2010 National Runoffs

[jmark]

Brakke won, Greg took 2nd and Steve took 7th.

[gundee]

*

[preith]

Brakke won, Greg took 2nd and Steve took 7th.

Greg looked great at the start but the on restart after the FCC Brakke appeared to jump the start a bit too early and once past Greg he drove away. IIRC it was a 10+ second lead on 2nd at the finish. It was quite a bit cooler and very windy today, I have to wonder if that played a role.

EDIT: oops, Steve beat me to it.

Edited September 24, 2010 by preith

[Bruce Palmer]

I'd assume Greg was steamed when that first yellow came out but probably towards the end of the race he might have preferred seeing another. The foibles of racing.

Talked to Pam after the race and what happened to hold Steve so perpetually in that position was that a piece of roll bar foam got loose and wedged under the gas pedal acting as a governor. The guys in the next pits got it and marked it with duck tap and a Sharpie as "Driver Excuse #21"....

Overall Pam sounded happy. Heading out tomorrw after the races and heading for the sprint car Museum in Knoxville IA. These guys don't miss a motoring nothing if it's within a reasonable distance.

[Bruce Palmer]

Well, the speedcasttv is working for me again. Without it working at race time, it forced me to go to a froiend's house and watch the race with 3 other Datsun shop "regulars"...... which was more fun than here at home by myself.

Oh, and forgot to mention Pam said there are torn up caonpies everywhere, things are ripped and twisted all over. Even a big car hauler had it's canopy folded back over the trailer. There's a buck eigthy five shot in the butt....

[tube80z]

I'd assume Greg was steamed when that first yellow came out but probably towards the end of the race he might have preferred seeing another. The foibles of racing.

Talked to Pam after the race and what happened to hold Steve so perpetually in that position was that a piece of roll bar foam got loose and wedged under the gas pedal acting as a governor. The guys in the next pits got it and marked it with duck tap and a Sharpie as "Driver Excuse #21"....

Overall Pam sounded happy. Heading out tomorrw after the races and heading for the sprint car Museum in Knoxville IA. These guys don't miss a motoring nothing if it's within a reasonable distance.

I'm going on record as that's not a part that I worked on. I've already been blamed for a number of other things

Still a top ten is a pretty good achievement. I feel for Greg as it looked like he had that one in the bag.

Cary

[jmark]

Greg's comments after the race from the SCCA board.

Greg Ira - Second Place

“My car seems to be fast right from the start, with minimum warmup. I tried to go with the fastest pace I could. Aaron [Downey] and Jon [brakke] were mixing it up a bit. I think a led by about three seconds. I put my head down and did not even look in my mirrors. That [the win] is something I might have pulled off had the race stayed green.”

“I had an idea of what I wanted to do on the restart, which did not work at all. [i planned] sort of a NASCAR-type start where you might go a little bit before you see the green. He [the starter] really held it for a long time. Jon had a good run and so did Aaron. They both passed me going into [Turn] One. So, that didn’t work. But, once Jon got warmed up, I baked my car trying to keep the same interval and that really didn’t work.”

[Bruce Palmer]

NISSAN 350Z wins gold in GT2. Good race.....

And our guys are at the Sprint Car Museum in Knoxville Iowa today. GRRrrrrr!

[terry]

A funy thing happened during the E-Production race. Al Epperly, Steve Epperly's father and I were standing at the wall between start finish and the end of the hot pit. The wind was blowing hard and a higher gust of wind took Al's hat off and blew it on to the track aproximatley 30 yards down. I saw the hat for 3 or 4 laps and forgot about the hat. The next day, Al, Steve, Pam and myself were down by turn 5. Pam walked down close to the track and soon came back stating she thinks she sees Al's Z Therapy hat. She recieved disbelived looks and statements of thats not the hat, it would have to travel more than one and a half miles. After the Showroom Stock B race Pam walked out to the side of the track and retreved Al's hat. Some times truth is stranger than fiction!

[gira]

Fellow Z folks,

Thanks for following us in our quest at the Runoffs. My comments. Don Bunt got hosed as he came around a 115mph blind corner to see an RX7 bouncing off the walls in front of him. Bam! That's it. Epperly is right, time on that track is very important and he did an excellent job learning and keeping the car in one piece. We've got our 240Z rung out as much as humanly possible. The fact of the matter is Jon Brakke just flat has us covered. RA is considered his home track, his car is very well prepared, he's on the committee that helps promote competition adjustments, and he's a great driver. Oh, how about his little 4 cylinder engine that is roughly the cost of my entire effort. He had us covered by about 1.5 secs a lap and just didn't really show it, which is exactly what I would have done if I were in his shoes. My car will inch in front of him on the straights, but not by much. My car will pull out of the corners a little better than his, the rest is his, cornering, braking, etc.

Believe it or not, this makes 5 (five) second place finishes for my car at the Runoffs. Ugh. We really go there to win. I guess we'll try and get a lead trophy for the Miata for next year, otherwise we're all racing for second. What fun is that??

Again, till next year.....

Anyone that wants Z car track help, contact me.

See you,

Greg Ira

[Bruce Palmer]

It looked like from the entry list to be more of a SUPER REGIONAL with a whole bunch of entries being from within about a 7 iron of RA. Two out of 30 from farther west than Kansas?

Steve said he really likes the course and with only a total of 11 laps in sessions 2 & 3 he did pretty well. We watched his in-car yesterday and he pointed out a lot of areas that appeared to be level which once he pointed out what they were doing showed up some major up and downage.....

Anyway, Greg, suffice to say we could not see much of the orange car from Steve's incar.....