By now, I think a lot of you have already watched the video from the 2nd of the two Labor Day weekend races.  That one was quite the spectacle, a truly constant battle between me and Doug Makishima for the overall win.

I have also just added the video from the first race from that weekend.  It was a great start with a couple of passes on the first lap, but after that it settled out.  There were two full-course caution periods, so not much traffic to contend with (I think I only passed two lapped cars), but there was a nice moment with a big oil slick in T4.

Enjoy the videos!

EDIT: Just because I figured out how to do it, here’s the excellent Race 2 video, embedded right here on this page. To see it full size, click the link above. You’ll need Microsoft’s cool Silverlight browser plugin to see it.

Wow, what a weekend! Fantastic weather here in the bay area, a nice double race at my favorite track, and some intense competition … awesome, just the way I like it!

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The entry list for the Labor Day weekend Double Regional at Infineon has been posted, and it’s gonna be a huge turnout. It’ll probably get even bigger, but at this point there are 345 entries. Group 7, the Spec Miata group, has an enormous 76 entries (and it’s now closed to new entries.) 2nd biggest group is my group, group 5, with 61 entries, roughly half of which are actually Spec Miatas with a 2nd entry in ITA.

The paddock is gonna be nuts, but I’m really looking forward to the race weekend!

EDIT: The entry list has been updated.  Up to 366 total entries.  I went up to the track early this morning to secure a paddock location.  If you want to come to visit, drive along the back side of the main grandstands, then turn left when you get to the end, and I’m paddocked with Rod McLane on the right hand side of that row … near where we usually are.

This weekend was probably my only Thunderhill race of the season. I wanted to make it good!

I’ll bottom line it for you: weather was hot & smoky, earned my first ever overall pole, led the race flag-to-flag, made a couple of new friends in the paddock, and was still home by 1:30pm on Sunday. But keep reading for the details!

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I have finished editing my in-car video from the race this past weekend. This one makes the second great group 5 race in a row! I think both are pretty fun to watch. Here’s the link to round 1 if you want to go back and see that one too.

Enjoy!

Another fantastic race in SCCA SFR Group 5. This switch to group 5 was actually a very good thing for me. The competition is tighter (even if it’s with cars in other classes) and I feel like it’s raising my game by quite a bit. Group 5 is about the same size as group 1 (50+ cars this weekend), but the difference is that there are more cars at a very similar performance level, and we’re at the front of the group instead of mid-pack.

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For many years, the SCCA National Club Racing program has had an award known as “The Triple Crown”. Basically, if you win your divisional points series, and win your class at the annual race at Road America known as “The June Sprints”, and win your class at the National Championship race (”The Runoffs”), then you win the Triple Crown. It’s obviously quite difficult to win one, considerably harder than even winning a National Championship.

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I am having trouble with the first group 1 race video, but the group 5 race video and the 2nd group 1 race video have been posted to the gallery and are also linked from the home page.  I’d love to hear your comments.  Enjoy!

Wow, what an awesome weekend at Infineon!

At first I got a little nervous when I saw that Mike Courtney was on the entry list in ITR. He hasn’t been out for a couple of years, but he was very quick in his ITS BMW 325i, which is now in ITR with more power and less weight. But I wasn’t going to dwell on that — someone faster than me is exactly what I need to get me to really push harder. I was also really looking forward to being in group 5. Even though they are in theoretically slower cars, it seemed likely that I would have a great race with the two fastest ITS guys (Steve Borlik in a 2nd-gen RX7, and Doug Makishima in an E30 BMW), and also with the fastest ITA driver, Donna Gilio in an Integra. Someday when I really finish building my car, I’ll be faster than all of these people, but for now … it’s a great race!

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NASA NorCal published the schedule for the April race weekend, and I have to say, it’s pretty lousy.  Each day, there’s a 10-minute practice, a 20-minute qualifying session, and a 20-minute race.  And those times are TOTAL, including pace car laps, cool-down laps, etc.

The SCCA weekends have 30-minute practices, 20-minute qualifying, and 30-minute races — and those are the actual durations of those events.  SCCA includes a buffer between each race group to get one group off the track and another one on.  NASA includes no such buffer so the published times have to include those group setup times.