Congrats Dwain and Tim

[Steve Rea]

Briefly, it was a fun weekend, with 5 cars in attendance Sat. and 4 Sun., and Tim being the only spec-944 in the Enduro. I was just glad I made it to a race, as I had just arrived in the afternoon friday from a cross-country road trip.

 

Sat. - Duane captured the win, with a new class record for lap time as well. Tim came in second with Mark Foley getting his first podium finish, beating out Johnny Pag and myself. Conditions were great with temps I expect in the high 70's, maybe low 80's, light wind and beautiful skies.

 

Tim even commented on how gorgeous the sunset was...which in itself is no big deal, but he did it when in the middle of the enduro! Tim beat out all the competition in his class, which was about 8-10 cars or so. He handily won, lapping at least once, every car but the second place finisher. Steve Bernheim and Duane picked up the overall win by only 29 seconds in a close, exciting 3 hour race.

 

Sun. - 4 cars started the day and 2 finished

Qualifying was pretty close in the 2-4 positions, however Johnny Pag had to drop out after not too many laps due to cracking his oil pan when going off track. Mark took the second spot by about 3/10ths over myself, with Johnny about a second behind that (likely would have been right there given a whole session though). I never saw Timmy in the race, although he smoked off a killer lap in qualifying which also would have been a new track record. Mark's car was the second casualty as he got airborne over the burm at the Bus Stop. While it looked impressive, his oil pan didn't like it too much, as it cracked wide open.

 

Fun stuff...I'm sure Tim'll chime in with some more details.

 

Steve

[Tim Comeau]

Yep. I will as soon as I can get the baby to stop crying!

[Spec-944#70]

Sounds like a nice time was had by all, (except for the oil pans). Wish I could have been there!

See ya!!

[mfoley]

Saturday was a lot of fun. I qualified 3rd just a couple of tenths ahead of Johnny Pag. I was ahead of him through the first turn and the esses and then went too deep exiting star mazada and he got by me. I followed him for the next three or so laps trying to push him to make a mistake. He spun in the off ramp and I got by him. Never saw him again and I finished 3rd.

 

Sunday was interesting. I qualified 2nd behind Tim and just a couple of tenths ahead of Steve. I think Tim set an unofficial track record in qualifying so I knew I wasn't going to catch him. Steve and I were ready for a fun race. It was a split start with our group starting 2nd. When we came around we got a double yellow instead of a green. What's up? When we rounded turn one a Honda S2000 had spun to the inside and ended up on top of the tires protecting the corner worker. It looked pretty bad to me but fortuntately everyone was okay. We got black flagged and came into the pits for about 10 minutes. Our group went out first and we got our start followed by the faster cars' restart. I was ahead of Steve for about 6 laps but as he caught me so did the leaders. An S2000 and a civic were all over me and I overcooked the bus stop. I got a little air when I bounced over a gator and watched the rest of the race from the infield with a busted oil pan. At least I had enough laps to get some points. Good job Steve on 2nd place and congrats to Tim for setting a new track record.

 

Tim - Thanks again for helping me get home. Tim let me use his trailer and he drove his racecar home. What a great class!

 

Lastly congrats again to Tim for an amazing three hour night enduro. Steve and I were the pit crew and Tim drove the entire race. He stopped once for two jugs of fuel, a half quart of oil and some gatorade. It was fun for me to talk to him on the radio for about 75 laps! 8th overall and first in class ... not a bad effort. Way to represent our series Tim.

 

Let's get 15 or so of us out for the next race. I'll be ready.

[944-Spec#94]

Sounds like you guys had a good time!

 

Congratulationst to Tim and Dwain for Wins in spec and Tim's Enduro win.

 

Great job.

Results are up on mylaps.com and I will be posting them on my website soon.

 

Config was Course # 1 CCW?

[944-Spec#94]

Course was #1 CCW...

 

Looks like the class is improving.

On Saturday, in the process of getting his 3rd straight win out of 3 starts in the class in 2004, Dwain Dement smashed the previous record for Course #1 CCW with 2:16.196. The previous record had be set by Tim C one year ago at a 2:17.985. Now you would think that smashing the track record by nearly 2 seconds would set it far out of reach... well

 

"Track Record Timmy" came out hard on sunday and narrowly bested Dwain "Just Win Baby" Dement's Saturday Track record with 2:16.064. Seems like close competition causes us to driver harder and get faster!

 

Mark Foley, Steve Rea and Johnny Pag also set a new person bests on that config with 2:21.052, 2:21.836, and 2:23.567 respectivly

 

Great Job guys.

 

Mark Foley came away with his first Podim finish on Saturday and followed that up with another on Sunday. Steve Rea in his first NASA outting also netted a podium finish on Sunday! Great Job Guys.

 

Series points leaders are as follows...

Tim Comeau 1160...

Jason Wilberding 750 pts (410 pts back)

 

So with a 410 pt lead and only 200 points from two races left in So-Cal Schedule... Tim Comeau will repeat as 2004 944-spec So-Cal series champion. Congratulations Tim on back to back series titles, a first in world of 944-spec.

 

It does however leave a 3 way battle for 2nd in the championship and more toyo bucks at stake.

 

Wilberding has the edge at 750, Dylan Scott is just 70 points back with 680 and Pete Yousko is just 15 points back of Dylan at 665.

 

All 3 racers missed rounds 13 and 14 so they stayed even from the last round.

 

Mathamaticly still in hunt for 3rd place in the points is Dennis Puddester at 485 points. Two wins could vault him in to 3rd if Scott & Yousko fail to score points in the final two races.

 

With two strong finishes Mark Foley vaulted himself from 8th to 6th in points and with some luck and strong finish in the last two races could find himself as high as 4th in the points.

 

Stay tuned for more action next month at Buttonwillow!

[PeanutinCA]

It does however leave a 3 way battle for 2nd in the championship and more toyo bucks at stake.

 

Wilberding has the edge at 750, Dylan Scott is just 70 points back with 680 and Pete Yousko is just 15 points back of Dylan at 665.

 

With forced retirement for an unknown length of time (getting more injections Friday in attempt to fix myself), this year is done for me. That leaves the battle for second between Yousko and Wilberding. Should be a hardy battle if they meet at BW for the final event?

 

P.Dilly.

[Tim Comeau]

Thanks for all the kind words you guys.......

I was trying really hard.

First of all, THANKS A TON to the 944-spec drivers who came out and raced, to my hardy and able pit crew, MARK FOLEY and STEVE REA, and to my sponsors BLACK FOREST nad LIQUI-MOLY. Thanks also to Sampson Communications for the radios. They have a great deal on a radio package right now.

I really appreciate all the support. Mark and Steve, you know I couldn't have won without you guys!

As Steve said, the weather WAS perfect all weekend. We didn't even set up the E-Z-UP until late in the weekend.

I want to welcome 2 new drivers to our series:

Steve Rea from Santa Monica, CA

Johnny Pag from Boston, MA

First time racing in the class so, "WELCOME TO THE SHOW!!"

 

Saturday:

I talked Johnny Pag into entering his 944-spec car (ex-Bernheim # 10 "El Diablo" car) instead of his Ferrari. So along with Dwain, that made 5 entries. Max TOYO TIRES dollars. I outqual'd Dwain, but was a victim of a botched start and we went into turn 1 side-by-side....into the esses still side-by-side, then fearing even accidental contact that might take me out of the enduro that evening, I backed out and let him have the lead. I was staying with him until I experienced some technical difficulties with my driving, and some traffic. He opened a gap that I couldn't close and I had to settle for second. Got that on video (with sound this time!) Dwain set a new record as reported earlier. A 2:16.1xx. Team Vision had to leave for practice elsewhere so Dwain ran the enduro, but missed Sunday's race.

 

Sat. night enduro:

It was great. We started second to last and just before we rolled off, I decided to check the headlights for operation one more time. First they wouldn't open, then the right trim ring came loose.......Ahhhhhhhhh! Mark and Steve dove for the trusty duct tape and nailed down the trim ring. I decided to leave them up and risk breaking one early rather than have to stop to pop them open. The start was uneventful and I just started picking guys off where we SAFELY could. I was having fun celebrating each pass with a quick call to Mark on the radio, "That's onnnnne." .........."That's twooooo." The dust clouds were probably the biggest threat to surviving the enduro. There were a couple times when I just couldn't see. I slowed, held an inside line thinking they spun to the outside and would be rejoining on the outside, and came through it just fine. Once, I came out of a cloud with 2 other cars by me and was the first to drop down to second gear and floor it. What do you know, gained 2 more positions. I came over Lost Hill one time to find Johnny Pag's Ferrari spinning on the right, a Lotus Super 7 spinning on the left, A gray Mazda RX-7 in the dirt and trying to rejoin on the left......crazy fun! I threaded the needle and didn't lose too much speed.....Whew! Stayin' alive. One time, after dark, I was just getting ready to turn in at the big Riverside sweeper. Mark had radioed earlier that Tom Peterson's white RSA and the black Porsche Cup car driven by Hugh Plumb, were coming up on me. I saw the lights of the first car, pointed Tom by and here comes Hugh, flyin' right behind him, trying to get by me before the turn in point. I almost turned in on him! That would have hurt because he would have hit on my driver's side. I think Hugh tried a little too hard maybe because he couldn't get it slowed doiwn enough and had contact with Peterson's car. Fiberglass pieces flew up over the top of my car! I wish I had a 3-hour video tape.

The car ran fine and I was pushing hard during the daylight portion of the race. After dark, I was still driving as hard as I dared. You just couldn't see all the track all the time. Our pit stop went very well and I was back out there in the fight. We finished first in class by over a lap.

My neck was sore from the beating, I had a good-sized headache, I missed supper, but I was happy as hell to have finally won my class at a NASA enduro. That's 2 second's and a first.

Mark and I went back to the Willow Ranch for some BBQ supper. We were too tired to get out of our driving suits first, and as such suffered a good ribbing from some Nissan SE-R drivers. I just held up our first place medal and the joking switched to a collective, "DOH!" on their part. We had the highest trump card.

 

Sunday:

Just Steve, Mark, and myself left in the class. I ran away and had a great dice/race with Madeline in a red RX-7. During the race, I saw Foley come to a stop out in the corn fields. I understand he flew through the air real good. He said he was in the air so long they started serving drinks! I thought I saw blue oil smoke along with the dust. Hoped he wasn't on fire.

I was seriously driving my butt off to catch Madeline. She was doing everything right and kept a 30-40? foot gap between us. We were getting airborne over Lost Hill. Got that on video, too. I must have been trying real hard if I got a faster lap than Dwain did on Sat. The first I heard of that lap time was on Joe's post above. And that was in the ol' narrow track 924S......

It really was a great racing weekend.

See you guys at the next event.

[uberklasse]

sounds like a ton of fun...I think that is Madeline's (sp?) track. She caused us fits at the WSIR race a couple months back and seems like she is dead on our pace...too bad we couldn't get her to run in the 944 group!

 

did you beat her Tim?

 

 

Things are looking pretty challenging to get ANY work done on my car "IF" I can make the next race.

[Tim Comeau]

Jason, can you make it to the STS event?

 

Also, I just saw the mylaps website. Our little team ran as high as 6th overall out of 27 teams! Holy crap!

 

I didn't beat Madilynne Crowe. She got me by a little. I set the new track record at 2:16.0xx..............but she turned a 2:15.9xx fighting to stay ahead of me. We had a great discussion afterwards, then later, I called her over to see some of the video.

On the start, I think she beat me into the esses, then I passed her under braking for star Mazda. I stayed ahead until I had to get on the brakes hard because a Laser missed a shift coming out of Cotton Corners, right in front of me. She shot by both of us and I chased her for the rest of the race. She's a good driver and I told her the RX-7 platform isn't very different from the Porsche 944. If she wants to mix it up with us on a regular basis, maybe she should buy a 944?

[uberklasse]

There is no way I can make the STS at this point...I am still trying to make the final race at Buttonwillow.

 

You can't make someone join the class, but I am sure if Madeline considered that she could race against people in a fun class than maybe she would take the leap. I don't know her, but maybe you can do some selling Timmy

[Tim Comeau]

I didn't mean I would MAKE her join the class, but rather , it might make sense to her to do so.

[Tim Comeau]

BTW, the race oder was:

Sat:

1. Dement

2. Comeau

3. Foley

4. Pag

5. Rea

 

Sun:

1. Comeau

2. Rea

3. Foley