Due to an upcoming business trip, I planned to only do the first of the two races this weekend. Practice and qualifying were Friday, and the race was Saturday.

Things went pretty well in practice. Although I was over 1.5 seconds off of my personal best lap time at Thunderhill, the car felt great and I was fastest overall. The new video camera and lap timer worked great.

Qualifying wasn’t quite as good. I was slower than I was in practice, and ended up in P2 overall (P1 in ITR, being the only entry) behind Doug Makishima. Still, I actually kind of like being in 2nd place. Hunting down the car in front of me is a ton of fun. Trying to run away from the car behind me is a lot more stressful!

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The entry list was updated, up to 234 entries overall.  Still all alone in ITR, although with 7 ITS entries there could be some good speed at the front of the group 5 grid.  I am actually going to do only the first race of the weekend on Saturday and then head home, due to work pressures … flying off to the UK on Tuesday and there’s just too much to do between now and then.

The next SCCA race weekend is coming up on Memorial Day weekend. It’s a double at Thunderhill. 214 entries on the entry list, 10 days before the event.  Next update will be next week, hope we can get that closer to 250.

Unfortunately Mike U.’s ITR Prelude isn’t ready yet, in fact, he’s discovered that he doesn’t fit all that well in it … so I’m all alone in ITR again.  Hope he can fix that soon.  So even though Doug will say I have an advantage at Thunderhill due to the long straights, I’m hoping we have a pair of great battles.

In addition to driving an IT car, I’m also a member of the IT Advisory Committee, the committee that advises the CRB on all things related to the Improved Touring rules.

One of the things that the ITAC has been wrestling with over the past couple of years is how to account for engine torque.  We all know that big V8s (some of which were just classed into ITR last month) are torque monsters, and that other cars are “gutless,” like the high-revving 4-cylinders in the Honda S2000 and Acura Integra Type R, and fast-spinning rotaries like the Mazda RX-8.  Here is a quick look at some ITR cars and their published specs (including my own car):

When these cars were added to ITR, the ITAC added/subtracted some weight to some of them to try to make up for the torque effect.  But the fact is that the amount of weight added/subtracted was, as one ITAC member likes to put it, a POOMA (“pulled out of my ass.”)  And we hate that.  We want the weight-assignment process to be repeatable and consistent, and POOMA doesn’t really help with that.

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As I posted last week, the turnout for the race this weekend was a little bit light, especially for Laguna Seca (many people’s favorite track).  The paddock had plenty of space, which certainly isn’t common.  I count only 193 starters shown in the results.

For me, well, I was the only car in ITR.  How’s that Prelude coming Mike?  I also have heard that the club’s new classification of the 5.0L Mustang GTs and the 305ci Camaros & Firebirds into ITR is causing at least one local competitor to do a used car search.  So I’m hoping for some more entries soon.  Rod even put a GDGR sticker on his Spec Miata and was overheard actively discussing ITR prospects and prices.  Here’s hoping.

But, just like in most recent races, Doug Makishima is very fast in his ITS E30 BMW, and even though we’re not in the same class, we’re really evenly matched.  We also both seem to turn up the flame just a little bit when we’re near each other on the track.  In Saturday’s practice session, our fastest laps were both 2+ seconds off of our normal pace, but only 0.144 seconds apart.  The track just seemed slick.  Laguna Seca for being finicky about weather, so that was probably part of it.  It was fairly chilly (well, chilly for northern California) and windy.

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First, the good news.  I saw the doctor yesterday and it looks like the eye issue has cleared itself up, except for some minor scarring.  In any case, I’m cleared to race!

But now the bad news.

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The preliminary entry list is out for the San Francisco Regional season opener at the end of the month, and doesn’t look like the economy has been TOO hard on the program.  193 entries on the list for the opener isn’t too bad at all.

Some bad news though:

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Towards the latter half of last season, I noticed in the San Francisco Region’s Board of Directors meeting minutes that there was a lot of conversation about adding a Spec Boxster class to race group 3 (often called “big bore”) which has had dwindling participation over the last couple of years.

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The event schedule for the SCCA regional season opener has been published, and it’s right here.  I can’t wait, this seems like a very long off-season!

I have decided not to do any NASA racing in 2009.  Last year I wanted to do it to spend more time at Infineon and less time at Thunderhill, but although I had a good time at the NASA season opener, the structure of the event left me a little cold, and I discovered that I just enjoy the SCCA races too much.

The quick summary of my issues with NASA were: A) not enough workers, especially around tech and grid; B) racers seemed to be 2nd-class citizens to the HPDE crowed; C) not enough track time.   The first issue was pretty serious — anyone can just jump out there on the track with the racers, since no one checks anything.  Even on the official results from some of the sessions just say, “Who are you?” for some of the cars, because … the officials didn’t know who was in some of the cars.

And the last issue is pretty serious too.  The schedule APPEARS to give a decent amount of track time, but since there is no time allocated between groups, some of the allocated time goes to just simply getting some cars off the track and geting other cars onto the track.  Every session is at least 5 minutes shorter than advertised, at least as far as quality track time is concerned.

Anyway, I was looking at the schedule for the 2009 NASA season opener, and it’s really screwy!  I call your attention to group A (that’s the group I’d be racing in.)

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