and Bryan, these guys have stood behind Corey and I with a vengence. Calling or IM'ing all the time to see how things are going. Talking to us when things get out of whack.

The Polititi's. The Politit's put out their arms out for us and have been some of mine and Corey's supporters. They were awesome this weekend and allowed us to use their RV with A/C and Alicia was a big time help at everything, even if it was motivating me to just get stuff done.

The Cobetto's for giving me the chance to do this and smiling with me when I succeeded. With all they have going on they still were really interested in how I was doing.

I have a lot more thanks to give to everyone that even said "hey, how are things going" but I would take up 3 or 4 pages of posting.

So my final thoughts on the weekend. I questioned my drive to be a racer and realized that my life is over. I am hooked. Not only because of the excitment and rush but because of the people.

Morgan - who is now a race car driver and loves it

 

Morgan, it was great to see you smiling so wide this past weekend. You looked like all your Christmas' had come at once.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by urbanlegend21 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You guys would absolutely not believe the passion and heart that Corey puts into this, and even when he has a crappy day he manages to smile about it and find some good.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Agreed. When I start beating myself up, as I am prone to do, I often think of how Corey always "sees the silver lining" and takes something positive away from anything.

 

Nice job out there! It was good seeing you on the track finally. Better luck next time with the car.. Racer's Luck changes all the time, it's part of the game.

 

Well I guess I should reply to this as well, 1 since I was mentioned in it, and 2 because it was my first race as well. HOT DAMN it was a BLAST. I was grinning ear to ear before I even got there. This was going to be my fourth on track experiance, but as I told myself at last years HyperFest (and seeing a Honda Challenge race for the first time) that I would be here next year, and here I was. Spent friday afternoon after ariving installing new Skunk2 springs that I had picked up that morning, to try to get a better, though still not ideal spring rate (800#f 800#r) to replace the lousy sub 300# springs that come with ground controls. sat practice and qual, I fougt my new pig of a car, that snaped between major understeer, to mild oversteer, alll very managable, but very slow through corners. Ended saturdays race early with ignition problems, still with a major grin on my face. Found a loose wire in the distributor, and Chris from my shop helped me get it re-soldered. Then Overheard Jason (from curry, not sure of his last name) talking about not running a front sway bar, which I got off sun morn, about 5 min before qual. the car was almost 100% better, handled much better, and qualified 4 secs faster than saturday. second standing start, and got passed on the right, in the grass by an H1 car(I think) and made a mental note for the next time that i got hung up on a start behind slower cars, to do the same. Big ups to James Evans for all his help and suggestions, (and letting me work on my car all day thurs at work) Alex Ratcliffe for all his input at the track, whenever I happend to stop him, even in his trailer. all my crew who fed me (and drank for me) all weekend. Finally, if any of you got exasperated or upset with my newbie antics, I appologize. I will be watching many videos before next race, as well as setting up the car better. I drove home exhausted, and VERY satisfied. Thanks to all. See you all next time.

 

John,
I wanted to come up and talk to you after the race but did not know who was driving the car, I was hoping that we could have raced for a few laps but you drove off in 1 and I was right behind you. Glad everything turned out OK and you made it out Sunday. Wish Ic ould have been there too.

I hope we can do alot more racing together as the rookies

 

Morgan/Karl:

Despite what both of you describe as a sub-par weekend performance wise, please remember that a bad day at the track is still pretty damn fun. I'd be grinning like crazy to have your "lousy" weekend.

Take a few days off, don't even LOOK at your car, watch some in-car video, drink a beer, come out swingin for the fences next time.

 

Matt you are excatly right,
The best comment heard all weekend through all my bitching was "hey man, atleast you are f-ing racing a car, I am completely jealous, I am still doing HPDE's"

that shut up a lot of my whining

 

Morgan, sorry to hear things didn't go as planned. Hopefully the problems are not too major, I want another accord to race with at vir.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by urbanlegend21 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The best comment heard all weekend through all my bitching was "hey man, atleast you are f-ing racing a car, I am completely jealous, I am still doing HPDE's"</TD></TR></TABLE>

I had to read this three times before I realized it didn't say "at least you are f-ing a racecar!" I was going to say, I think I found your problem Morgan!


Matt

 

Come on, Morgan. You didn't break anything. You just saw I was catching you and didn't want to be embarrassed. j/k j/k

I remember my first race at CMP - gosh, must be three months ago - and how fast everything seemed to happen. And at BeaveRun I felt like I was driving by remote-control. Things are getting better now. Two more decent outings and I can peel off the rookie "R".

Fortunately, I haven't broken my chit yet, but it's just a matter of time for us all. And you were in some good company this weekend.

Hope you have the 4dor up by VIR so we can play racer for a while.

 

Yeah, we'll do more racing as rookies. I guess I tended to do alot of that rally racing, because I did it going into 5 as well with the h4 teg behind me. So most of my racing was by myself....although every time someone passed me (I guess by this point though it was lapping me ) I tried my best to keep up. and as they got away, I was back to HPDE mode, taking it one corner at a time, and trying to go alittle more each time, trying to hit the apex alittle more on, and I almost stayed flat through the chute. cant awit for more. Yeah, guess I should have been a good newbie too, and introduced myself to more of you. See ya all next time.

 

good job morgan

 

Welcome to the addiction boys. Now sell the furniture, house and dog and lets go racing!

And yes it is ok to ONLY have nomex underwear.

King RAT.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by urbanlegend21 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The best comment heard all weekend through all my bitching was "hey man, atleast you are f-ing racing a car, I am completely jealous, I am still doing HPDE's"

that shut up a lot of my whining</TD></TR></TABLE>
I got an even better quote for making you feel better. At least you get to go play on track, I don't have a car so I can't even do HPDE's. I'm stuck on the grid till I break down and put something together so I can get started on this crazy addiction all of you have.

 

"and got passed on the right, in the grass by an H1 car(I think) and made a mental note for the next time that i got hung up on a start behind slower cars, to do the same."

Some cars in the middle of the start didn't get a great jump. I'll have video of this start up on this site later on today.

 

Morgan, sorry things didnt work out as planned. VIR will be here soon enough, and you'll have the first time jitters out of your system. You seemed to be doing quite well this weekend, and really picking up the pace in the few laps you were able to get in without mishap.. We all know how hard you've worked to help Corey out, so it's great to see you get the same opportunity to race.

Keep ya head up.

 

Morgan, ya done good these past couple years. I already told you how it brought a smile to my face to see you out there for your first race. I am pretty sure I know how much you couldn't wait. I think you and I (and Jerry, too) started this track thing at around the same time, and now you guys are "livin' the dream." I hope one day I can get out there as well and do it right.

John Brown, I didn't introduce myself, but I very briefly talked to you on Sunday down in the bleachers in the chute. You REALLY looked like you were having a blast out there in your first race. I hope you have many more to come. Good to see more Marylanders (and sedans, too) out there.

Good times

 

Thanks for all the support guys. I had a blast for the little I got to race. I cannot wait to get back out there in 3 weeks. You guys rock.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by urbanlegend21 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The best comment heard all weekend through all my bitching was "hey man, atleast you are f-ing racing a car, I am completely jealous, I am still doing HPDE's"
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Who are these people and how come they aren't buying my car?
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=556117

Seriously guys. You CAN be racing for not much more (or less) than you spend to HPDE.

 

No doubt that tempers suck dude. I have one, and I definitely sympathize with you. I said some things after the Saturday fiasco that I'm definitely not proud of. It happens to us all. As long as you keep your cool on track, you'll do fine.

You did a great job out there, man. As many others said, keep your head up, and get ready for VIR

 

great weekend! hotter than hades out there, but I had a blast watching the racing from the stands...and yeah, there are more than a few people that would love to just be out on the track that just can't swing it yet...
good job guys!

...and a certain security guard at the event needs to chill with taking away a watergun from me...no reason to threaten me, "do you want me to use mine?"

 

along the same lines, I have heard first hand reports that the "rent-a-cops" assaulted and beat up a guy on sunday late afternoon.

 

If it's who I think you're talking about... the guy did not get beat up, merely carried a few yards until he calmed down... and he was outta line to begin with.