Greg Ira E Prod. 240Z Runoffs thread!

[gira]

To all Classic Z'ers,

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I have been working since the race ended. Thank you so much for all the well wishes. It just wasn't meant to be this year and I really really thought we had the best chance we've ever had. Brakke never races well and I had me car set up awesome to go 10/10's for the duration.

Well, it didn’t turn out as we had hoped and that’s racing I guess. Weather moved in. We watched the radar all day and although it had looked overcast many times throughout the week, it hadn’t ever sprinkled enough to cause concern of tire choice. We were the last race of the last day. On the way to the grid there were sprinkles on the windscreen. We took a quick survey of my major competition and they were all on slick tires. We kicked around the idea of going with rains and had them on pit road when we were under the five minute warning to start the race. We relied on the current weather radar and the past 10 days to stay on slicks and for there to be a dry line. We took the green and the rain just poured. Turn one the pole sitter goes off, turn 8 the outside front row guy goes off. It’s just survival at this point. I get passed by a couple of guys and tell Guy that I can survive this and have to come in for tires. Coming in for tires in a sprint race is sure death unless you get a double yellow to bunch the field, which I considered very likely in this condition. We changed to full Goodyear rains and made it out on the lead lap. I proceeded to set the fastest lap of the race of all the cars with the new tires. There were cars all over the track, in the walls, in the gravel traps, etc. They waived the flag about 3 laps early and never had a double yellow. WE were jipped and the deal was a total crap shoot. Three of four of the slower qualifiers(37 each) started on rains and finished on the podium. What else could they do except take that chance? It was a low probability gamble and it turned out for them. Oh Well, there’s always next year.

Jesse Prather sold his EP car to his dad to run in GTL next year. Jesse is building a new EP Mazda MX5 for next year. Great.

Greg Ira

[jmark]

Greg it was easy for the guys in the back to start on rains as they had no chance otherwise. You drove great to get back to 9th place after switching over. You & Jesse were the class of the field even in the rain. See ya at the Prod Fest.

Edited October 2, 2009 by jmark

[preith]

Thought you guys might like to see this, Prather (Q-P2) posted some in-car footage from the EP race:

Not that it matters, but the #52 blue/white RX7 2nd Gen @ 1:49, 5:17, & 7:16 was my instructor at the MC school in '04, Jeff Willert.