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Nice day. Cool for the 8am qualifying made for some fast lap times. I ran just a tick under Sargis' 8-year old record.

Qual
FP
Prill, Miata, 1:53.339
Robinson, Miata, 1:57.292
Vick, X1/9, 2:03.841
Dorety, Acura, 2:09.645

EP
Kosdrosky, Cat, 1:53.381
Svaton, Cat, 2:02.037
Davis, Miata, 2:02.655
Pineider, RX7, 2:04.899
Stautberg, RX7, 2:04.956

HP
Trenery Sr., Sprite, 2:01.003
Rogerson, Honda, 2:03.662
Weber, Sprite, 2:10.537

We raced right before lunch. it was sunny and around 70. Track not as fast. I got a jump on Rick's Caterham at the start and led the first 10? laps. Stuart was having problems with his Miata and when he was out of site I figured no sense in pushing super hard. Rick led until we got the one to go, when he got balked by some traffic and I was able to draft by him into Turn One. I led until we exited the carousel heading into the last several corners. He got a run on me and got inside going into the kink. Unfortunately there wasn't room for both of us and I ended up going off on the exit, but no harm done.

Having a great time with the Miata. I could get accustomed to this...

OA
Kosdrosky, EP, 1:54.142
Prill, FP, 1:54.613
Robinson, FP, 1:57.982
L Rivera, GTL, 1:59.755
Svaton, EP, 1:58.436
Pineider, EP, 2:03.077
Stautberg, EP, 2:04.028
Trenery, HP, 2:03.293
Rogerson, HP, 2:03.240
Davis, EP, 1:59.411
Weber, HP, 2:08.356
Vick, FP, 2:05.559
Dorety, FP, 2:06.934 DNF
Snader, EP, 2:04.423 DNF

HP was not as close at that report or the results will show. On the out lap my window net fell down and I couldn't get it back up so I came into black flag without taking the green and then went out almost a minute back. John Sr. got the radio news about my stop and just cooled around for about 8 laps. I caught back up to Mark Weber and put some distance on him as his car was way over geared for TWS. Then I too just decided to save tires and drive around. Three laps from the end I look down the straight and lo and behold there's John. I get on the radio and ask about his condition. They tell me he's just driving around so I decide to see if I can run him down. Now I know Jr. is on the radio so he must know I'm coming but he doesn't speed up, if anything he's slowing. OK to hell with tires I'm going for it. Traffic gets me a little on the last lap and he gets me by about 300 feet. Turns out his throttle return springs (yes both of them) let go and he is WFO all the time had been using the ignition switch to brake, shift and then throttle. So hell of a drive for John especially after Jr. gave him the news that I was coming up and coming up pretty fast.

James

The Miata obviously needs weight. Just kidding, nice work man.


Odds at this point Eric is still in a Lotus at Road America?

Sunday Official Results - I'll try to do this as well as Eric, ha!

OA
FP Eric Prill
EP Rick Kosdrosky
EP Sydney Davis
GTL Luis Rivera
EP Paul Pineider
EP Jon Stautberg
HP James Rogerson
STU Steve Turpin
SSB Stan Czacki
STU Bill Bagby
HP Mark Weber
FP Robert Vick
SSC James Place
SSC Steven Christopher
SSB Ralph Siebert
EP Larry Svaton
FP Stuart Robinson
FP John Dorety
EP Austin Snader
HP John Trenery, SR.

The real story is as follows:
We get the green and three of the EP guys beat John and I to the first turn and we are stuck behind them for the first two laps. We get by one of them and then start to work on the other two. John is in front of me and we follow them into 7. They both are braking there and we don't so when John lifts early I know he is setting up for the pass down in 10 and I follow his lead. We come down the hill go left, get the block, and then both jump right and take the inside around both of them. John and I then run for 4-5 laps without much happening. He's fast on the straights and I'm just a little better in a couple of turns so we stay pretty close until the EP guys run first me then him down on the long straight. I let them by hoping they'll catch John and slow him down enough for me to catch back up. When they do catch him he has to take the rough line down off the banking and when he hit bottom the car lost half his ignition (started running on only two cylinders). He waved me by and that was that. Sucks as I was hoping we could continue the MSR battle, but the motor just isn't there yet. Great drive by John both days and also by Eric. Eric is just flying in Mark's Miata.

James

Well done James!

I'll add some additional data.

Qual OA
Prill, FP, 53.2
Snader, EP, 53.3
Robinson, FP, 54.9
Kosdrosky, EP, 55.8
Davis, EP, 58.6
Trenery, HP, 00.8
Svaton, EP, 01.0
Stautberg, EP, 03.4
Rogerson, HP, 03.9
Pineider, EP, 05.5
Dorety, FP, 05.8
Weber, HP, 06.3
Vick, FP, 09.7

Race
Real cloudy and spitting rain on the grid. Not enough to change the track. Snader got the big jump at the start and I followed him for a couple laps. Got by him in 1/2 on the third lap and I think his fuel pump issues returned. Kosdrosky got in front of Robinson at the start and the four of us ran a couple of quick laps at the beginning. By about lap 4 or 5, I looked in my mirror and everyone was gone. Snader had his problem. Stuart was having an intermittent running problem and I guess Rick may have just backed off. It was a fast track. I cut a couple of fliers and then settled into a groove.

Thanks of course to Mark for letting me drive this car. What a great trip to Texas, that included two tracks, four races and wins and two track records. Thanks too to Jesse Prather Motorsports.

Here are the lap times to go with James' post.

FP Eric Prill, 1:53.186 NLR
EP Rick Kosdrosky, 1:54.1
EP Sydney Davis, 1:57.9
GTL Luis Rivera, 1:59.1
EP Paul Pineider, 2:00.4
EP Jon Stautberg, 2:00.8
HP James Rogerson. 2:03.0
STU Steve Turpin, 2:04.9
SSB Stan Czacki, 2:06.8
STU Bill Bagby, 2:07.1
HP Mark Weber, 2:06.1
FP Robert Vick, 2:06.5
SSC James Place, 2:07.2
SSC Steven Christopher, 2:13.8
SSB Ralph Siebert, 2:06.5
EP Larry Svaton, 2:00.8
FP Stuart Robinson, 1:54.1
FP John Dorety, 2:07.5
EP Austin Snader, 1:54.3
HP John Trenery, SR., 2:01.7

Eric & James-
Thanks for the detailed recaps of the weekend. It's great to get the story behind the results.

Was the FP lap record previously held by Sargis? There was a certain red Miata, driven J Prather that had a "go" at that record back in his FP heyday too, right. That lap you did must've been good. Sounds like it's time to give that Miata back to Mark and get back in the Lotus. Congratulations.

Eric went faster than I did down there about 3 years ago. My fastest lap was around a 53.3 in qual back then and never ran in the 53's in the races. The new car is very good and as anyone can see, the cars have been developed a bit over the last 3 years or so and Eric is driving at the top of his game.

The question is can Weber drive it that fast ?????????????????????

Link to some images from the weekend:

http://cafephoto.smugmug.com/SCCA-TWS-3-2010/Group-1

Laps 2-4 from Sunday. That's Austin Snader in front for a while. He didn't end up finishing due to some fuel delivery issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axnKasFouOU