Blackhawk Farms Raceway Double National 5/13-15

Eric Griesinger

Eric Griesinger

Member
Rain showed up just in time for the prod qualifying, so fast times were negated. Starting grid is for Saturday's race. Rain predicted all weekend with cool temperatures.

Weinberger STU
Coffey EP
Patterson EP
Sargis FP
Palfener STU
Gagliardi HP
Wessel FP
Bovis GTL
Sturm EP
Luening EP
Bunt EP
Gauper HP
Clark GTL
Lamb FP
Keller FP
Griesinger FP
Nagle HP
Smyczek EP
Trainer HP
Gnadt FP
 
Note that the lead H Prod car was one of the few out on rain tires.

First 2 laps were "manageable", but steadily declined after that.

RJS
 
I left the result sheet in the truck so I'm going from memory...

EP
1 - Coffey
2 - Brakke

FP
1 - Sargis

HP
1 - Gauper
2 - Trainer
3 - Gagliardi
DNF - Nagle

GTL
1 - Bovis
2 - Clark

The first two laps were crazy from the 'inverted' field effect from qualifying in the wet. Lots of contact on the first lap.
On the second lap, somebody popped a motor and oiled the track from turns 3d to 6. They did a black-flag-all to clean up.
After the second restart, it was pretty uneventful, other than Coffey & Brakke having a real dog fight.
They lapped me on the last lap so I had a nice view.

Qualifying for the Race #2 was the last session of the day in the rain.
1 - Coffey EP
2 - Brakke EP
3 - Gauper HP
4 - Patterson EP
5 - Lamb FP
6 - Gagliardi HP
7 - Palfenier STU
8 - Ron Olsen EP
9 - Luening EP
10 - Keller FP
11 - Smyczek EP
12 - Kraft STU
13 - Sargis FP
14 - Hummel EP
15 - Rich Olsen EP
16 - Wessel FP
17 - Griesinger FP
18 - Ives FP
19 - Gnadt FP
20 - Weinberger STU

About 6-7 cars have no times. Don't know if they had problems in the race, but mostly of them just didn't want to play in the rain. It wasn't raining hard, but it was very cold & slick. Forecast indicates about a 70% chance for rain for the race today.
 
Race 2
Despite threatening in the morning, we finally had some decent weather. Sunny, but cool & windy.

EP
1 - Brakke
2 - Coffey
3 - Hummel
4 -Sturm
5 - Rich Olsen
6 - Bunt
7 - Ron Olsen
DNF- Smyczek, Luening, Patterson

FP
1 - Wessel
2 - Lamb
3 - Keller
4 - Gnadt
5 - Ives
6 - Griesinger
DNF - Sargis

HP
1 - Gauper
2 - Gagliardi
3 - Trainer

GTL
1- Bovis
2 - Clark
 
Note that the lead H Prod car was one of the few out on rain tires.
Click to expand...

In fact those were grooved slicks, turned out to be the optimum combination for those exact conditions. That same setup didn't work as well the following day, which was slightly wetter. Turned out that qualifying well, was a double edged sword, as a whole pile of faster cars were behind us in the race. Several guys opted to start at back come race time.
 
Nice videos Greg, looks like you had the handle on the wet qualifying - tires/power/fwd + excellent driving! The Sunday race must have kept you glued to your mirrors, although other than the straights, you seemed to be able to run with the E cars. What trans are you using? Sounds like a nice close ratio and very quick shifting box.
Coming out of DSR, I am having problems with the 4 speed box in the GT6 - takes about three times as long to shift as the sequential 6 speeds we used...
 
Clark Lincoln":hn05giwg said:
Nice videos Greg, looks like you had the handle on the wet qualifying - tires/power/fwd + excellent driving! The Sunday race must have kept you glued to your mirrors, although other than the straights, you seemed to be able to run with the E cars.
Click to expand...
+1 - Enjoyed the videos, thanks for sharing. You did a great job hanging with Jerry Lamb for the opening laps of the race before the EP mob started coming around. Nice job.
 
Clark Lincoln":366rzd1a said:
Sounds like a nice close ratio and very quick shifting box.
Coming out of DSR, I am having problems with the 4 speed box in the GT6 - takes about three times as long to shift as the sequential 6 speeds we used...
Click to expand...
It's a custom Housman gear set with synchros.
It does shift nice despite having synchros.
The ratios are perfect for this car.
 
Greg, it looks like that HP Honda is putting down some nice horsepower. Combining that with your good cornering capability, you should be a good choice to keep an eye on at the Runoffs.
 
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