wallyman424

This past weekend was NASA mid atlantics yearly debacle known as hyperfest. All sorts of ricers, drifters, locals and racers mixed together, and somehow nobody got hurt.

On to my race weekend:

Saturday:

I qualified well, however on the warmup lap i heard a violent KACHUNK from the rear of my car. I honestly thought that my leaf spring snapped, or i lost some crucial suspension component. I didnt feel anything awry on the rest of the warmup lap, so I put it out of my mind.

The actual racing was pretty fun, even though I was being blocked for a few laps. On about the tenth lap, braking into turn four the car felt very strange. It felt like the right rear tire locked up, and the car started sliding. I caught the slide and drove off, as my initial reaction was assuming the tire went down. That happened to me at a seat time event 2 weeks ago. I came into the pits and no tire was down, just a gigantic crack in my right rear rotor...

so i fixed it and went on to Sunday:

Sunday was the most fun I've had racing. I qualified very badly, and this can be attributed to there being 3 yellows during qualifying, along with the 63 cars on Summit.

The racing was very close and very fun. I'm still new at this, so I have some hesitation in dense traffic. It gets better every race though, so I'm happy with my progress. I started 6th in class and finished 5th. However 4th, 3rd and 2nd were within seconds. Looking at my lap times, it was two laps of traffic that I lost significant time on, the rest was close.

Heres the sunday race video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...14001625&hl=en

MattW_VA

Awesome, I was hoping you'd have some in car video.

AU N EGL

Great Job Wally

You can sure tell the 'racing line' is where other cars arn't

Falcon

Good run, Wallyman!

Was that white Porsche at the very beginning of your video the same one that stalled on grid at the Sat race at VIR in March/April?

Damn, that traffic looked like driving out Independence Blvd in Charlotte at 5:30 on Fridays.

wallyman424

yeah, i think its the same one.

yeah, the traffic was ridiculous.

gfacter

What kind of lap times at Summit Main are you seeing?

wallyman424

fastest i got was 1:24.5, there were just too many cars on track.

with an open track I think low 20's are possible. I also run on old T1 tires, so I wont be getting sub 20's like the T1 guys.

gfacter

NASA does pack the cars in the heats.

Falcon

There seemed to be an issue in a HPDE session from some of the other forums.

AU N EGL

Found this on the NASA-MA forum

AU N EGL

and a few of the Dasiy Duke pics

http://www.nasaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=15840

MattW_VA

There signifigant contact in group 4 and group 3, both in the *first* session of the *first* day. I had a check out ride with a student in group 3 that went somewhat less than spectacularly. Group 3 was an absolute zoo.

There was an incident in group 4 later on, no contact but the subsequent attitude resulted in the loss of Instructor priviledges for one unfortunate individual.

Overall not a great HPDE weekend. Plus my laptimes sucked!

gfacter

Wow contact in a HPDE, I have run in group 3 at NASA and it is a zoo at Summit Main. NASA needs to do a better job with Driver evaluations.

Mikelly

Sounds like they need to lower the student count on track as well... Word I got was that very few of the HPDE students enjoyed themselves due to the packed track and lack of passing.

That said, I need to start showing up at some of these NASA events...

MMMMMMMM DaisyDukes!

Mike

varkwso

contact in HPDE 3 &4

NASA-MA and NASA-NorCal definitely have te most scantily clad women around it seems...

MattW_VA

I think NASA MA actually does do a good job with driver evaluations. Unfortunately it doesn't take much bad luck for the wheels to come off at one of these things. This event draws a lot of folks from different regions too...

Fully agree with the comment above RE: the crowded track, it was tough in groups 1 and 2.

Cobra4B

Wally your car made it on to the local forums www.vadriven.com/forums

Rear Engine

Hey Matt,

I stopped your car a few times late Sat afternoon, but didn't see you. I am going to try to attend the October event. My high school reunion is that Sat, so not sure yet.

Everyone I spoke to said the track was slow and the traffic was insane. I will be there in a few weeks w/ PCA, hoping to break into the 23s.

Now I'm off to the Glen! See you there Mike Kelly.

Jim

MattW_VA

Sorry I missed you Jim, it was definitely a frustrating weekend. I was shooting for 23s myself, but I managed to lose my CF card for the data logger the night before the event. No matter, a quick review of the video I took shows I wasn't even close anyway.

wallyman424

this is right after i almost got T-boned