What a weekend in Topeka Kansas!

* 105 degree weather plus no AC in the beater tow truck blows!!
* oops, my helmet wasn't SA certified, so I bought a new helmet on track
* 4th out of 25 students in school, behind a couple Firebirds/Mustangs
* Waived of second school by chief stewards and allowed to race Regional
* got my Toyos flipped on my Panasports and ran them for race (thx to Tyson for a great deal!)
* My ghetto dryer-ducting air cooling thingy was a life saver
* I "must have one of them Acura B18's to be passing a T2 F-body" -Some ITA RX7 guy who's wife was in school/race
* 1/4 mile straight and deep braking owned my brakes (time for brake ducts)
* Decent IT/SM/SSC-B turn-out, about 25 of us in all. About 7-8 in ITA alone
* The greatest dogfight ever with a VW Scirroco (sp?) - what a fun race!
* Took 2nd place in the Regional after swapping positions 4-5 times with a great ITA VW driver
* "Don't you ever point me by again after a pass! Boy, a pass is a pass, just take it and don't worry about it!" -1st place VW driver
* Weighed in at 2195lbs on empty tank of gas at impound after race - minimum is 2175. 20 lbs to spare!
* Thanks to fellow student who stayed Sunday to crew and even loaded my truck while insisting I sit in his Z71 with AC on
* SCCA trophies a bit nicer then COMMA trophies, hehe
* 6hr drive home, exhausted and with no AC... again, BLOWS.
* Thanks to trucker-strength mini thins and energy drinks getting me home at 2am
* A good nights sleep and no work Monday - ahhh, it was all worth it!

Thanks to everyone in the RR forum (and HT in general) who has helped me with advice and services/goods to help me get to this point and achieve my goals. Thanks guys!

and last but not least,

* My bank account................. owned and empty. lol



Modified by uncleben at 12:54 PM 7/21/2003

 

Sounds like a pretty successful weekend. Congrats on getting the license and a finishing that first regional race.

 

Way to go!

 

very nice ben!

 

good going dood. Congrats.

 

Great job Ben, I wish I could have been there to watch your duel with the VW.

 

cheers, and congratulations, I hope my school and race go as well.

 

way to go ben! maybe you will start having to worry about meeting min weight.... congratualations.

 

Compared to a lot of debuts, this one seems to have come off without a hitch. Well done!
Kirk

 

Great Job and look forward to watching you on next weekend..

 

Where's the in-car footage? Comon now, I know you had the camera hooked up.

 

thanks all - it was indeed a good weekend! It was partly made better by my EZ-UP tent that I purchased the day before I left. Less than $190 from Sam's Club (a "wholesale" Walmart style store). Kept me out of the sun all weekend.



And yeah, I had the in-car vid running - I'll get it digitized in the next couple days and upload some of the race.

 

I'll be lookin for the video! Sorry Jim & I couldn't be there...had to teach some Corvettes how to drive in Omaha - hehehe

video's coming soon...

 

Planning on a return trip to Topeka in September? The weather is guaranteed to be better....maybe.

If you make it, I'll have a beer on ice for ya--

Jarrod

 

nice summary! congrates ben. that sounds like boat loads of fun.

"Don't you ever point me by again after a pass! Boy, a pass is a pass, just take it and don't worry about it!" -1st place VW driver"

that's a good guy with true love for the sports!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bluegsr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
If you make it, I'll have a beer on ice for ya--

Jarrod
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Did I meet you there? There were several SM guys there

GhettoRacer: Yeah, he was a very cool guy. I've had some run-ins with people who were bent out of shape from what they perceived as maybe an aggressive driving moment from me during a race. One instance brought another driver to words and confrontation with myself and my friends. I was thinking about that while in this race and after I made a couple close inside passes on him, I let up off the throttle and pointed him back by. I told him later that I was sorry if I did anything unappropriate and that's when he said all that to me. He told me not to worry because he could see me at all times and if he didn't want to make contact, he wouldn't, but that I should never give a position back after gaining it by aggressive means. I still think there can be cases where you might be a gentlemen and point someone back by after a close pass. He was a very complimentary driver too, and said a lot of nice things to me about my driving abilities. A very cool guy, and he deserved the win.

I'll make some short clips from my on-board video tonight hopefully that will illustrate the type of passes/moves I made that I pointed him by afterwards on.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by uncleben &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What a weekend in Topeka Kansas!

* Weighed in at 2195lbs on empty tank of gas at impound after race - minimum is 2175. 20 lbs to spare!
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Did you weigh on Saturday or just Sunday in impound? When we went thru the scales on Sunday we came in at 2576. Our minimum for our SSC Neon is 2575!! The scales were definately reading light on Sunday as on Saturday we weighed 2620 with Candy in the car and less fuel than post race on Sunday. I usually weigh in at 2670+ and I don't out weigh my wife by 90 lbs.

 

I wasn't there....but I am planning on being there for the next race (actually the end of August now that I look at the calendar).

What color was that ITA VW? (Or, even better, who was driving?)

I've found that the scales in Topeka are almost ALWAYS off...sometimes by 20+ pounds. Moral of the story: weigh at every track you go to, just in case.

EDIT: Added avatar of car...finally.

Jarrod

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Jan in Omaha &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Did you weigh on Saturday or just Sunday in impound? When we went thru the scales on Sunday we came in at 2576. Our minimum for our SSC Neon is 2575!! The scales were definately reading light on Sunday as on Saturday we weighed 2620 with Candy in the car and less fuel than post race on Sunday. I usually weigh in at 2670+ and I don't out weigh my wife by 90 lbs.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I weighed on Saturday at 2209 with about 1/4-1/2 tank of gas. Sunday by the end of the race I had about 1/8-1/4 tank of gas and weighed the 2195. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet you, for some reason I was thinking all weekend that you had said your wife was driving a Miata but I didn't notice any female Miata drivers and wondered if you didn't make it. Sorry about that!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bluegsr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wasn't there....but I am planning on being there for the next race (actually the end of August now that I look at the calendar).

What color was that ITA VW? (Or, even better, who was driving?)
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ah okay. The ITA VW was mostly a maroon color, with some yellow/orange. It was driven by an older black gentleman. I can't remember his name, he had semi-grey hair and beard if I remember right. Super nice guy and a great driver. I imagine you can find his name on the regional SCCA website.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'll make some short clips from my on-board video tonight hopefully that will illustrate the type of passes/moves I made that I pointed him by afterwards on.</TD></TR></TABLE>

cool. i wish i had video tapes of my SM weekend. i'm never racing w2w with out a vid setup. hard evidence would've backed me up with out needing to say much.