TJR MotorSports

It was an exciting race weekend, and in the end it was a very successful weekend for the Bulldog Motorsports Team as a whole. To come away with the lead the SCCA national point’s Championship in both Prototype 1 and Prototype 2, was a great result. We got both prototypes on the podium, both Saturday and Sunday, a great measure of mid-season performance.

The game-plan going in was to have as clean of a race as possible, and work on improving the set-up of the car and my ability get the full potential. Additionally, we needed to make sure that we were in it for the whole race duration and score maximum points. We came away from the entire race weekend happy with the results and the performance of the car, and excited for the future races.

What was New?

This weekend I worked with Parker Nicklin as a driver coach reviewing video and data. Parker is a professional race car driver that had worked his way up to running full-time in the Pro Mazda series. Additionally, Parker was accepted by Schmidt Peterson Motorsport as an IndyCar development driver. Parker has spent a number of years working with high level driving coaches and race engineers, and demonstrated that he has a strong understanding of how impart his racing knowledge to aspiring enthusiast like myself.

Finally, we are getting close to maximum results with the new AP brake system, by the time Sunday race was underway I had dramatically improved my braking ability. The coaching from Parker was invaluable. I spent a lot of laps working on braking deeper and deeper into the brake zones. This allowed me to race some of the faster P1 cars, and made for a fun afternoon.

Our car was a lot better than I was expecting. It was really pleasing for me to go out on track during the Friday morning test session and see just how much the car has improved in its current configuration.

The race weekend had the typically progression of getting more familiar with the track configuration each day and gradually picking up more and more speed. We actually did our fastest lap of the weekend late in Race 2 on Sunday on old tires. Perhaps I maybe a slow learning, but I am willing to learn, and hopefully I’ll continue to learn.

The Race Weekend Goals:

• WIN Race 1 on Saturday and Race 2 on Sunday
• Set a new track record for P2
• Take the lead in the national P2 points standing

I feel blessed that we were able to accomplish all of our goals!!

Both races were a lot of fun, unfortunately it was spring time in the farm lands of Bakersfield and the bugs were not cooperating, and the visibility of the Gopro diminished over the course of the race, nonetheless, enjoy: