Race 5

The weather on Sunday was much like Saturday, but slightly cooler. The old hoosiers were holding up well and we elected to keep them on for the morning practice session. The session went fine, I hooked up with several GTS drivers and we had a good session. Best lap time was 1:26.372. I dropped 2 seconds on lap times that session so we elected to put on the new hoosiers for qualifying. I went out and ran about half the session, a little off the pace, to slowly brake in the tires. On lap 8 I posted a 1:24.688, which was my best time thus far and decided to come in. I qualified 3rd in class and 19th overall.

My starting position was on the drivers right which would set me up for the inside of turn 1, but on the start, the outside lane opened up and I missed a golden opportunity to make several passes, but I elected to stay inside (rookie mistake) and in turn one the pack checked up and I had to take evasive action to stop from hitting the car ahead of me. After turn one, the field started to spread out and I was setting in fifth place in GTS1. The #21 of Dan Davis was in fourth place, the #35 of Greg Steen was in third, the #12 of Greg Coward was in second and the #43 of Christian Cook was in first. I raced hard for several laps with Dan and I spent time looking for a place to get around him. We were so equally matched that it would take a mistake on his part or some aggressive driving on my part if I was going to get by him. After a few more laps of watching his line, I saw that I could get a run on him on the entry to the back straight and I would have to try to out brake him. So when I had the next opportunity to get a run on him, I did just that, I broke late and moved to the inside and passed him. We spent several laps nose to tail. At about mid way thought the race, the #35 GTS1 car of Greg Steen spun in turn two and I passed him for position. Now I was ruining third and Dan Davis was running fourth. As we would enter the Swamp Turn, I would have to brake slightly to set the car up for the turn and he didn’t have to, so he would get a run on me, but I was able to exit the turn better that he could, so the run that he would get on me he could not hold and we did that for the last few laps until he spun in the middle of the Swamp Turn. I ran a few laps in third place and then Greg was right behind me for position. We battled for several laps and he passed me on the back straight. I could get a run on him entering the back straight but just could not get around him. On the last lap, I moved to his inside in the swamp turn, but could not get by him and we finished side by side with him in the lead. So I finished in fourth place with a best lap time of 1:23.798 and I finished 16th in overall.