| May 27th, 2001 - The first races of the season took place on the weekend with great weather and an equally great turnout. The new Scirocco in a fresh coat of Porsche signal green paint showed signs of improvement and qualified 14th out of all sedans. We also got a taste of the new curbing on the apex of all the turns as we blew a left rear tire somewhere between turn 4 and turn 7, most likely cresting turn 5 going onto the back straight. Got a little bit loose in 7 :) The first race was the GT race. This was a good chance to get used to going around at speed as we found ourselves without many cars around to race with. An 8th place finish is a solid start to the season. The IT race was up next and we were left trying to chase down one of those Vantage VW's at the end. Consistant lap times in the 1:25 range was good enough for 5th place in ITB. The Atlantic Challenge One hour race was definitely the highlight of the weekend. Wheel to wheel action in a group of 5 cars is what racing is all about. With the front runners ahead of us, we had a nice little battle with a VW GTI (maybe Bill Green driving), Honda CRX (Garnet Loomer), Nissan 240 (Corey Smith), Honda Civic (Todd Roberts), and my Scirocco. We all swapped positions and pushed each other around the track for a good half hour. Unfortunately, a porsche 924 went off in turn 9 and the race was red flagged for about 20 minutes. After that we still had a good battle with Garnett until overheating problems forced him out. We nabbed a 3rd in ITB to mark our first podium of the year. Of course I didn't know until after the race was long over where we actually finished. As we pulled into the pits after the race the rad started spewing water all over the ground. We decided that the day was a success and passed on the 12 lap unlimited race that ends the day. Our fastest lap of the day was a 1.25:340, which is only .4 off of a personal best. With a couple of improvements the car should be good for a 1:23 in the near future. Special thanks to Pharmasave, Sign A rama, Steele Volkswagen, Ray & Jacks, Scott Cameron for crewing and Holly Haverstock for timing and scoring. Next race weekend: June 24th |