Race 4

Race four found the ASR Racing team at the Waterford Hills Race Course in Waterford Hills, Michigan on August 13th. This was the first time that we have driven at this track and as such, we had much to learn. The track wraps around the paddock almost completely, there is little room for parking the big rigs, but what area they do have is very nice with electricity and paved sidewalks. The weather was overcast and threatening rain, the temperature was in the 70’s. During the first practice session we elected to run on an old set of Hoosier S03’s just to get familiar with the track. The track lived up to it’s hype, it was short (1.5 mile) and very narrow in places and aggressive driving would prove to keep most drivers quite busy at all times, only allowing for a quick glimpse of the gauges on the back straightway. The session was over quickly and I posted a best lap of 1:28.689, which is nothing to write home about, but it was a start.

With the weather still threatening rain, we elected to leave the old Hoosiers on for qualifying. They still had a few heat cycles left in them and if the weather was going to get bad, I would rather be on these as opposed to the new sticker Hoosiers S04’s I had in the trailer. The budget has not allowed for rain tries yet.

Qualifying was dry for the first few laps and then we had a few raindrops. The session was uneventful, with the exception of a close encounter with a Mustang that got sideways under hard braking at the end of he back straight and I and to do some agricultural driving to avoid contact. We qualified third in class with a 1:26.721 and 16th overall out of 19 drivers. The start of the race was fast and everyone got into turn one cleanly and without any major incidents. I was running behind a CMC Camaro for many laps. He would pull several car lengths on me on the back stretch and I would real him back in thought the esses, but I just did not have the HP’s to get by him. At about the halfway point of the race, I got a run on him coming onto the backstretch and was able to out brake him at the end of the back straight and executed a pass. It was short lived because he passed me on the back straight on the next lap. I was running third in class at this point and with all of this battling with the Camaro, the fourth place #21 of Dan Davis was able to real me in and was challenging me for position. On the second to last lap of the race, a GTS3 Porsche 944 driven by Joseph Fawsitt was on my tale in the short chute between the back straight and the paddock turn and he stuck a nose in on me at the beginning of the paddock turn and I had to let him go, Dan moved right in behind the GTS3 car and we found ourselves side by side as we exited the paddock turn but as we entered the esses, I was on the inside of the track and the 21 had to back off. On the white flag lap, he got a run on me just entering the Swamp turn and we exited side by side and I had just a little more momentum and held position for a third place finish. Best lap time was 1:24.734 in lap 2 and finished 14th overall.

This was my fourth race and I finished it clean, so that officially ended my “rookie probation”. Yea!!! I need to complete three more races to remove the “rookie” signs on the car.