This season I started the season saying "Don't worry about points, just get faster and let the points follow" To that end I committed to running 50% more races than last year, finding a co-driver and attending an Evo School. So how's it working out?
The first half of the season went by quick, and my relative pax rating climbed 2 points vs the previous year by July, with the highpoint being the National Match Tour with a .938 (which was also fresh Hoosiers). Seat time and more regular participation had already started to pay off by the time I got to the EVO School.
At the Evo School I was lucky enough to get 20 time National Champion Mark Dadddio as my instructor. He spotted my difficulty easily and I learned a very key lesson about the correct way to look ahead. I also was reminded to be patient in the slow parts. After these lessons one of course looks for signs that they helped...
Since the Evo School, there have been hints of some improvement. The first SCCA race after it, I had a scratch time that would have been a record setter for me... but I had hit a cone, so it didn't count. It was a scratch time only and scratch times just don't really count in the end. What counts is the fastest clean run. Still scratch times are an indication of what is possible with a little more attention to detail...
On the next event I finally had a genuine win over Leafy, and I was 14th in PAX with a (personal) record shattering 0.949 pax rating. However New Hampshire Motor Speedway courses are atypical for our group with only 40% of the normal attendance. Certainly it sounded good, but it's very difficult to figure out how that compares to the regular full length courses at Devens.
Ok so that's the review, now into the new news
The next weekend we were back at Devens, and some solid signs of improvement came through. I placed 22nd in pax, 8 places higher than ever, and almost scored a second win against Leafy. I came up a quarter second short on my fifth run, but it was pretty clearly my best performance to date at Devens, and to beat me Leafy had to score his highest ever pax rank as well. So he beat me but he had to run his best ever to do it. This is a nice contrast the same mid-august event as last year where I lamented missing the opportunity to catch him when I hit a cone on my single hero run at the end following a spin and a DNF. This time I laid down 2 runs at the end, one within about .25 and the other within .1 but with a cone. This time it wasn't a fluke.
Furthermore, I ended that day on tires that had 120 runs vs tires that had 37 runs the previous year. I probably had a tire advantage last year and did better at a disadvantage this year. The other thing that was encouraging about this event was that it was a difficult course with some tough elements. I can see some folks did worse than usual on it. In the past I used to be one of the ones that fell down on the more difficult courses. This time I did better on the difficult course.
Then, at the end of August, was the next Renegade event. In this event I pushed my scratch times to a new level, but had some cone trouble. I have never before run scratch times let alone clean times as fast as Scruffy in his Porsche GT3 type RS. This time, on tires with 135 runs on them I posted a dirty (+1 cone) time that was only .05 seconds slower than Scruffy's clean runs including the 2 second penalty for the cone. On his very last run scruffy found the extra .9 seconds I was pretty sure he should, and I ended about a second behind him unable to find a fast clean run, but in fun runs I cleaned it up and posted a time more or less equal to his fastest, another first. So Grant usually runs a second faster than scruffy, and my scratch time therefore was (possibly) competitive with Grant on raw times. Grant often has FTD... If I had run clean, and I hadn't handed my car to two super star drivers, I would have had the fastest time of the day. I've never been so close... Brian and Ben are superstar class drivers and so they proved that there was another 1.3 and 1.8 seconds out there respectively vs my scratch times, but again I've never come within 2 seconds of either Ben or Brian before.
So guess what? It's just like the experienced drivers always tell you... seat time, and Evo School pays off. I like the shape of my curve this year...
Now all I have to do is keep it going! As for the points. They came, but not quite enough. I'm in almost the same position as last year, BUT Leafy's car was in working condition from the start this time, unlike last year where he didn't really get it going until the 4th event and then killed me for the second half. This time, I've stayed close. Theoretically I could still win, but the odds are against me. Perhaps next year... or perhaps not. As long as I drive faster I'm happy!
Let's end with some video...
And now... side by side of Brian and me.... (Damn I wish I had video from Ben too!)
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