Team Axis at the Glen: Dodging 944's and other Stories

Axis Pete Thibault was up at Watkins Glen recently for the NASA Spec e30 race and you can find his tales of dodging Porsche 944s after the jump.

Have a look at his full race videos: Pete is way too modest about his skills behind the wheel, he made some great moves in that race (an opportunistic outside pass in turn 10 comes to mind).

Just to give you an quick idea, I think the difference between a racer and a guy with a race car is illustrated PERFECTLY in this video: faced with a closing gap, the racer will always press the right pedal (or in the case of an e30...not lift :)).
Pete is a racer!

Pete writes:

After a crack of dawn tow from New Jersey, Justin and I arrived at the Glen with Axis 343 Spec E30 ready for battle.

Team Axis quickly hit the track for practice and the car immediately handled very nicely, perhaps a little soft up in the higher rpm range, but i was running good times.

During this practice session, a 944 drove right into me. Yes, in practice and for no apparent reason other than total brain fade!!! That 944 driver insisted to officials it was me who hit him, a swift correction with some of my own, choice words followed. I love having video in the car!



We started the Saturday race in P3. Our Spec E30 group, running within the larger race group, paced itself at the back of the main pack, we would start the race as we got to the pit in wall. Got an ok start but then was powered by climbing up the esses.
As always, some 944s got in the way with the racing, but ended up finishing up the race P3, little over a second back from the leader. The top 3 E30 fastest laps were 3 tenths apart.



Sunday i started the race in P4 with the motor really showing its lack of power in qualifying. Started to check some motor sensors and found that the air flow sensor was again, faulty. With Justin's help, I installed in a new unit about 10 minutes before gridding for the race.

After the first race lap, i could feel that the motor was back to power. Some great, clean racing i came out in P2 position.



Axis 343 was taken to battle at the Glen and came out with quite a few scars butI think that this race weekend will be hard to top. Running nose to tail with J. Allen, and S. Curran for both days was a blast. Congrats to J. Allen for the both Spec E30 wins.

And to some 944 drivers some situational awareness will do your class some good!