Mrs. Johng and I could only make it to Portland on Saturday, but we enjoyed the day. It was good to finally meet Brad (short bus) and hang out with the boyz again. It was great to see Jim back racing again too. James, Greg, or Jim will have to chime in and tell us how the races went Sunday, but Jim gave us the drive of the day in his race.

A brief description of Jim's novice race:

Jim was leading the race by a mile over the second place Kahn Racing BMW. Full course yellow comes with the safety truck closing the chicane for a few laps. On the restart, the BMW got a huge run on Jim going down the straight heading into the chicane. Jim gets the back-end loose, tries to correct, does a tank-slapper, goes off in the gravel trap, comes back out, starts to slide the rear again in the grass and looks like he's gonna shoot across traffic. He has to stop and let the entire field go by.
Then the Rocky theme music starts playing
With about 6 or 7 laps remaining, Jim goes into hyperdrive and finishes in 2nd place.

So, how did it go Sunday?

Sorry, no pics of James. I didn't have the camera with me when he was running.

Greg, breaking in the brand new StormPower built race motor.



Jim, in his newly "refurbished" CRX.

 

I was going to start a new thread, but I might as well ad to yours...

I missed Saturday's action, but you missed some Great racing Sunday!!!!

Especially Greg's fight to hold on to 3rd place:








Some excelent driving today Greg, and I'm not just saying that because you invited me up and let me hang out with you.

more pics can be seen here:
http://groups.msn.com/thumpu77....msnw

Thanks to everyone who made my first ever road racing experiance a memorable one!!

 

Jim got a bucket of ice water dumped on him!

It's a tradition that the winning driver in his first race win gets a super bowl wetdown in front of all the paddock. needless to say, the ex-drag CRX hotshot won the SPU race!

Congrats Jim!

I broke in a new motor on saturday and qualified way back. On Sunday, with the engine set, I ended up with a personal best lap and qualified third in group (ahead of my Integra mentor Mike). With a greasy track and pushing car, I was able to hold on to the third spot...

The cool thing: The top finishing ITA cars...

Integra - RX-7 - Integra!!

Special thanks to Louie for helping out on pre-grid. It's always great to meet new guys who have posted up here.

John - great pics as always and good to see you slummin' in Portland again.

Greg

 

Great weekend all in all. Weather was great and most of all the racing was great.

Really enjoyed Jim's novice race. The whole grandstand was rooting for you!

Then Sunday Greg pulls out a great "dog fight", from start to finish. He kept it in control when the heat was on and the heat was <U>ON</U>.

It was nice meeting some other HT members as well.

I give the weekend a big

Now I'm exhausted, to sleep and back to that other world.

 

And James won GP! It was a good weekend for the honda guys...

James did a great job dueling it out with the nissan and let the other driver make the mistakes - which he capitalized on. Great driving A!

BTW- great shots Thump!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bulldog_RS20 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">And James won GP! It was a good weekend for the honda guys...</TD></TR></TABLE>

James won GP and Jim won SPU?! Congratulations!
What's that now James, three wins in a row? Looks like the back-up tranny had just enough gear to get it done.

 

Nice to meet you John. Conference gave me the on the cage. They just wanted to put their heads together with the SCCA guys and get their opinion as well. Anyways, I had already hauled the car off and it's getting a bit more cage attention. It'll be WRC ready when it's done....

All the H-T guys were on kill. Congrats James, it was nice to meet you as well. Jim did an awesome job in SPU. Sorry I couldn't stick around for the "Superbowl bath". Greg's battle with Reg in ITA was epic! Dude, you didn't give up a thing. I thought for sure when you guys were side by side thru the chicane 1/2/3, that Reg would slide by. AWESOME driving!

My car should be done for the 2009 season. I'll see you then.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Shortbus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
My car should be done for the 2009 season. I'll see you then.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Bah... don't let that whole cage issue get you down. Get passed it and focus on getting it on track man.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by johng &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Bah... don't let that whole cage issue get you down. Get passed it and focus on getting it on track man.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's not the cage...... it's the 14,749.00 left on my "to buy" list. Of course, that includes a trailer.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Shortbus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Of course, that includes a trailer. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Tell me about it . Mrs. Johng agreed to the new truck purchase next spring, so the trailer money comes straight out of my race budget. Good thing the season is almost over. I hope to save enough over the winter to get an enclosed trailer. There's a good thread on IT.com about enclosed trailers.

 

Yesterday was a blast! It made up for the botched restart I made in the Novice race, I think. In checking out the car on Sunday morning, we found a torn CV boot on the drivers side axle, and were luck enough to find a spare at the track. After a quick swap and alignment, it was a good as new.

The Group 1 (me in SPU) race start was really really busy. I have never experienced going what I am sure was 3 wide into the chicane. I was actually suprised that we all had enough room to be clean through. I had a small battle with Ken Hill's BMW Pro 3 car for the whole second half of the race, we had passed each other several times throughout the race, and on the last lap I got along the left side of him on the back straight, and took him 2 wide into 10,11, and 12. I was into the marbles in 12, so he beat me onto the main straight. I then drafted him until the bridge, and moved right for the pass. I ended up about 1 foot short of him at the finish line. But we both won our classes.

They handed me the checkered for my inaugural victory lap, and when I got back to the pit, I was set up for the Superbowl Gatorade Bath in front of everyone! I really enjoyed the whole weekend, and more than anything, enjoyed coming away learning a lot about racing.

Thanks to everyone for the support there. Good to meet new people too!

Jim

 

Great job Jim! I wish I would've been there.
Erick

 

Trying to find the owner and the driver of the yellow Integra #04. Email me at

ITAIntegraLS@hotmail.com

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ITAIntegraLS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Trying to find the owner and the driver of the yellow Integra #04. Email me at

ITAIntegraLS@hotmail.com

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


That's Bulldog_RS20. ^^^^^^

You might wanna IM him.

 

Greg informed me that http://www.digitalracephotos.com had a few good shots of his battle with Reg in the chicane. Please visit the website for more.

 

That looks brutal from that angle!!
I'd love to see Reg's in-car footage of that move.