Mid-Ohio Majors, May 29-31
- Thread starter kruck
- Start date
Dayle Frame
Well-known member
kruck":31vn3bt3 said:
Dude.....you're a member of OVR....there HAS to be a way for you to attend your own region' race on the house. Sign up as "Race Admin" or something. Speak to your registrar (Peggy Dietz) and work something out. Leverage the fact that you know low people in high places.
See you on the grid.
Dayle
Dayle Frame
Well-known member
Sunny and warm but our group should be dry. Showers may come along later in the day. We only have one session today. The Q1 session starts at 10:55 so fire up the live T&S and 'watch' from your office.
Dayle
Dayle
Dayle Frame
Well-known member
I was on the pit wall crewing for Bryan Floyd so I had a good seat to see nothing. It was a sunny, warm day but there were a few (and I mean only a few) dark clouds here and there. About half way into the race, a light sprinkle fell on us. Not enough to warrant an umbrella.....but enough to cause chaos on track.
EP: Moser, Williams and Grahovec (sp?) ran nose to tail for several laps. Moser began to stretch it out slowly. Then the 'rain' came. Moser's FWD Honda made hay while the RWD MX5 lost ground. Soon Grahovec had passed Williams and was cutting into Moser's lead but there weren't enough laps and Moser had a 4s MOV. He drove a flawless race.
FP: Henry, Prill and Campbell were really close lap after lap. Nose to tail the whole way. Then Prill started smoking something fierce on the left leading onto the pit straight. I noticed him doing it through T1 as well. RR wheel bearing, tire rub....I dunno but it got worse and worse. The rain juggled the order as Campbell ended up on the point with Prill and Henry following.
HP: Man was this one exciting. Brannon lead Gauper at the start but they swapped position a couple of times. Brannon had a crazy tank slapped coming onto the front stretch when the rain came. He collected it but Gauper was well out in front by now. Matt told me he spun a couple of times out on course. Meanwhile Vickerman was cruising along in third when he went by us spitting and coughing. We assumed ignition and it turned out to be the sensor. Mike Sestili (sp?) was a solid fourth and inherited the third place honors.
GTL: Because of the class size (17 entered), they asked for, and got, a split start. They would be second group. When they came around the pack was VERY tight so they had a good clean start. Disque and Lentz opened up a gap and were nose to tail for many laps.....then the rain came. Kyle soldiered on through it but Bobby must have spun somewhere as he was well back. He pulled into pit lane after 9 laps. This allowed Lopshire to capitalize and assume second with Hipp third.
Today's race has the dark cloud of rain hanging over it. The radar looks like it'll be OK but there is a 70% chance of rain at 2p. So tire choice will be critical and should make for an interesting affair.....stay tuned.
Dayle
EP: Moser, Williams and Grahovec (sp?) ran nose to tail for several laps. Moser began to stretch it out slowly. Then the 'rain' came. Moser's FWD Honda made hay while the RWD MX5 lost ground. Soon Grahovec had passed Williams and was cutting into Moser's lead but there weren't enough laps and Moser had a 4s MOV. He drove a flawless race.
FP: Henry, Prill and Campbell were really close lap after lap. Nose to tail the whole way. Then Prill started smoking something fierce on the left leading onto the pit straight. I noticed him doing it through T1 as well. RR wheel bearing, tire rub....I dunno but it got worse and worse. The rain juggled the order as Campbell ended up on the point with Prill and Henry following.
HP: Man was this one exciting. Brannon lead Gauper at the start but they swapped position a couple of times. Brannon had a crazy tank slapped coming onto the front stretch when the rain came. He collected it but Gauper was well out in front by now. Matt told me he spun a couple of times out on course. Meanwhile Vickerman was cruising along in third when he went by us spitting and coughing. We assumed ignition and it turned out to be the sensor. Mike Sestili (sp?) was a solid fourth and inherited the third place honors.
GTL: Because of the class size (17 entered), they asked for, and got, a split start. They would be second group. When they came around the pack was VERY tight so they had a good clean start. Disque and Lentz opened up a gap and were nose to tail for many laps.....then the rain came. Kyle soldiered on through it but Bobby must have spun somewhere as he was well back. He pulled into pit lane after 9 laps. This allowed Lopshire to capitalize and assume second with Hipp third.
Today's race has the dark cloud of rain hanging over it. The radar looks like it'll be OK but there is a 70% chance of rain at 2p. So tire choice will be critical and should make for an interesting affair.....stay tuned.
Dayle
peterzekert
Well-known member
Sunday race report??
Greg, why'd you get DQ'd?
Greg, why'd you get DQ'd?
Tracey Gauper
New member
Greg's driving at the moment, but here's his response...
Short version. Lost control of my car under a waving yellow, spun, and hit an EV who was extracting a car from the kitty liter at turn 9 (formerly known as turn 11).
The corner had been standing yellow for two laps while trying to extract a car. On the third lap, they upgraded to waving yellow as they got closer to the edge of the track. They were motioning us to stay to the right approaching the corner. When I moved right to oblige, I kissed the inside curb, which caused the car to instantly snap around.
I'm thankful no one got injured. I'm kicking myself for letting the car get away from me, especially since I had the race solidly in hand.
Short version. Lost control of my car under a waving yellow, spun, and hit an EV who was extracting a car from the kitty liter at turn 9 (formerly known as turn 11).
The corner had been standing yellow for two laps while trying to extract a car. On the third lap, they upgraded to waving yellow as they got closer to the edge of the track. They were motioning us to stay to the right approaching the corner. When I moved right to oblige, I kissed the inside curb, which caused the car to instantly snap around.
I'm thankful no one got injured. I'm kicking myself for letting the car get away from me, especially since I had the race solidly in hand.
Dayle Frame
Well-known member
What a whacky day. So it was foggy as Hell first thing this morning which lead to a delay starting the races. Rain earlier in the day had created some clusterf^%#ing and that, in turn lead to more delays. During lunch it was sprinkling on and off but the radar had heavy shit coming our way right around the time of of the prod race. lol and behold, it shitstromed for five minutes or so just as we were all on the false grid. Such chaos you haven't seen. Most of the GTL cars didn't show. There were a couple of folks doing tire changes on grid. The heavy stuff let up some and the five minute warning was given. Off the field went. The track had HUGE puddles and water running across the track in dozens of spots. I was watching from under the trees (drivers right) in thunder valley. MidO had repositioned the wall on the left and had sculpted the earth a bit. With no grass on the hillside, the water carried mud onto the track en mass. A recipe for chaos, indeed.
I won't go into detailed explaination of who passed who and when because it was useless to try and keep up. Every class had spins by leaders and it was impossible to keep up with the race order. The live T&S was useless as well because each lap had multiple changes in the order. A lap chart is the only way to tell what happened.
Prill crushed in FP and Gauper did too in HP. Second and third in those classes was back and forth like a yo-yo. EP was madness as Grahovec, Moser and Williams all lead at one time or another but I'm damned if I can recall when.
I will say this.....GTL was a HOOT! Lopshire spun on the pace lap (I'm sure he wasn't the only one) and it was right in front of us. But he was the eventual winner. Disque lead for a while, Kopley lead for a few laps....craziness all over the place.
As for Greg's DQ, I'll let him chime in as I didn't see the incident or have any conversation with the stewards about it afterwards. The PA did mention that they (track announcers) heard on the corner net that his car slid off track and hit an EV while under a yellow. The PA continued to discuss it by saying that they heard he was going to be black flagged. Obviously, they stewards didn't do that. His car had a wrinkled LF fender in impound. So judging by the severity of the wrinkle, my guess is that it was a moderate tap. Again, Greg can give us his side of the story and then we can debate about the particulars and the punishment.
But let's save that for another thread. For now, let's revel in Toby's, Eric's, Roy's and Mike's win in a race certain to become lore very soon.
Dayle
I won't go into detailed explaination of who passed who and when because it was useless to try and keep up. Every class had spins by leaders and it was impossible to keep up with the race order. The live T&S was useless as well because each lap had multiple changes in the order. A lap chart is the only way to tell what happened.
Prill crushed in FP and Gauper did too in HP. Second and third in those classes was back and forth like a yo-yo. EP was madness as Grahovec, Moser and Williams all lead at one time or another but I'm damned if I can recall when.
I will say this.....GTL was a HOOT! Lopshire spun on the pace lap (I'm sure he wasn't the only one) and it was right in front of us. But he was the eventual winner. Disque lead for a while, Kopley lead for a few laps....craziness all over the place.
As for Greg's DQ, I'll let him chime in as I didn't see the incident or have any conversation with the stewards about it afterwards. The PA did mention that they (track announcers) heard on the corner net that his car slid off track and hit an EV while under a yellow. The PA continued to discuss it by saying that they heard he was going to be black flagged. Obviously, they stewards didn't do that. His car had a wrinkled LF fender in impound. So judging by the severity of the wrinkle, my guess is that it was a moderate tap. Again, Greg can give us his side of the story and then we can debate about the particulars and the punishment.
But let's save that for another thread. For now, let's revel in Toby's, Eric's, Roy's and Mike's win in a race certain to become lore very soon.
Dayle
EPrill
Well-known member
Saturday was a nose-to-tail run between Sam, Charlie and myself until the rain hit which put Charlie out front and me chasing Sam and Charlie. Pintaric turned in on Sam in 11- appeared to me that Bill just never saw him there, and I went to second but Charlie was too far ahead and I was limping with a broken header and puking oil out of my overflow onto the exhaust causing a lot of smoke.
Charlie ended up dropping a valve on the cool down lap so unfortunately he was finished after the Saturday win. He and Tom were kind enough to loan me their #3 header tube for Sunday.
My rain dance worked and as Dayle documented drizzle turned into a cloudburst as I drove to the grid. Absolutely everything was soaked before we even got started and the temp dropped dramatically as well. I got by Sam at the green and ran with the three EP leaders early. It was fun to watch--they were back and forth and I figured as long as I didn't have pressure from behind that I would hang there and watch. The track was really slick. Couldn't touch the throttle in a rwd car until it was straight or the tail would snap on you. Toby was the rain line master, Breton had the courage and Joe had the FWD. All three led at some point. Interestingly all three would essentially coast from the kink to the brake zone. I guess the streams of water were really aqua planing the wider tires. I would gain big time going into the brake zone but the spray was so bad I never knew which way to go and I didn't want to mess with their race so I hung back.
The safety truck in 11 reminded me of how they pick up cars wrecked at the kink at Road America under a local yellow. Appreciate the attempt to keep it green but I'd rather see a try there. The 10/10a section was the absolute slipperiest part of the track. Nobody was trying to go fast; we were all just trying not to crash. Sorry to see what happened there and with Greg. I was nervous every time I went through because it was so hard to keep the car pointed in the right direction even going slowly.
As the laps wound down, Toby had built a lead over Joe and me (Breton had spun in 13 a couple times and was 2 laps down). I passed Joe in 13 but he got me right back on the front straight and then we started catching Toby. With 2 to go I decided that i needed to just being it home so when Joe got real aggressive I maintained and he closed dramatically on Toby. I think his last lap was 5 seconds faster than his second fastest lap! IN the end he was just short but then I guess Toby's fuel had a problem and that moved him to last in EP. Pretty ordinary looking results that weren't indicative of how nuts the race was.
Big thanks to all the usual suspects- Mazda, Hoosier, Carbotech, JPM. Special thanks to Charlie and Tom Campbell for loaning me the header. It was 2 for 2!
Charlie ended up dropping a valve on the cool down lap so unfortunately he was finished after the Saturday win. He and Tom were kind enough to loan me their #3 header tube for Sunday.
My rain dance worked and as Dayle documented drizzle turned into a cloudburst as I drove to the grid. Absolutely everything was soaked before we even got started and the temp dropped dramatically as well. I got by Sam at the green and ran with the three EP leaders early. It was fun to watch--they were back and forth and I figured as long as I didn't have pressure from behind that I would hang there and watch. The track was really slick. Couldn't touch the throttle in a rwd car until it was straight or the tail would snap on you. Toby was the rain line master, Breton had the courage and Joe had the FWD. All three led at some point. Interestingly all three would essentially coast from the kink to the brake zone. I guess the streams of water were really aqua planing the wider tires. I would gain big time going into the brake zone but the spray was so bad I never knew which way to go and I didn't want to mess with their race so I hung back.
The safety truck in 11 reminded me of how they pick up cars wrecked at the kink at Road America under a local yellow. Appreciate the attempt to keep it green but I'd rather see a try there. The 10/10a section was the absolute slipperiest part of the track. Nobody was trying to go fast; we were all just trying not to crash. Sorry to see what happened there and with Greg. I was nervous every time I went through because it was so hard to keep the car pointed in the right direction even going slowly.
As the laps wound down, Toby had built a lead over Joe and me (Breton had spun in 13 a couple times and was 2 laps down). I passed Joe in 13 but he got me right back on the front straight and then we started catching Toby. With 2 to go I decided that i needed to just being it home so when Joe got real aggressive I maintained and he closed dramatically on Toby. I think his last lap was 5 seconds faster than his second fastest lap! IN the end he was just short but then I guess Toby's fuel had a problem and that moved him to last in EP. Pretty ordinary looking results that weren't indicative of how nuts the race was.
Big thanks to all the usual suspects- Mazda, Hoosier, Carbotech, JPM. Special thanks to Charlie and Tom Campbell for loaning me the header. It was 2 for 2!
Matt Brannon
Well-known member
On the plus side, the car is running faster than ever, and loaded onto the trailer like we brought it, which is lucky considering the conditions for both race days.
A gamble with intermediates (read: utter miscalculation) on tires in Sunday's race resulted in a voluntary withdrawl on lap 7 to keep from endangering myself and others.
It was good to see everyone, congrats to those on the podium both days. Next stop, The Sprints.
-M
A gamble with intermediates (read: utter miscalculation) on tires in Sunday's race resulted in a voluntary withdrawl on lap 7 to keep from endangering myself and others.
It was good to see everyone, congrats to those on the podium both days. Next stop, The Sprints.
-M
I have to say how proud we are of our driver, Mike Sestili, this weekend. He was not going to race up until a week ago when he got 11th hour sponsorship from Buckeye Vodka! This led to three very late nights with Mike, Maurice, and Jeff working on the car aka four-wheeled mistress and trailer getting them ready for this weekend. They did many changes and didn't know for sure if they were right or not, well I guess they were. Mike has always loved the ran, learning how to do it last year with slicks! From what we are told he got some great air time at the end of the back straight and cleared himself out of China Beach! We were sorry about Greg as he is a great driver and friend and we know he did not mean to hit the EV or the worker (who is okay by the way). Greg was more than a gentleman when he came to give Mike the flag and 1st place trophy. We are definitely looking for a rematch in better conditions for everyone.
This is Mike's first National/Major's win so you can't blame him for wanting to sleep with the flag last night.
This is Mike's first National/Major's win so you can't blame him for wanting to sleep with the flag last night.
DBRacing
Well-known member
After not having run at M-O in at least 10 years, it was good to be back. Sorry for holding people up while trying to remember the racing line in the dry on Saturday. I should be a lot faster when we get a dog box back in the car and get a better handle on the radials.
I had a lot of fun in the rain on Sunday and was comfortable with how the car was handling. I'm not sure how the trophy thing goes when someone is disqualified at the top, but I guess that I owe my trophy to Sam.
I had a lot of fun in the rain on Sunday and was comfortable with how the car was handling. I'm not sure how the trophy thing goes when someone is disqualified at the top, but I guess that I owe my trophy to Sam.
Sterling
Well-known member
Oh my,.......
Friday qualifying the trans let loose it's fluids with a crack early in the session.
Installed a stock tranny witch I knew was not very good with a high final drive. Well it was not very good. Into first only when starting the car and into second only with a strong arm and low rpm. Popped out of third continuously. Spent Saturday and Sunday's race spending a good bit of time driving with one hand. Being a stock box the large gap between gears was not ideal to match the cams. With the rain it was a really bad setup not having second.
Oh did I mention the car is currently absolutely terrible in the rain. It will only go straight. So I stayed out of the way and watched lots of folks driving off the track. In everyone's defense the conditions were really, really poor. Finished 4th both days.
Peter Morton got super lucky spinning on lap 1 in his S2000 on the back straight. Close enough to get some paint scuff but not dent the car. Wow, lucky.
I am happy to have brought the car home with not a scratch.
Congrats to anyone who managed in those challenging conditions.
.
Friday qualifying the trans let loose it's fluids with a crack early in the session.
Installed a stock tranny witch I knew was not very good with a high final drive. Well it was not very good. Into first only when starting the car and into second only with a strong arm and low rpm. Popped out of third continuously. Spent Saturday and Sunday's race spending a good bit of time driving with one hand. Being a stock box the large gap between gears was not ideal to match the cams. With the rain it was a really bad setup not having second.
Oh did I mention the car is currently absolutely terrible in the rain. It will only go straight. So I stayed out of the way and watched lots of folks driving off the track. In everyone's defense the conditions were really, really poor. Finished 4th both days.
Peter Morton got super lucky spinning on lap 1 in his S2000 on the back straight. Close enough to get some paint scuff but not dent the car. Wow, lucky.
I am happy to have brought the car home with not a scratch.
Congrats to anyone who managed in those challenging conditions.
.
Would love to see some video of the Sunday race. I was in the next race and am sure I was in way better conditions. It was amazing just how hard it rained just as I pushed Kyle out of the garage. In 5 seconds I was soaked to the bone. Can't imagine how much water you guys in small bore must have been slogging thru. So post up some videos guys.
First I want to say it's fun to be back in the prod group and nice to see everyone again. Always a great time.
Still trying to get back in the groove but almost there. Great racing with Eric and Sam as I knew it would be, always has been. I think running nose to tale for 5 laps we all were just waiting for one of us to make even the slightest mistake. That was all Sam and Eric did to give me the chance to get by. Now you talk about the highs and lows of the game we love so much. After taking the checkered flag that big smile on my face went away on the back straight on the cooldown lap with what turned out to be a dropped valve in #4 cylinder. So pack up early and go home. Wish even with the rain I could have been out there with the rest of you Sunday. See you all soon, Watkins Glen??
Charlie
Still trying to get back in the groove but almost there. Great racing with Eric and Sam as I knew it would be, always has been. I think running nose to tale for 5 laps we all were just waiting for one of us to make even the slightest mistake. That was all Sam and Eric did to give me the chance to get by. Now you talk about the highs and lows of the game we love so much. After taking the checkered flag that big smile on my face went away on the back straight on the cooldown lap with what turned out to be a dropped valve in #4 cylinder. So pack up early and go home. Wish even with the rain I could have been out there with the rest of you Sunday. See you all soon, Watkins Glen??
Charlie