April 28-30 RCFFS/FRP Race Report
Despite conditions that could be described as "challenging" but also referred to as treacherous and abysmal, the Right Coast crowd racing with the FRP organization had a successful season opening weekend. Despite multiple off course excursions and spins, we didn't bend any cars. Way to go team!
Friday was two practice sessions in the wet. Some competitors ran both, some, like myself, only one session. My rain tires have Aug 2014 written on them so even with adequate tread depth the rubber didn't really have much enthusiasm for the track.
Saturday morning was wet again for our qualifying session and Mark Kingham showed how it was done by taking pole by over 9.8 seconds. Youth and enthusiasm as they say.
Saturday afternoon was dry finally and the field went out on slicks. I got the jump on Mark at the start and I lead flag to flag to a 18.3 second victory on a green track with power oversteer available for the asking.
Sunday morning was again wet. I spun in the first turn and again later in the race but avoided hitting anything or anyone and Mark drove masterfully to a 2:03 margin of victory. Yes, that's a colon, not a decimal point, two minutes and three seconds margin of victory. He almost lapped the field.
Sunday afternoon was back to dry, but again, a green and slippery track. I got the lead from Mark at the start, but spun in the left kink before the carousel after hitting a puddle in Thunder Valley. Mark came to a virtual stop avoiding me (Big Thank You) and I did my best Danny Sullivan and did a quick 360 and actually kept the lead. From there on out it was as Hobbs would say, "a hammer and tongs battle". I'm not sure if my GoPro video saved or not, but we must have changed leads at least every lap and many laps twice. We raced side-by-side through multiple turns. It was epic.
Going into the last lap I had the lead but Mark passed me. We went into the left kink before the carousel side by side and I just beat him to the line by .358 seconds. You know you've done good when you see the enthusiasm of the corner workers on the cool off lap as they showed their appreciation for a quality show of tough, fair, clean racing.
We had two new competitors, Gianni Nunez, driving his RP-31 Royale, a Steve Roux protege, and Kieran Murphy, a neuro-surgeon from Toronto. Formula Ford racing isn't brain surgery, but we have a brain surgeon in the field.
Looking forward to having another great race June 9-11 at Pitt Race.
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