Axis Pete is (unofficially still) Nasa NE Spec e30 champion for 2010. Congratulations!
Halloween weekend marked the last race weekend for NASA NE. After some car problems at the Watkins Glen race, I decided to head down to the track one day early on Friday to work on car setup and testing.
Friday morning started with a brisk chill, about 34 degrees and about 15mph wind. Despite the cold weather I was excited to hit the track, with my track notes and brain in check. The car felt good right out of the box but after some setup work, the car put power (such as it is :) ed.) down better and felt well balanced in the high speed corners. It never felt this good all season. The rest of the Axis crew showed up just after I was done with Friday practice and well chilled. After a few beers and food, I went to bed dreaming of warm weather.
Saturday started out about the same as Friday: windy and cold. In practice i took the time to bed in some new brake pads for the race. Then set out for Qualifying hoping I would get a clean lap.
NASA NE was running one race group (that's like 437 cars all at once ed.) which tends to make the sessions crazy with some of the faster cars lapping 20 seconds faster than the slowest ones so Sean Curran and I made sure to take our Spec E30s to grid very early hoping for clear track.
We were 3rd and 4th in line but, as I feared, qualifying started out crazy and ended crazy. Every lap was filled with traffic, I managed to get one ok lap in right before I has a "moment" with a GTS3 car. THis resulted in a broken wheel and a punctured tire.
Lucky for me Phil's Tire Service was there offering trackside support and I was able to get a new Wheel and tire in no time. After checking the alignment and for other damage, we threw some fuel into the tank and were ready for the race.
The race was not too exciting, just some handling issues after the first lap when the car developed a push in every corner. Later found out that toe measurement was correct but in the wrong direction, Oops. Still, I managed to hold off Sean to take the win and reset the new track record to 1:37.249.
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