Arizona Shootout

Totally p***ed off with myself tonight. Had a car that was capable of competing for pole and went all jittery on my fast lap.

Pushed way too hard in the opening laps like a rank amatuer a killed my tyres early on. Eventually spun out after Pete Bunce managed to squeeze through. Busted my suspension and knocked off my splitter.

Had some fun unlapping myself from a few cars but 3 laps down my race was done.

Looking on the bright side, I have a base setup for this car now that I'm happy with for S7.

Qualifying:
It was ok, way too far off pole though.

Race:
Could've been excellent, ended up being decent new experience.

I got Pete on the start. Then I lost position to him when Jon was too slow for me in T1 and I had to back off.

Few laps later Jon swerved exiting on finish line, I couldn't avoid clipping him and collecting him again when he spun. From there on it was damage limitation, as car was barely making turns.

Not bad for a first run, could've been right up there with Pete.

Congrats podium finishers.

I never really was quite fast enough, qually was ok, extra .25 of a second and would have been a few places higher, so I was cool with that.

Race started good, very clean running for the 15 laps I think, then the tyres started to change, and I was struggling. Then I noticed others where to. Caught up with the car ahead, and then caught up a little quicker than I thought, got to low and span around tapping the wall, restarted as the fast guys where comming around, tried getting a gear that would keep me ahead, but swamped a turn later. Then hit the wall a little harder, then found the car no longer drove (found this out by hitting the outside of the pit wall. Struggled around for a further lap before having a 35 second pit stop to fix damage.

Came back out for the last 10 or so laps, nice fresh tyres. Wow they really make a differance, I was running quicker than a few poeple now, nothing that made a differance as I was already 3 laps down.

Lesson for me though to maybe do some full race distance testing before hand, maybe I will be more prepared next time.

Well, we are slow at work right now so I got off at noon and was able to run this race. I was surprised to see a couple of teammates in it too so that was cool. I had a fun time out there following my teammate. Dimitry had a good car but was taken out by someone entering the track when they shouldn`t have but other than that it was good from where I sat.

Had a great race, going 1-2-3-4 nose-to-tail for the first ~30 laps with Michael, Larry and Sir Pete. And Tom was pretty close going 5th, afaik.

With 10 to go tires were already worn and the last part of the race expected to be very interesting, but it all ended when Dennis, while recovering from a crash or spin, headed his car from the apron on the track and hit brakes. So his car got on track @10 km/h right in front of me, going ~150 km/h.

Heavily crashed, got the car to pits, repaired and brought the car to the finish line @13th :(

Congratulations to the podium. And great job from Team DBF! :)

Took it easy for the first few laps to preserve the front right tyre, then had some good battles with Enis, Jon and Tom. Gained another spot when poor Dmitry fell victim to another's error or judgement.
I was more than happy to grab a podium in my first series race...and first ever oval outside of Indy. Grats to Michael & Larry, always good to race with you guys whatever the series.

well for my first official stock car race it was great for me. Q went ok pretty much like i thought and started 12th i think. for the race i didn't push anything and just drove a clean race. the car seamed to get better as the race went on and i brought it home in 5th. Only complaint was a couple lap down cars made it a lil difficult to pass and caused me a lil damage to but what can you do.

My second stock car race since July 07. My goal was to keep my car clean and finish the race. I finished the race but I had to pit once for damage/tires, a stop and go penalty for speeding in the pit, and again for tires. I really tore up my right front tire. I was lucky to get 15 laps on it. My lap times were in the 30 second range with an occasional 28 or 29 second lap. I was not buring up the track with my times like I was burning up my right front tire. Any one have a suggestion how I can get longer life on my RF tire?

Kurt, I spent a lot of practice time tweaking front camber & track bar to get even temps over the right side tyres and mostly it worked well. However, the most important adjustment I made was to the nut behind the wheel! Turn in easy & keep it smooth.

LOL, Occasionally that nut comes a little loose and needs tightening. Thanks for the advice Pete!