Skip Barber Midwest Race SeriesSkip Barber Midwest Race SeriesThursday morning we arrived at Putnam's Race Park with the Barber RT 2000 already prepared and ready to go. After a short orientation meeting and car assignment with the coaches we looked forward to a more relaxed race weekend after the initiation at Road America. Practice was in two sessions of 27 laps each. The 1st session Andy got reacquainted with the car and used the 1st half of the session to learn the 1.8 miles / 10 turn course. In the last 15 laps he started to pick it up and lowered his lap time almost every lap. By the end of the session Andy was 7th fastest in his group.
Between the two sessions Andy met with the coaches to learn where he needed to improve. Turn 1 was one of the spots were he could gain a chunk of time if he carried more speed into the turn. Starting the second session he felt more confident and at ease with the car, and now needed to put into practice what he learned from the coaches. Andy learned his lesson well. His lap time was lowered by over a second and this time he was second fastest in his group..
Practice continued on Friday with 2 half hour sessions. A thunderstorm came trough overnight giving the track a good cleaning. By the time Andy's group went out to practice the track was dry. With a green track his fastest lap time was the same as Thursday's best with a badly under steering car.
For the second practice session Andy changed to car #24 but, pushing hard in turn 3 he put a wheel on the grass and spun off the track into a ditch. Again he changed car, to number 24, with 8 laps to go and ran his fastest lap so far. The next two days will be very busy with 2 races on Saturday and Sunday.
This Saturday qualifying session was Andy's best effort so far. With two races Saturday and Sunday Andy had the chance to do two qualifying sessions. In the first session he qualified sixth overall and 5th for the Midwestern Series drivers. After a short break, session two started and Andy improved his time by .25 sec. putting second on the grid behind soon to be Barber Dodge pro driver Salvador Duran.
After an outstanding qualifying session, getting a good start was imperative with 3 drivers around him within .018 seconds. For race one a good start did not happen with Andy dropping all the way back to 7th by turn one. Soon after he settled down and started passing for position. On lap 14 trying to pass for 4th place Andy went too deep, locked the brakes and made contact with the car to the left. After stopping in the pits to check the car for damage he returned to the race behind the safety car in 7th place. Then he started passing cars and finished the 20 laps in 5th place.
Race two was a surprise for most of the veterans in the series because the new rookie on the block was on the front row next to the TelMex driver Salvador Duran. Again the start was his downfall to a good finish. From second place he fell all the way back to seventh. In a few laps he was fourth looking for a way to get past the third place driver. On lap 16 while both cars going nose to tail, were passing a lapper at the hairpin, the second car trough, Andy, was hit on the rear wheel and spun out. Fortunately he had a big enough lead that he maintained his 4th place position.
The speed is coming along, now we have to work on the starts. Tomorrow we have two more races, we know that we can improve on the starts.
Sunday morning we changed back to the #76 car. The handling was repaired and the car was more neutral. Andy looked forward to the next two races. We analyzed the starting problem during dinner and Andy was pretty confident that his next starts would be a lot better. For race one Andy was in the 5th starting position. His start was fabulous as Andy promptly moved up to 3rd position, but an optimistic pass with smoking tires at the hairpin on the 4th lap, by Duran, knocked off Andy's car nose. The locked tires caused Duran to slide wide pushing Andy toward the outside. As Andy turned back to the inside to re-pass he clipped the rear wing strut of Duran's car. With the nose missing Duran drafted Andy down the straight relegating Andy back to 4th where he finished.
In the second race Andy started 4th and again he made a good start and did not loose any positions. For the entire race he battled Jonathan Gore for third spot. On the last lap Andy was pushing hard the whole lap trying to pass but spun in turn 8 loosing 4th place to finish 5th.
This weekend Andy made great strides toward improving his speed. At the start of practice on Thursday Andy was .614 sec. behind the fastest driver and 7th fastest. By the end of the weekend, in the last race, he was .262 sec. behind, 3rd fastest. He is now very close of getting on top of the mountain and achieving a podium finish. He already has the speed and a little more experience in race craft will put him over the top.