Saturday, June 19, 2010

Watkins Glen F5000 Revival Weekend


Watkins Glen F5000 revival weekend last was good, however spotty weather, some nice days during the week, started to turn overcast with intermittent rain showers. As you know we don't run the F5000 cars in the rain, too dangerous and cars are too valuable... say nothing of the drivers ??? Oh heck most of them are too old anyway...

Sat qualifying race , weather good, however I had some issues with the RIAM Eagle, throttle pedal placement position change when brake pedal started dropping during the race. Quite unnerving,had to rely on my left foot braking technique to make it through the race. Otherwise my right foot would get caught up between the brake & gas pedal, no room for down there in the foot box to have this happen. I soldiered through the race finished 3rd in class and 5th overall. Not too bad for an ole guy, oldest racing a car like the Eagle. Amazingly we were 4 seconds a lap faster than last year, 'Fast is Never Fast Enough" My Left Foot Breaking technique saved the day...

Sunday rain came in , we missed the only early practice session and later in the afternoon F5000 feature race was gridded. The Fog rolled in big time... We delayed for awhile, hoping it would lift, than ran two pace laps under yellow and called it a day. Fogged out of the race... so bad you couldn't see the corner workers at flagging stations until you got right on top of there location. Our Sat qualifying race results held for our final weekend F5000 revival.

My good friend Will Silk exec editor of Sports Car Digest www.sportscardigest.com was on hand for the 3rd consecutive year to help out RIAM Master mechanic Bill Losee and Team owner Doug Magnon. It is really amazing to meet up with 6 or more of New Face Book friends at the Walter Mitty and the Glen . My ole friend Joe Cali was on hand as well as Oscar Koveleski, Prez of the Polish Racing Drivers of America, to give moral support...PRDA racing tips.? Just a Great Weekend !

Next F5000 race event will be at Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin in July 15-18 . RIAM and crew of the Eagle is all race prepped and ready to go ! RA is one of my favorite places the Eagle does well there.

All the best Best Tony a2zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

~

No comments:

Post a Comment