Daytona National

[billwald]

Someone asked me to recap Daytona since I was just standing around all weekend

Large field, great weather and many awesome cars. Congratulations to Rossella on her hard fought victory! Ed Dickenson pressured Rosella the entire race with neither giving an inch or making any costly mistakes. Fun battle to watch. Nice job Ed!

Jim Johnson got a great start and was building a nice lead when he had unfortunate contact in the bustop and retired early. Jim was okay and he'll have his Red VD back to new for the next race.

Congrats to Stan on P3. The Capone's were driving well early but Ricky had to pit after running over debris in the bustop and not sure what happend with Brice.

The FSCCA cars had a 13 car field. I think they were all close and all finished with no incidents. I know Mark Eaton won and Matt Inge came from behind to take P2.

Fisrt time I got to watch Don Boughan drive vs. being on track myself and then seeing only a brief glimpse. He is amazing in the Daytona infield. Fast, smart, and always under control.

Ken's new F1000 was also fun to watch. It looked very quick in the turns and seemed to leap forward on the banks. He was under 2:00 running alone - very impressive session. Look forward to seeing him later this summer on the Sebring long course.

bill

[EYERACE]

eye drafted around brice once but otherwise was distracted by an S2 and a DSR in the bunch up too for what clean laps we had... and eventually brice had me. brice always drives me clean and he did again at daytona. i pulled in thinking i had finished about 5th and passed brice sitting just inside the first pit wall gap. i assumed he was 4th and wasn't sure if he should have gone on down to impound or not but apparently he never did.... so he was DQ'd. I talked later to the chief steward, asking him to not do it but he said he had to go by the book. i got the DSR at the line by about 0.02 sec. according to mylaps.com

[rickcaponefa18]

we thought brice was fourth also ,but he was 3rd. in all the confusion we should have sent him to impound. ricky was a lap down after pitting with a tire promlem. still had a fun weekend

[GR]

It looks like Daytona was fun for most. It's always a bummer though when cars don't finish because of contact. Been there too many times myself. Jim, glad to hear you are ok, and hope you are racing again soon.

It sure hurts sitting "on the sidelines" as much as I have had to last year and now in '07. I keep telling myself all this "work" will pay its' dividends...... someday I just hope it does it in time off for racing!!!

Ed, I am psyched you had such a good drive in our car. It is always a blast when you have a tight race with someone

The SCCA has done a pretty good job (IMHO) so far in trying to dial in the "right" combination of everything with Zetec and Pinto motors to allow them to be pretty competitive with each other. Each has their own strengths right now. Not sure it will ever be level though.

Oh yeah, Impound....... If in doubt.......... GO!