Trans Am Series Round Ten...Daytona
11-19-2013, 10:49 PM
#1
Le Mans Master
Thread Starter
Trans Am Series Round Ten...Daytona
The tenth, and final, round of the 2013 Trans Am series was held at the famous Daytona International Speedway. What a place to go, what a place to race, what a place to race a Trans Am Corvette!
I had a small amount of experience at the track, so I opted not to test on Thursday. I did so because I knew I would be flying home on Monday rather than Sunday night. This was because the year-end banquest was being held that night and there was no way I was going to attend that and make a flight home. I also have obligations at work, so I had to pick my poison.
This caused me to be a bit "behind the curve" speed-wise. Friday's first practice session was wet. I took the car out on slicks, and truthfully it wasn't all that bad. But I only was out for 3 laps so not to expose the car to any unneccassary risks.
The second session had rain threaten us, and in fact to fall at the tail end of the session. But I was able to get 6 fairly decent laps in to aclimate myself to the track and the car. I was at Daytona last in November 2011 in my old STO Viper. Beleive me, there are substantial differences between an production-based Viper and a tube-frame Trans Am/GT1 car.
So Saturday comes our one and only qualifying session. We line up based on season-long points, so I'm gridded sixth right next to Tony Ave. Good for me, as he can show me the way, right? Naw, on the out lap he takes off, while I take a more cautious approach.
I logged a 1:46.804, which was 5th fastest. I started 4th because Simon Gregg blew a motor and was required to start at the back of the pack. Heres the grid:
1. Tony Ave 1:43.314
2. Doug Peterson 1:45.597
3. Cliff Eben 1:46.048
4. David Pintaric 1:46.804
5. Amy Ruman 1:47.098
6. Jim McAleese 1:47.280
7. John Baucom 1:47.383
8. Charles Wicht 1:47.806
9. Denny Lamers 1:48.414
10. Allen Lewis 1:49.060
11. Kenny Bupp 1:50.318
12. Andrew Romocki 1:50.399
13. Tim Rubright 1:51.477
14. Simon Gregg 1:45.217
Sunday is race day. I wake up with a stomach flu. Bad, right? Not really. I have to focus on keeping healthy, so I can't focus on being nervous. I suffer from pre-race jitters, big-time. So all I did wa each bananas, breakfast bars, drink Gatorade and water. At the green flag my health issues were gone...at least for the race.
At the start I decided to try and save the rear tires. Tire conservation is a big deal at Daytona. The right front gets beat up because of the loading on the banking, and the rears get burned up because the "horseshoes" have absolutely no grip. You really have to squeeeeeeze the throttle when exiting those three turns. So on Lap 2 I tried using 3rd gear rather than 2nd to limit wheel spin. It didn't work out, so I scrapped that idea.
We ran for four laps until a Full Course Yellow came out for laps 5 & 6. On the restart I became a bit more "racey" and jumped underneath Cliff Eben to momentarily take 3rd place. But as I did so my transmission started to give me problems. Going into Turn 1 I had trouble going into second, and the engine momentarily shut off, meaning no power steering. I did everything I could to avoid running Cliff off the track, and was successfull. He repassed me for third before the end of the lap. I had Simon Gregg on my back now, so we all had to get going.
A lap or two later I had another issue with the transmission exiting Turn 7; this allowe Simon to pass me. I settled in behind him thinking if he was the second fastest qualifier, he and I could work together to move up through the field. Good idea, but one that didn't come to pass.
Lap 14 was when my transmission decided I didn't need second gear anymore. I was passed by several cars as I struggled to keep the car on the track and running. I fell back to eighth and rejoined the race using only 3rd through 5th gears. Trust me, we NEED second gear in these cars. I was at a disadvantage.
I ultimately finished in 8th place. Disappointed, but happy to get more seat time. This is really only the 5th "and a half" Trans Am race for me when you consider the very-early DNFs I experienced earlier in the season. So I am still learning.
I finished 6th in the season long points battle. That was good enough for me to be the 2013 Trans Am Rookie of the Year.
While my name is on the trophy, the people who really earned it are Matt Miller and Jerry Palmer and the rest of the gang at Kryderacing. I would break the car, alot, and they would fix it. So me earning these points isn't about my driving skill; it's about their ability to fix the mechanical problems we faced.
2014 has already started for us. I have a laundry-list of items I want to work on to improve the car and our effort.
One thing I do want to do is go toa "boot camp" of sorts with Tony Ave. 2-3 days of driving the wheels off the car; maybe 600-800 miles of track time with him and me comparing notes. The one thing that I haven't yet got is the performance limits of these cars. The capabilities of these machines are substantial, adn I'm not scratching the surface yet. There are so many times when I look at my in-car video and kick myself (yes, my shins have black-and-blue marks because of this!) for not doing one thing or for doing something completely wrong. The old "oh you CAN go that fast there" lightbulb hasn't quite clicked on in my head yet. But it will...
Lastly, these cars are so cool. They are fast, they look sexy, and make all the right sounds. Trust me, they are not cheap to run. But not nearly as expensive as most people think; about 1/3 the price of any other pro-level series. And remember, there aren't many cars faster than these. So Trans Am is a bargain compared to other options.
Lastly X2...the people of the Trans Am Series are fantastic. The Series adminstrators and staff are very "customer" friendly. The competitors are fierce, but good friends. This is racing the way people like us want it. Good hard, but gentlemanly (and gentlelady), racing.
See ya'll in 2014!
Here are my in-car from this past Sunday:
Laps 1-4:
Laps 7-14:
I had a small amount of experience at the track, so I opted not to test on Thursday. I did so because I knew I would be flying home on Monday rather than Sunday night. This was because the year-end banquest was being held that night and there was no way I was going to attend that and make a flight home. I also have obligations at work, so I had to pick my poison.
This caused me to be a bit "behind the curve" speed-wise. Friday's first practice session was wet. I took the car out on slicks, and truthfully it wasn't all that bad. But I only was out for 3 laps so not to expose the car to any unneccassary risks.
The second session had rain threaten us, and in fact to fall at the tail end of the session. But I was able to get 6 fairly decent laps in to aclimate myself to the track and the car. I was at Daytona last in November 2011 in my old STO Viper. Beleive me, there are substantial differences between an production-based Viper and a tube-frame Trans Am/GT1 car.
So Saturday comes our one and only qualifying session. We line up based on season-long points, so I'm gridded sixth right next to Tony Ave. Good for me, as he can show me the way, right? Naw, on the out lap he takes off, while I take a more cautious approach.
I logged a 1:46.804, which was 5th fastest. I started 4th because Simon Gregg blew a motor and was required to start at the back of the pack. Heres the grid:
1. Tony Ave 1:43.314
2. Doug Peterson 1:45.597
3. Cliff Eben 1:46.048
4. David Pintaric 1:46.804
5. Amy Ruman 1:47.098
6. Jim McAleese 1:47.280
7. John Baucom 1:47.383
8. Charles Wicht 1:47.806
9. Denny Lamers 1:48.414
10. Allen Lewis 1:49.060
11. Kenny Bupp 1:50.318
12. Andrew Romocki 1:50.399
13. Tim Rubright 1:51.477
14. Simon Gregg 1:45.217
Sunday is race day. I wake up with a stomach flu. Bad, right? Not really. I have to focus on keeping healthy, so I can't focus on being nervous. I suffer from pre-race jitters, big-time. So all I did wa each bananas, breakfast bars, drink Gatorade and water. At the green flag my health issues were gone...at least for the race.
At the start I decided to try and save the rear tires. Tire conservation is a big deal at Daytona. The right front gets beat up because of the loading on the banking, and the rears get burned up because the "horseshoes" have absolutely no grip. You really have to squeeeeeeze the throttle when exiting those three turns. So on Lap 2 I tried using 3rd gear rather than 2nd to limit wheel spin. It didn't work out, so I scrapped that idea.
We ran for four laps until a Full Course Yellow came out for laps 5 & 6. On the restart I became a bit more "racey" and jumped underneath Cliff Eben to momentarily take 3rd place. But as I did so my transmission started to give me problems. Going into Turn 1 I had trouble going into second, and the engine momentarily shut off, meaning no power steering. I did everything I could to avoid running Cliff off the track, and was successfull. He repassed me for third before the end of the lap. I had Simon Gregg on my back now, so we all had to get going.
A lap or two later I had another issue with the transmission exiting Turn 7; this allowe Simon to pass me. I settled in behind him thinking if he was the second fastest qualifier, he and I could work together to move up through the field. Good idea, but one that didn't come to pass.
Lap 14 was when my transmission decided I didn't need second gear anymore. I was passed by several cars as I struggled to keep the car on the track and running. I fell back to eighth and rejoined the race using only 3rd through 5th gears. Trust me, we NEED second gear in these cars. I was at a disadvantage.
I ultimately finished in 8th place. Disappointed, but happy to get more seat time. This is really only the 5th "and a half" Trans Am race for me when you consider the very-early DNFs I experienced earlier in the season. So I am still learning.
I finished 6th in the season long points battle. That was good enough for me to be the 2013 Trans Am Rookie of the Year.
While my name is on the trophy, the people who really earned it are Matt Miller and Jerry Palmer and the rest of the gang at Kryderacing. I would break the car, alot, and they would fix it. So me earning these points isn't about my driving skill; it's about their ability to fix the mechanical problems we faced.
2014 has already started for us. I have a laundry-list of items I want to work on to improve the car and our effort.
One thing I do want to do is go toa "boot camp" of sorts with Tony Ave. 2-3 days of driving the wheels off the car; maybe 600-800 miles of track time with him and me comparing notes. The one thing that I haven't yet got is the performance limits of these cars. The capabilities of these machines are substantial, adn I'm not scratching the surface yet. There are so many times when I look at my in-car video and kick myself (yes, my shins have black-and-blue marks because of this!) for not doing one thing or for doing something completely wrong. The old "oh you CAN go that fast there" lightbulb hasn't quite clicked on in my head yet. But it will...
Lastly, these cars are so cool. They are fast, they look sexy, and make all the right sounds. Trust me, they are not cheap to run. But not nearly as expensive as most people think; about 1/3 the price of any other pro-level series. And remember, there aren't many cars faster than these. So Trans Am is a bargain compared to other options.
Lastly X2...the people of the Trans Am Series are fantastic. The Series adminstrators and staff are very "customer" friendly. The competitors are fierce, but good friends. This is racing the way people like us want it. Good hard, but gentlemanly (and gentlelady), racing.
See ya'll in 2014!
Here are my in-car from this past Sunday:
Laps 1-4:
Laps 7-14:
11-20-2013, 07:23 AM
#3
Drifting
David, congrats on your ROY award!
A very good event for TA! I watched from the short chute between 5&6, the acceleration of these cars is just incredible. It was great to see my buddy Charles Wicht get a podium. I think he has had 3 starts in TA over the last three seasons and had finishes of 3rd,4th &6th.
We are looking at putting a TA2 car together next year for 19 yo Bobby Kennedy. We have a Mustang TA2 body in the shop. Bobby drove a Howe/Bemco Camaro in the HSR race this weekend. That car has the ASA type chassis and although is very similar would not be legal for 2014. He did cut some 1:54's with it powered by a carb LS6.
A very good event for TA! I watched from the short chute between 5&6, the acceleration of these cars is just incredible. It was great to see my buddy Charles Wicht get a podium. I think he has had 3 starts in TA over the last three seasons and had finishes of 3rd,4th &6th.
We are looking at putting a TA2 car together next year for 19 yo Bobby Kennedy. We have a Mustang TA2 body in the shop. Bobby drove a Howe/Bemco Camaro in the HSR race this weekend. That car has the ASA type chassis and although is very similar would not be legal for 2014. He did cut some 1:54's with it powered by a carb LS6.