Mid Ohio Race report...

[sunir]

Alright here's what happened...my account from the weekend....

In Saturday's morning practice I was out there pulling some fast laps. The track was still cold and the car was oversteering on exit (a charecteristic I have not felt before with my car)...however I continued to push it, call it excitement or stupidity or whatever...I should have known better....I was lapping in the 1:40's - 1:41's and was right there 1-2-3 with David Daniels (M5) and another guy in a ex-E36 PTG M3 in practice (both are fast CM guys) and maybe I was overdriving the car for the cold surface temps or just got red misted...it was stupid and would cost me the weekend where I really could have focused on driving well when the race actually came around...I will be smarter next time.

Coming out of the fast left hander out of thunder valley on like my 4th lap the rear came out and although I was able to correct the angle, I spun the car toward the inside...I minimized the damage because of the correction I made but ran out of room and the car didn't slow on the slick grass...I tagged the tirewall with only the front right corner of the car...overall the damage is not too bad but like I said before, it was my stupidity (no oil on the track, nobody else causing me to spin)...just me being impatient and making a rookie mistake!

A big thanks to Carlos, Roger, Pete, Dado, Mike, Jack and others who helped try and get things put back together for practice starts and qualifying but unfortunately we were like 20min too late and I missed that session (practice starts and qualifying)...it was a pretty tough weekend for the DTMPowerRacing team to say the least but we tried really hard to make the most of it...

I got a 3 month probation for what was said to be a "single car incident" as well as I was not allowed to race in the afternoon sprint race and the next days enduro because as a rookie they make you do practice starts which we missed. I asked if I could finish the 1 hr enduro if someone else would co-drive the first half or if I could start at the back of the grid...man I pleaded with the race steward but he would have the final word...and that was it...I was parked for the weekend!! This sucked 'cause we got the car fixed up enough to enter both races!

Other stuff: I think Randy got into some trouble about driving in the grass, he and I talked about this Sunday...an e30M3 D-mod car rolled on the second turn of madness in the sprint shortening that race to like 2 laps....and the enduro was fairly clean, Raven's E30 M3 was fast and 1st, Ray Mason and Louis Payant ran good races as did Monroe?? Ex-PTG car rounded out the top finishes, David Daniels went home with engine problems, Simon also ran a good race finishing 9th....there were like 45-50 cars entered in the races. I sat and watched on the hill of madness smoking a cig and drinkin' my iced tea and wishing I was in the race !!

That's it...I ran a total of a handful of practice laps...kinda wrecked my car...and watched a race where I think I would have had a great shot of winning my class and finishing top 5 overall....I learned something though, work on my patience a bit and let the track and tires really heat up, if the car doesn't feel right make changes...feel things out better before I go all out....and not only race hard but also race smart!

We will be back at Putnam Park in late June!

[John]

Sorry to hear about your trouble Sunir. I got a 3/13 last year at the Glen for kissing the foam softwall at the Glen in qualifying, it seems that with any sort of body damage and mine was very very slight they will give you a 3/13 at the least. I broke off my mirror and dented my rear quarter which I was able to bang out in the pits.

Don't know what to say about the practice starts deal, sounds like someone was just being a hardass.

My first rookie race at NHIS, they didn't have time to run practice starts and they just had all the rookies start at the back of the field for the first race.

[B.Wilkerson]

Damn Sunir. Sorry to hear about this. At least you can still chas down some Porsches in DE Events. =)
Gimme a call and let me know how the car was...

[SG_M3]

Man, sorry to hear about that. At least you did get a 13/13. Good luck in the future.

[krogerBMW]

You'll be back and racing notime

Good luck in the future... I'll be glad to help out again if your ever back in the midwest (ohio area)

Just read about that E30 rolling on turn 2. Pretty high speed turn there hope everybody was a ok...

[Suneal]

Courtesy of 1highbeam on Bimmerforums:

[sunir]

that car rolled like twice over in the air before landing on it's side on the second turn of madness...saw the incident from the crest of the hill...this is what cut the sprint race short setting the enduro's grid from day one qualifying results....

the guy was 2 garages down from us in the Paddock...a very nice guy, glad to know he's alright!