Roll Call for Road Atlanta Labor Day

[carnut169]

Guess I'm supposed to post this here, but...
Fell off that old horse pretty hard this weekend fellas. Lots o damage. Has taken awhile to really sink in... not a great feeling. I'll update later....

[RussMcB]

Sean, we feel for you (and for GR, Rob Poma, ...). Unfortunately, racing always includes some extreme lows along with the extreme highs. "Just one of them racing deals".

It sounded like it was quite a ride, watching the horizon reappear several times. Glad you came through with only a hurt race car.

Know that there are plenty of us ready and willing to help however we can. Don't hesitate to ask.

Russ (and the Marietta/Atlanta guys)

PS. I enjoyed hearing the story this weekend about how you told your wife you were buying a go kart (referring to your FF2000). Typical guy/husband. .

[GR]

The weekend was going soooo well!

First, I want to thank everyone for participating in the third Road Atlanta “Get Together”. It is always great fun to have the time to just sit down and chew the fat w/everyone. Thanks to all who brought the side dishes, drinks, etc.... And we seem to always draw new people too. Welcome everyone to THE trackside party club!!

Tom advised me that I need to make sure to talk to the weather gods next time

Although we did have a bit of water to wade through when we began to eat, it didn’t water down the spirits under the 10/TENTHS canopy.

BIG CONGRATS to Mark Hatheway for his two wins!!!! By my calculations, Mark is now firmly tied w/Frog in P2 in SARRC “best six” finishing points going into the SIC. Interesting how things can always go,......wherever the he** they want!

Thanks to 10/TENTHS for putting together an awesome car for the event..... But,...... now we have to literally do it again ;-( We will be quite busy between now and the SIC.

All appears repairable. We will be unloading the car tonight to start the surgery. And THANKFULLY...I didn’t need any! But I now have a nice hole about the size of your thumb, and maybe about an inch deep about 5 ½ inches above my left ankle. Luckily I just missed the bone. Got to keep an eye out for infection

Last Road Atlanta event, Frog and I talked about how close he came to finding the exit lane in T1. Unfortunately for me and the #41, I didn’t pay close enough attention to that conversation. After the first two laps I kept pushing deeper and deeper with more speed into the entrance at T1 until I guess I went just a bit to deep. As the car was drifting to the outside, I thought I was going to keep it on track, but that wasn’t to be. I finally left the pavement about at the end of the rumble strips on drivers left and simply slid in the wet grass the rest of the way up the hill into the concrete.

The car hit the wall almost sideways, with the back touching first and then the front slamming into it. The pics Russ has posted show how the suspension absorbed most of the hit. The car came to rest at a right angle to the wall at least 40 feet up the hill beyond the impact.

After the car stopped, I raised my arms and waved my hands and gave two thumbs up to the workers at the T2 station behind me across the track to let them know I was “ok”. As a corner worker myself, I know the first thing we look for is movement in the cockpit. I then pulled myself out of the car and got behind the wall.

I waited for clear spots to go out and retrieve the nose and the tail sections of the car. Hey guys, I was thinking of you!! I didn’t want to have any dam* full course caution because of me

A BIG THANKS to the corner worker who had to run all the way up the hill from outside T1!!

After about three more laps, my leg felt like somebody had smacked it with a baseball bat, so I told the corner worker I guess I should take a look. When I lifted the leg of my driver suit, and saw the red stuff, I commented that “Hmmmm. That’s usually on the inside. I guess we may have something here”. I then put my leg up on the wall and pulled down my sock and lifted up the nomex. Sure enough, a nice puncture.

So....I sat with my leg on the wall and applied pressure for the rest of the race to slow the bleeding. We didn’t ask for the ambulance until the checker was thrown. I didn’t feel all that bad and besides, I was enjoying watching everyone race.

The corner worker that responded came by at the end of the day and commented to the crew that the Techno’s made a cool roman candle appearance at impact. Gee…. I wish I could have seen that [img]graemlins/skull.gif[/img]

I have since heard that several others in our group also had some unplanned incidents during the weekend. I am glad it appears we all came out of the weekend pretty much ok.

Well,……that’s it from this end. Time to go get the checkbook and credit cards warmed up, I just gave them the 5 minute signal

[formulasuper]

Well, as those of you who were there Sat. morning know, things did not go well for the old # 05 ex-Formula SuperVee, now ex-Formula Atlantic, and future Formula Super (F/S). Upon further examination it has been determined that an overly lean mixture caused #4 piston to discontinue its downward movement without regard to the laws of physics whereupon #4 connecting rod disconnected itself from said piston and proceeded to turn a perfectly fine race engine into a boat anchor. I don't own a boat. I guess its time to build & install the new 2.1 for the SIC. Should be fun. At least I did get to enjoy the Saturday nite get-together with a good bunch of people. See you guys in Sav. (I hope). Scott.

[Purple Frog]

Do notice that after the application of hundreds of coats of McGuires polish, a testament to it's strength is that even after performing a reverse half gainer, Sean's car had no scratches... not even the roll hoop. All the waxed parts of the car survived unscathed.

Anybody want to go out without arm restraints now?

[carnut169]

Ha ha.

There was a guy in a Mazda about 4 cars back that had a in-car video system... he captured the whole event. Said he would be sending me a DVD- I'll be sure to get it in a computer friendly video format and post it here.... it was wild to see.

[Mark C. Ritter]

GR,

Talk to Pat Prince re: the new suspension pieces. I did biz with him after my meeting with the armmco at BMP and he saved me some dinero. Also if you need any parts powder coated let me know as I have the technology.

Mark

[GR]

Tx Mark,

Unfortunately, Prince Engineering already has a file for Hard Rock Motorsport

He does great work!

[Tom Sprecher]

GR - you know what's spooky? Go back and re-read that email I sent you jokingly about, how being max'ed out in points, showing up at RA would just risk injury to you or your car. I'm just glad you're OK!

And about sticking your thumb in that hole...Don't. See ya at the SIC

[GR]

You know....IF I were the superstitious type I wouldn't have shown up for other superstitious reasons Like my race budget

No. Wait. That's fantasy.

Or, perhaps I am clairvoyant and don't know it. Or...it could be that I am dyslexic and kon't dnow it.

Naw.... I would have come anyway. Wait! I did!

Geeze Tom, now look what you did!

[Mark H]

Any bad JuJu Tom gave you was wiped out by the great party you made for us all on Sat nite. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Maby racing up there with all those FC's when you should have been in the back with Rob & I was what did you in,just slow down and every thing will be ok. It works for me? [img]redface.gif[/img]
Pat P. made some nice turbo pipes for my car worked real good.
See Ya Mark

[carnut169]

Its the wing!

[GR]