BEAVERUN SCCA NATIONAL 06-18-04
The fourth H-Production report of the season comes
from an SCCA national event at Beaverun Motorsports Complex in Pennsylvania,
a very fast 1.5 mile, 12-turn track with a lot of elevation changes and two
very long straights.
This event included a practice session and
qualifying session Saturday and a 30 lap race on Sunday. The weather was
beautiful. Mid 70's and sunny the whole weekend.
Overall, the event had a decent turnout of
small-bore Production cars, with about 25 total in the field, including:
10 FPs
7 GPs
8 HPs
The competition at this event was again very
stiff. Several top drivers from around the east coast came in. We got a
couple of practice sessions on Friday afternoon and learned the layout of the
track.
Saturday morning practice was clean and found a
fast lap of 1:10:8. Saturday
afternoon practice was smooth for the first 10 laps or so, and found a low
1:10.0, but the same strut problems I
had a few races ago came back. The struts began losing a combination of
compression and rebound. The car started bouncing through a few turns, though
not as bad as an event earlier this year that
I wrote about. We ended the session about 1/2 way through and pulled
it back to the paddock.
With that, we were qualified 4th
of 8 in class, about 2 seconds
behind the first
place qualifier in HP, held by
a former national champion in a Sprite.
We were about 1.5 seconds behind 2nd
place (a Mk 1 VW Scirocco
driven by a BeaveRun driving school instructor), and 1 second behind 3rd
place (another MR who had won
the Mid Ohio National two weeks ago)
On race day, we were gridded 12th overall, 4th in
class of a 24 car field, ahead of all 7 GP cars.
I was not very optimistic about race day, figuring
the struts were going to give me problems. After they cooled, they did have
considerably more resistance than at the end of the session, but they were
certainly not "right". I had little hope that the results would be good.
At the start of the race, I did have a pretty good
start, (I didn't jump the flag this time!) and we made it through the first
lap cleanly.I was nose to tail with the 3rd-place Sprite as he entered turn 12
too hot and got out shape, allowing me to pass and assume 3rd place. We ran
two very hard laps that ended up being the fast laps of the weekend for me
(1:09.8), but as soon as the struts warmed up, the bouncing came back. That
compounded with hot tires started sapping some lap time.
I ran the middle portion of the race with a GP
Datsun 510 and an FP Honda behind me for at least 7 or 8 laps. I was handily
leading the 5th place Mk 1 Scirocco, so rather than push the car too hard
holding off out-of-class cars, I pointed them by and worked the rest of the
race trying to perfect a couple key turns. Next thing you know the 1 lap to
go sign was shown, and we ended the race on
the lead lap with all of the HP cars, safely with a 4th place. New lap
records were set in all three classes.
Next race, Mid Ohio Regional (secret weapon test
session) July 30.
Respectfully submitted,
Matt Brannon
74 X1/9 HP
#22