SARRC Invitational

[98Vandiemen]

Does anyone know the results of the FC race?

[Mark H]

1.Jim Morgan
2.Don Boughan
3.Rob Poma
4.Rossella Manfrinato

It was a wild start,car parts were flying!
Poma was on pole.

[racerjon1]

Columbia SC.

CEC racing and Chuck Cecil seemed to have gotten a prototype supplementary regulations sheet in which the SEDIV decided that to honor the previous weekends USGP, there would be a standing start.

(ok so maybe it was just a faulty coil wire)

Thanks for the flying tools on the grid and the help that Chuck got on the grid, from what i hear it was a good effort to even get him off the grid to be able to start from pit road. I just wished that the T&S had been back on the start/finish so that we could have an official recording of the 1:14.6 lap from a standing start.

Chuck's race came to an end in heavy traffic while running in 5th place..he mumbled something about there not being a whole bunch of grip in the grass at turn 5.

Congrats to all the winners this weekend, you guys put on a great show.

Jon K

[Purple Frog]

Grass? Traction? From where we were sitting Chuck never touched the grass. It looked like he was airborne from the edge of the track until he hit the sand bank. trying to steal Air O'Connell's act?

And Jon... speaking of great shows... The saturday night party did not end as usual with the police escort out of the Shell House. But rumour has it some formula car racers went across the border into the wee hours of Sunday, and it wasn't a sunrise church service. [img]redface.gif[/img]

It was an honor to have none other than Joe Stimola as the guest of honor at the CFC saturday night banquet. Talk about war stories... he does have a strange accent, us southern boys were struggling to understand him. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Maureen]

Way to go Jim...Congratulations to Jim Morgan! Great Start for Don Boughan! Thanks to both Jim and Dan for providing the most exciting racing all year long.

[Purple Frog]

Maureen is correct.

All this hype about the CFC race aside, the FC race was the real deal. I wanted to do a write up, but even as late as we left the track I found no results posted.

I spoke with Morgan and he was pleased that he was no longer a bridesmaid. [img]smile.gif[/img] He, with the help of one of the best prep guys in the country... James Lee... did what it took to win a championship. They had the Swift dialed in on a hot and slippery course. They were serious enough to come up and test a few weeks ago and I'm sure the testing paid off, as well as Jim's secret upside-down hanging machine. [img]smile.gif[/img] He sure felt better than two weeks earlier.

I can report that none of us knew what the pacecar driver was smoking. We came to a complete stop three times befor we got to T4 on the pace lap. I actually stalled and restarted once. Because of that, there seemed to be a lot of "bumping" before the field got to T7.

The first lap was wild. Jim's plan was to check out and not be caught up in the carnage. Don didn't want to see him disappear. I heard that Rob got jostled a bit, and by the time he had it settled down, he had catching up to do. Rosella drove one of her best races, but I don't think the narrow track Tatuus was really dialed in for this course. Sean O'Connell found himself out of touch with the leaders, and decided that he had already booked all the flights he cared to take this year, so he cooled it and started thinking about next year. Court Dowis found himself caught up in the CFC battle and didn't want to play a role in it. Justin had a horrible weekend fighting car woes, but learned a lot from it to be applied in future seasons. I thought I saw Greg flying of course on the first lap, but don't know any details.

And of course Chuck Cecil always adds excitement. We watched a lot of sessions, and I can honestly say I've never seen anyone go through T4 as fast as Chuck does. Chuck is famous for waiting well into the 5 minute warning time to jump in his car, while all the rest of us have been strapped in for what seems like hours. Evidently Chuck jumped in and in doing so stripped the hot wire off the coil mounted on the driver's side firewall. And his car would not start. Once Chuck or whoever had figured it out the grid chiefs would not let him leave pit lane. So he had to start on cold tires after we took the green flag. (Of course most of us thought the reason the pace car had us stopping on the back of the course was that they were waiting on Chuck. [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] ) Chuck is already famous for hauling butt on cold tires. He does it in every qualifying session I've witnessed. So he took off to get back in the lead of the race, all in the first lap. And I believe if you would have given himself 4 laps to do it he might have done it. [img]smile.gif[/img] Those of us with radios that heard he was coming just got the hell out of the way, but weaving through backmarkers like they were autocross pylons finally caught up with him. You can't say it wasn't exciting while it lasted. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Congrats to the Jim and James show for a great win.