June 24th/2001 - Well after just getting back from race weekend #2, I think I can honestly say that not only did we exorcise some demons, we pummeled them bad. This weekend had a little bit of everything from new quirks on the car to weather that basically had me scared sh!tless. Well maybe not that bad, but after wrecking the car pretty good last year in the rain, you could expect that I didn't want to see any rain at all this season. Well, I didn't get my wish. Saturday practise was fine and the car felt good. Nice sunny skies over head. Then Sunday came. I thought it was going to pour all day and I had the rain tires waiting. But early morning after the drivers meeting, out came the sun, Woohoo! This day was starting to look good. I had a feeling that my car was going to be a lot faster than any other time I've been up here. And I was right. We broke our old lap record in qualifying by almost half a second, and the car just kept getting quicker all day. We started 9th in the GT race, and like the first weekend, after a few laps we were by ourselves. But in those first few laps, while following the fast cars around, we destroyed our best lap record, set in qualifying, by 1.5 seconds. Coming into the weekend, the best was a 1:24.9, lap 3 of the GT race was a 1:22.9. We ended up finishing 7th in GT2. I could have packed up the car and gone home happy now, but...nah, there was still a whole day of racing to be done. The IT race was next and we managed to move up a few spots and finish 4th in ITB. The Atlantic Challenge race is quickly becoming my favorite race of the day. There's something about going at it for a 1 hour race. You can get into a rythym that you can't find in a sprint race. We were involved in a couple of good battles in this race, but then the weather changed, with all of us stuck on slicks too. That made for an interesting final 20 minutes or so. It was never really a downpour, but it was a good steady rain that soaked the track and left quite a few big puddles on the back straight. Its funny how much the laptimes fall off in the rain. I think mine went up by 25 seconds. I was just trying to make sure I brought the car home in one piece at the point. We ended up with a 3rd in ITB for the second straight weekend. This should be good for points, and good for the confidence to finish a race in the rain. Man, it was slippery! For the last race of the day we switched to rain tires, and wouldn't you know, right before the race started, the rain went away. It was starting to dry a little, and that proved to be too much for the GT cars who went to a rain setup. Not a good thing in the dry and a couple were off in the first lap. But they got their wish about 7 laps into the unlimited race when the skies opened again. This time it was a downpour. It was kind of neat though because it was dry at one end of the track and coming down hard at the other. It was like a wall of rain. That soon swept over the whole track and by then you couldn't see a thing. My wipers couldn't keep up with the rain and I found myself trying to look out the side window to see where I was going. I think we ended up 5th or 6th, but I'm still waiting for official results. All in all, a good weekend. It was really unexpected to get into the 1:22's this early in the season, but hey, I'm not complaining. And also to get a rain race over with is a large burden off my back, although I don't want to see it again this year. Makes for really slow driving. Many thanks to my sponsors: Pharmasave, Sign A rama, Ray & Jacks, and Steele VW. Also to Chad and James for crewing, Holly for timing, and Paul for snapping the pics that will be posted soon. See ya at race #3.
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