June Sprints-Road America

[gira]

Classic Z'ers,

We're heading the Elkhart Lake Wisconsin this weekend from Florida, ugh, to defend our EP title. We have clinched our division and are eligible for the Chicago Regions SCCA Triple Crown. If anyone is up for coming to see some of the best racing in USA, we'll be in garage 7.
This is the next biggest road racing event of the year next to the national championship runoffs.

See you,

Greg ira

[Red-Eye]

Good Luck, Kick Butt, wish I lived closer...Robert

[Bruce Palmer]

The Nationwide race at Road America this weekend did a great job of setting the layout of that 4 mile course for me. What a neat place.

Looks like Steve epperly (owner of ZTherapy) will be heading back for the E production race at the runoffs so get ready.....

[kray-z-1]

Good Luck Greg

My son and I are going on Friday - Road America is an incredible racing experience!

[preith]

Good luck Greg. I don't see Prather on the entry list but Brakke is, give 'em hell!

[jmortensen]

How Epperly does will be interesting to see.

[coop]

Met Epperly and his crew a few weeks back at Pacific Raceways where I was running my Z in ITS and Vintage. His car looks terrific and ran quite well in the rain. If looks mean anything, than his car is a winner for sure.

BTW we did well with a couple of seconds in ITS in mixed conditions. Not bad for visitors.

[jmark]

Congrats on the win Greg!

http://scca.com/documents/Club_Event...%20Results.pdf

[Carl Beck]

Congrats on the win Greg!

http://scca.com/documents/Club_Event...%20Results.pdf

YES - Congrats on the WIN Greg!! Very Impressive!

btw - Mark I can't get that URL to download..

Carl B.

[terry]

Well done Greg and crew. Good showing for Bill Wessell and Don Bunt. Anyone have pictures or video?

[ggarrard]

Greg also made the "front page" of the Speed-tv.com report
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-road-america/

[gira]

Thanks everyone.
This was a drama filled weekend. The bummer is I didn't get to meet anyone that said they were going to be there from Classic Z page. Jon Brakke in a super trick Miata has been the guy to beat up there. He's almost always at least 1.5 seconds ahead in qualifying. Home track, perfect car for the track, great driver, etc. This weekend I heard his engines cost 25k, for a four banger Mazda. Internals must be titanium or gold.
Firstly the darn rain was almost identical to the Runoffs, where we made the wrong decision on tires. We went with the same decision this weekend. Although it started sprinkling on the grid (exactly like the Runoffs), we stayed with Slicks which ended up being the right call. We jumped out to a good lead early only to lose it to a double yellow because of two cars in the inside of turn 1 wall. I led about 7 laps while driving my mirrors the whole time. Brakke's car in the corners and under braking is incredible and I just squeak by on the straights, so he was dive bombing me in all the brake zones. My clutch started misbehaving and bleeding down when I was on the straights causing me to mis-shift coming out of T5. I couldn't get the gearbox into 2nd gear. That tiny mistake was all it took. Brakke was out to about a 3 second lead that I didn't have time to get back. He took the checkered first, stood on the top of the podium, etc. Rob Hummel and I sprayed him off the podium, literally, then helped him back up.
THEN...
Here's what happened. The track was damp. Brakke actully spun his car off course on the pace lap while trying to warm his tires. This happened at the exit of T3. He joined the field in the 11 position or so and proceed to zig zag his way back to his pole position. All the yellow flags were being displayed as flag stations do on the outlap/pacelap. I knew this rule and immediately radioed my crewchief about what had happened. There was no need for a formal protest as the stewards were clear on the rule and there were lots of witnesses. He was docked 3 finishing positions.

SCCA Triple Crown, here we come!

Greg

[Carl Beck]

Hi Greg:
Great driving and super effort. Even a 2nd place finish in that field would have been a significant accomplishment in a 40 year old car.

Nonetheless - it is the "SafeRacer" SCCA National Racing Series - and the track rules are intended to keep everyone "safe"...

Does this remind anyone else of a certain Tran/Am championship race many many years ago?

FWIW,
Carl B.

[preith]

Congrats Greg! And thanks for the summary, I was curious what happened to Brakke - would've guessed he spun or went off during the race. He's sure laying down some good times...

I was quite surprised to see Kannard finishing 2nd. He's another local guy who ran an S30 and since gone to the dark side, won the sprints in '04 I believe.

EDIT: I forgot to add, veteran racers passing under yellow on the caution lap seems to happen ALOT. The SCCA treated Brakke better than in my club, they promptly black flagged the pole sitter for the same on the first lap in a race of mine.

[jmark]

Greg got any race video?