This weekend was the double-points season finale for the San Francisco Region’s racing season. Also this weekend was the 49th annual Illgen Enduro, which I’ll cover in another post.
I was looking forward to the weekend even though it was way up at Thunderhill, primarily because the track was repaved this summer and this would be our first chance to drive on the new pavement. Quick review: the track is smooth and quite grippy. The exit berms are also very gentle so they are easy to use. Some of the apex berms are a little taller than they used to be, but nothing too dramatic. In any case, I figured that most classes would set a new track record, although with the high air temps (upper ’80s) and new very black pavement, perhaps conditions weren’t optimal.
Our schedule was very nice, with the first session on Friday right after lunch. That meant that I could drive up Friday morning instead of Thursday night and still have plenty of time to get everything ready. I made it with about 20 minutes left before express registration closed, so it turned out to be no problem at all.
As far as competition goes: my main ITR competitor, James Heth, locked up the 2008 series win at the last race, primarily due to me missing two double weekends this season. So since he had nothing to lose, he decided to change his car up a bit and drive it in ITE instead of in ITR. To do that, he removed the 300 lbs of ballast he carries around, added a fancy rear wing, and hooked up his ABS brakes. That all meant that not only would he be a lot faster, but he would be racing in a different race group. And my chief rival all season, Doug Makishima, had a suspension failure in his ITS BMW at the last race, and rather than try to get it all fixed up with only a 3 week break, he decided to rent another ITS car (this time a Miata) just to secure enough points to win his ITS championship. He was unable to get to the track in time for qualifying due to an overseas business trip, so he’d have to start the race from the back. With James in a different race and Doug starting from the back in an unfamiliar car, it seemed like I wouldn’t have much competition. Oh well. I’d consider it practice for Sunday’s enduro instead.
The early afternoon practice session was my first opportunity on the new pavement. It was obvious right away that it was smooth and grippy. My fastest lap was a 2:06.1, a track record, but since it is a practice session it doesn’t actually count. Qualifying was a couple of hours later, and the weather was much warmer, but I pulled of a 2:06.5 in that session and that was an official record. The car felt a little funny in that it really didn’t seem like it was accelerating as well as the morning, it wasn’t getting up in the revs in the fastest part of the track. No explanation for that other than the hot weather. Still, I was on the overall pole, ahead of 2nd place by multiple seconds.
Our race was Saturday morning at 10:20. Cooler still and with no traffic for the first few laps, I was able to snap off a 2:05.5 in the early going. But with absolutely no pressure from behind and no one to try to catch up to, I just ran consistent laps. Oddly, on the last lap, the car stumbled in two corners like it was out of gas … yet the gauge was reading just under 1/2 tank. Anyway, I ended up winning the race by about 50 seconds over the 2nd place driver. Pretty uneventful, really, for a season finale. Well, the weekend was mostly about the enduro anyway!
I will have video from the race posted later this week. In the meantime, you can peruse the results …
Entries (RSS)