Brian Cosgrove's summary:


As I arrived for the test and fine on Thursday I was excited for the day and the weekend to come. I went out for the first session and my control arm bushing failed resulting in a off course excursion. On Friday I went back out excited as ever! After missing the warm up due to the control arm bushing I went out for qualifiying! This did not end well... After my throttle stuck to the floor I went off into the gravel at turn 6. During the qualifying race I continued to have mechanical failures with my MAF coming off. I ended up starting in the back of the pack for the championship final. Over the 45 minute race I moved up enough spots to end my weekend in a hard fought 7th. It was the worst weekend I had ever had. But thanks to everyone at the event and how much honest fun I had it was also one of the best weekends!

Sent from my iPhone

Brian Evan's story:

Hey Eric-

Not much to report from the back of the pack- in both of the qualifying races Jeremy Pohlman and I had pretty good battles.

On the last lap Friday, Jeremy got a great run on me through 10A/B after I took too defensive a line entering the corner, got beside me in 12 and was about half a car length ahead the checker. Think we were fighting for 9th or 10th, I have some video of it to post.

I think during Saturday’s races Jeremy and I were within a few car lengths of each other for the entire race. I learned from Friday’s race, though, and he didn’t get past me that time.

Sunday race wasn’t so good, I chased the back of the pack for a while until I went off in 7 and lost them. I think the jolts from the off loosened a ground and my car stalled in the exit of one. I pulled off and parked, after about 30 seconds it was running ok again. I took off as TJ Joyce caught and passed me. We ended up having a good battle for the rest of the race, we went side by side from the exit of 5 through 7 on one lap.

Without the electrical problem I probably would have been racing by myself for the 2nd half of the race so it worked out.

Only one unscheduled trip to the Chicken Shack.

It was a ton of fun meeting everyone, only way it would have been better was if it wasn’t such a “serious” weekend and everyone could have gone out and stayed out later. Normally we do shots between the kart races;)

Great job keeping everything running- it couldn’t have been easy with the early scale and dyno problems.

Give Dearstyne a hard time for me!

Brian

Dan Pina (2nd place):

or the first time I opted to do a test day, seeing as I've never driven Road Atlanta prior to Nationals. My first goal was establish fuel consumption and get the lay of the land. I ran the car out of gas and figured out my base weight. I was WAY off the pace of the fast guys (Neal, Williams, Walsh and Stanley). I spent the rest of the day trying to find visual markers and get comfortable with the track.
Friday I concentrated on getting faster by figuring out where I was slow. Following Stanley and the other fast guys was very educational. I picked up 2 seconds by doing some lead follow, surprising even myself. I still wasn't in podium contention yet, but I was much closer.
Fridays qualifying race I was qualified third, but I had slowed down in qualifying. I thought the car had felt a bit soft, so I opted to tighten up the front bar. I went to adjust the rear and noticed a tire drop on 7 in qual had slid the end link completely off the bar giving me huge body roll. I had already adjusted the front bar stiffer, so I decided to equal it out by stiffening the rear bar a bit too. BIG MISTAKE. The car was pushing very hard in the first qual race. I fought to make the car turn, and eventually lost the battle in turn 1 flying off the outside of the track, costing me 3 positions, finishing 5th. BUMMER
Saturdays qual race was some of the hardest racing I've had all year. I put the sway bars back to where they were to begin with. My goal was to pick up atleast 2 positions to be in a better position for the big race. This was DEFINITELY a lofty goal. I ran a very good lap time in warm up (for me) so was feeling good. I knew I needed to stay on the front pack and worry about a move late in the going. I got a great start behind Walsh and was along side him going into T1. I stayed there as long as possible but ultimately decided it was better to sit in 3rd rather than bend a wheel or worse. I tucked in behind Walsh and decided to try and stick with him. The leaders got into an early scuffle going into T10 leaving Stanley stuck facing all of us as we passed by. Williams didnt fair much better, as he held onto the lead 2 more laps before finally blowing a tire. As I caught up to Walsh a lapped car was riding next to him, and Gary in front of them both. Gary moved up to set up for T5 and I slid down inside the lap car AND Walsh! FANTASTIC! Gary took off, and I spent the next 3 laps or so getting help from Walsh bump drafting me from T8- T10. Neal had apparently been shot out of a cannon and flew past both Walsh and I in T11. To be honest I wasnt the least bit surprised as I knew Neal would be on a serious mission to the front. Walsh ran out of patience and went around me. We caught Neal who was making some brave attempts on Gary, and I took the opportunity to take the surely distracted Walsh by surprise and try a pass on T7. He was definitely surprised as he closed the door and we made some light contact. I chased Walsh for 3 more laps, returning the favor of the bump draft from T7 to T10. BUT, on the third time I knew we were getting late in the going and turned a big draft into a big pass going into T10. Walsh was hanging onto my rear bumper as we tried to catch Gary. I was pretty happy to be potentially finishing in 3rd as we got the white flag. As we headed up T1 we caught Gary who'd obviously had some type of drama in T2 and was struggling to make T3. I had already committed to the right side of Gary as we entered T3 but Gary was obviously unaware of my closing speed as he slid wider and wider in 3 forcing me towards the edge of the track. Luckily he realized I was there just in time for me to squeeze past cleanly, throwing the car into a right-hand drift to get it turned into the esses. Gary was able to fend off Walsh and I squeaked through in 2nd! I couldn't believe it. Guess I had achieved my goal of picking up a couple of positions!
Sunday we had all day to marinate in the heat, and think about the race ahead. My crew and I decided to spend the free time fabbing up ducting to the radiator in attempt to cool the car a bit more efficiently. We also were able to put some heavy duty pipe clamps with set screws onto the rear bar to hopefully prevent the links from sliding off in the case of a wheel drop on T7. I had budgeted only one set of new tires and saved them for Sundays big race. This was my ONLY Ace. A surprising four way tie left the top positions to be settled by lap time. I was happy to be starting in 3rd on the inside row. We started the race and I got a perfect start. I was firmly on Stanleys tail and confident I'd find second position by T2. To my surprise, Walsh stuck the outside line and even edged me out by the time we approached T2. I gave up the position and ducked back in line. We filed through the next few corners and as we came out of T7 I was very happy to see Gary on my tail. We were nose to tail a couple car lengths back from Stanley and Walsh. As we approached T9 I could see Gary had a great run off the draft and gave me the HUGEST shove! I was FLYING!!! I knew I had a huge run so I decided a pass going down the inside of T10 was a no brainer. I flew passed the leaders and got through T10 and T11 uncontested. As we rounded T1 we got a debris flag. As I braked for T2 I saw the fluid on the track and felt the car go a bit sidewaysand scrubbed lots of speed for T3. I watched my mirror in disbelief as Stanley slid off the course obviously caught out by the oil. We quickly were under a full course caution and circulated 3 times without any aid to Neal standing beside his car in the bottom of the esses. I thought surely they were going to pick him up so was very surprised to see the pace car duck off at the last minute and the flagger quickly drop the green (still holding two yellows in the other hand). I then just did my absolute best to run good clean laps, and manage traffic as best as possible. Finally after 4 or 5 laps Williams was on top of me. I finally blew it in T7 and had a big drift on exit. I knew I was screwed and he blew past me with ease on the outside. From then on I was on a mission to try and stay as close as possible to Williams, hoping for some late traffic to foul him up. But alas, this never came to fruition and he began to walk away. When the checkered came out I was relieved and excited to see that familiar white car behind me in third. What an awesome finish to a great weekend. I feel very lucky to have finished so highly amongst so many very skilled drivers.

The entire week was a great reminder of why I joined spec 944 to begin with. From the Chicken shack guys hospitality, to the entire group jumping in to help get Neals car back in the race, the group parade and pictures, extremely nice neighbors and just good fun TOUGH racing. Such a blast!

PS- Whoever was in the red 944 I passed at the end of the Sundays race- thank you for being so courteous and aware to completely move over for me to come through in an attempt to hunt down Williams- this was the most polite ANY driver was to me the entire weekend!

Thanks for posting those stories, they are excellant.

Congratulations to all the racers.

Heres my attempt at week end notes but first, is there an easy way we can make a data sharing database here? I wanted to post some data from RA for future reference but there doesn't seem to be any easy way to do so. Maybe expand the files we can upload and add a data section to the forum broken down by track?

Thursday

My first time with any sort of pit crew. Came into the T&T with some goals to try and find good tire pressures and then test some sway bar settings. Unfortunately after I went across the scales early in the day, I got thrown into a tizzy trying to make some weight adjustments that turned out to be completely unnecessary since the scales were found to be broken/inaccurate. With the clear skies and 140+ degree track temps, it became apparent that temps/pressures were going to climb quickly on track. Testing showed that as pressures climbed above 40 psi, the tires lost grip and became more 'greasy' and less confident inspiring, something you don't want climbing the hill on the exit of turn 1. I also took some tire temps, but nothing was done to change alignment settings as they mostly looked like they should be. I missed two sessions due to the scale fiasco and wanting to hit the dyno later in the day to ensure I didn't have another unwanted surprise.

Friday

Another scare on Friday consisted of opening the DME to find out if it was in compliance. I'm still growing in knowledge of what looks stock and meets the rules so this was the first time I could test my car to the letter of the rule. Rather than leave it up to a post race tech, I decided to allow Eric to inspect my DME for compliance so I have no surprises. After some cross examination and much gnashing of teeth, we determined that my DME was in fact stock. It was the first time I had the DME open since purchasing the car and after hearing some other horror stories, I wanted to be sure. Luckily I was back running for qualifying which saw a short session and very little open track. We tried as a class to grid behind the PT cars, but after only 1 lap, I found myself caught up with the slower PT traffic. I decided to gamble by making a trip through the hot pits to try and seperate myelf from the rest of the field. While I did find less traffic immediately out of the pits, by the time I got around to make a flying lap, I got caught up with more of the other 944s on track. Luckily my first flying lap was good enough for outside pole.

Qual Race 1: After after a frustrating start that put me third behind Pena and Williams, and when Pena proved to be less than cooperative in passing situations, I decided to push Pena to make sure Williams wouldn't just walk away from the field. Luckily, Pena conceded the position allowing me to focus on Williams. After a half a lap I was able to close on first to setup a draft slingshot move down the long back strait. The fast yellow PT firebird assisted in some blocking operations through the middle part of 10A/B ruining some of the momentum of Williams and securing the lead for me. Once in first, I just put my head down and got into a rhythm for the rest of the race having 5 laps within a tenth of each other.

Qual Race 1 Video



Rest of the week end to come tomorrow.

Here is a view from the back of the pack:

vimeo.com/105923651

It's the entire race (including the double yellow) so here are the cliff notes:

0:36 Pohlman & Agran's incident
2:38 Stanley's spin
3:15 Stanley nearly spins again
3:15-11:20 double yellow period
19:55 I go off in 7
21:00 Car starts missing badly
21:22 Car fixes itself, Joyce catches and passes me, the battle not to be last has begun
22:25 I pass Joyce when he is slow to get back to speed after a local yellow
31:20 Joyce catches me in 5, we stay side by side until the exit of 7,