I'm roughly halfway through my racing season, thought I would give
everyone a quick update.
May 15-16 was my first SCCA National race, at Grattan raceway. There
were five cars in my class, and I qualified 4th in class. I was about
two seconds a lap faster than when I ran there last year, but still not
quite fast enough to really be competitive with the National guys up
front. I finished the race in 5th place, but I accomplished my goals
for the weekend: finish the race, go faster than last year, and bring
the car home in one piece.
June 5-6, was a National race at Mid Ohio. This is the same track
where the National Championship races are held, albeit in a slightly
different configuration. There were 12 cars in my class, G Production,
and few of them were known to be pretty quick. This weekend was a good
way to measure my progress and competitiveness relative to other cars
at the National level.
I immediately ran about 4 seconds a lap faster than when I ran there
last year for the Regional race, and picked up another second during
the second qualifying. The engine was strong, the brakes were good,
and I had fresh tires. I qualified 5th out of 12 cars, and was only a
couple of seconds behind the fast guys in my class. Before the race
even started, a couple of guys up front had mechanical problems, so I
moved up to 3rd place in class for the start.
I had a great start at the race. Just as I was starting to get in the
groove, I started to have problems shifting. It turned out that the
clutch wasn't fully releasing, so I drove 3/4 of the race shifting
without a clutch. I dropped a couple of positions, but a couple of the
fast guys up front dropped out. With all of the passing and repassing
that went on, I wasn't really sure where I finished. I figured I had
finished in 5th, so I didn't bother to go to impound after the race.
(The top 3 finishers are required to go to impound).
Well, as it turns out, I had in fact finished in 3rd place, but because
I failed to report to impound, I was moved to the last finishing
position, 8th in class. I was very disappointed, but had no one to
blame but myself. Some lessons in life are learned the hard way. If
there's any doubt, I'll always go to impound from now on!
Overall, there were a lot of positives about the weekend. I picked up
a lot of time, the engine ran great, and I'm starting to show some good
speed relative to the faster National cars.
I have some time off before my next race. I plan to make a few small
improvements during the break from racing, and see if I can find a
little more speed.
Thanks to Dave and Chris from Cin-City Performance for their help over
the weekend, and to Classic Datsun for their help with parts. The
rubber carb isolators Les provided finally fixed my carb issues that
had been nagging me for three seasons of racing.
Happy roadstering-
---
Chris Coker
Royal Oak, MI
1969 1600 Street Car (SPL311-24529)
1966 GP SCCA race car www.risensonracing.com
Independent Amsoil Dealer
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