Mid-Ohio Great Lakes Race of Champions Majors Tour Race Results – June 2016
It’s late Sunday afternoon as I begin to write this blog entry, I am mildly soaked in champagne from the podium celebration and fatigue is setting in. Nonetheless, I am elated with a strong sense of pride that we’ve put the early struggles of the season behind us and travel all the way to Lexington, Ohio and scored two wins against some of the best competition in the country. This National race at Mid-Ohio in June was billed as the warm up and testing grounds for that National Championship Runoffs that will be held here in September. The Team learned a lot about the track and we now have a strategy in place to deal with changing weather wet/dry conditions associated with racing at Mid-Ohio (sometime reffered to as Mud Ohio). We came within .33 of a second of the Prototype 1 track record, more importantly we’re confident that we know where to find that last bit of speed!
Learning the Track
The Mid-Ohio is comprised of thirteen turns laid out over rolling hills. The circuit has very technical corners, 3 of which you can’t see the exit until you enter the turn. The more challenging turns are blind corners that you don’t get a visual on the exit until you’re half-way through the corner driving through the apex. Learning this track in the humid Midwest weather is the most physically and mentally demanding thing I’ve ever done in a race car.
Day 1: Practice/Qualifying Session 1
Arrive at the paddock to be informed the Stohr has some issues, after some diagnostics it’s determined that we have a dead cylinder. This means an engine change, or perhaps I should say our third motor swap in the last two race weekends. We miss the morning practice session. The afternoon qualifying session begins at 4:30 PM so there is ample time to put the spare motor in and get car #81 ready to go! Unfortunately, the qualifying session is very crowded and I never manage a clean lap. This results in us qualifying 4th in the P1 class with 1:26.62.Tomorrow we’ll need to let it all hang out during the second qualifying session.
Day 2: Qualifying Session 2
Qualifying/Race day, we engage in our standard routine, the morning is spent making sure everything on the Stohr WF-1 is 100%. Then we proceed with analysis of the on-board car data, Jeff Shafer and I discuss were speed can be gained and review the on-board video and debate the racing line. Braking points and zones will be critical. I start the qualifying gridded in 12th (a big improvement) and quickly move up into the top five and get some clear sailing. With a few clean laps I eventually knock 2.6 seconds off my time and put the car on pole in P1 with a 1:23.98.
Day 2: Race 1
Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating, and the much expected rain arrives. The competitors that raced earlier in the day got out on a dry track. I don’t mind racing in the wet, however, if it’s a significant downpour…..that’s another story. With cooler temperatures and pouring rain nobody could get heat in their rain tires, several race cars have “off track” adventures and it a basic clusterF@%&! It was more survival than a race as attempting to overtake would be very high risk. Long story short; I held our position out front and survived the rain shorted race to score a win in Race 1 of the weekend.
Day 3: Race 2
The Group 9 Race is scheduled for 4PM, so Naia and I zip up to Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and yes it’s awesome!! It’s a welcome distraction, waiting around the track all day for a big race can get tedious…..but I digress.
There are some intermittent rain showers throughout the middle of the day, by race time the sun is out and the conditions are close to perfect and as they say…gentlemen start your engines. Enjoy the video:
