Skip Barber Midwest Race Series

Mid Ohio

August 26, 2004 Practice

Mid Ohio is a new track for Andy. Thursday is a free practice day and a good day to learn the track. Andy has been fast all year but not having very good luck with race finishes. After the first practice session Andy really impressed the competition with some very fast lap times. He has improved so much this year by his ability to quickly learning the track. For Mid Ohio he got extra help by watching Tony Cello’s in car video and studying Tony’s lines. The only problem for this weekend is that Skippy used the “bus stop chicane” between turn one and two. When Tony raced there they did not use the chicane, so Andy had a little problem figuring out that section early on. He finally got it by the end of the day. Andy’s best time for Thursday practice was 2:08.79 in the rain and 1:45.86 on a drying track.

August 27, 2004 Practice

On Friday the weather improved and it was sunny all day. On the first practice Andy improved his time by over 2 seconds as he continued to learn the track. In the second session Andy made another great improvement and decreased his lap time to 1:41.637, second fastest behind Brian Frisselle’s time of 1:41.434. The incredible point is that Andy made his fast lap the second time around after his warm-up. By the third lap his car started slowing down as he was losing power. It took Brian 6 laps to obtain his fast lap. We were pretty upbeat after practice as Andy was showing great potential, but we were concerned about the decrease in speed, as the engine got warmer.

August 28, 2004 Qualifying

On Saturday the weather changed and it started raining again. It seems that this year a rain cloud has been following us around. We have not had one weekend, so far, without rain. Qualifying for Race One was on a wet track and Andy earned the second starting spot with a time of 2:05.968, a whopping 1.61 sec. faster than Brian Frisselle! Race Two qualifying was on a slowly drying track and Andy had the second fastest time, 2:04.948. He actually went about a second faster but the transponder failed, again, on his last lap.

Andy’s first race did not last long as our second place jinks struck again. Starting in second position he made a good start to maintain second place. Pushing hard behind the leader going in turn one he went a little wide on the exit and the high curb spun him out crashing into the tire wall. In just ¾ of a lap Andy’s race was over. At Mid Ohio they start the race in the back straight instead of the normal start finish line.

For Race 2 he started 9th. His lap time was disqualified because Andy put 4 wheels on the grass. Skippy has this silly rule that if you go off the track you start toward the back. As is usual lately, Andy had a great start and was 4th by the first lap and by lap 2 he was third. Then the weather really got bad with lightning and heavy rain. Because of the lightning the race was cancelled. We will have to start allover again tomorrow.

August 29, 2004 Race Day

Today the first race is the make up for yesterday race. Again Andy had a super start and was 4th by lap one. This time he had enough momentum to take the lead by the first turn but was boxed in and had to slow down. By lap 2 he was 3rd and took over 2nd place by lap 10 holding that position to the finish. In race 3 Andy started last because of the 1st lap crash in Race One.  By lap one he picked up 4 spots. One lap later he was in 8th place, then he passed two more cars to finish 6th.

For race four, second place jinks kicked in again. Andy started second and was running second in lap 3 when an inexperienced driver tried to make a pass by diving inside at the keyhole. With his brakes locked up he ran into Andy’s side pod and spun him out. By the time Andy got restarted again he was one half laps back in last place.

The weekend did not go as well as we wanted but got some more points for the Mid West Championship, but it did take us out of the running for first place. The last race is at our home track at Road America. We are confident that things will go a lot better there.