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WERA ’15, Round 3&4 – PIRC (Wet and Ugly)

This one will be brief. Saturday's races were wet. Extremely wet. Water out-lasting the track drainage systems in several corners. Over both days, I was content to sit back and not risk much. Mark Patterson checked out and won all the races on Saturday with his Aprilia RSV4, with John Fitz and Michael Leek battling it out not far behind.

Saturday evening, we barbequed at the track under the dryness of the Pitt Race garages, courtesy of 419 Racing. Had a great time. Dad and I hung out with Doug, Marion and a host of others. Highlight of the weekend, really. :)

Sunday's weather wasn't much better. While the rain let up, it allowed the track to dry, but not completely. Formula 1 was our first race and with a drying line, we elected to stick with full rains.

I was able to get the hole shot and lead for the first few laps. Parts of the track were dry, but other areas like T2/T3 and especially T4 – were still wet. All the accumulated water was draining/collecting down into T4, which made that the worst area, as we all tip-toed through each lap.

Dad was showing that we had someone behind us, John Fitz. The two of us had dropped the rest of the pack, running around in these sketchy. I was riding comfortably, not pushing the issue or wanting to do anything silly. On the last lap, I pushed a bit harder to try and edge out a bit of a gap, which we were able to do – winning by 1.6 seconds. It was good to get a win under our belts, as John has been riding quite well.

During the break, we (well, I mainly) made the decision to put a slick on the back, thinking it might be an advantage in the continually-drying conditions. A quick tire swap from Shag Moto, our Pirelli vendor – and we were ready to go. During that time however, two guys had already highsided in the mixed conditions, along with several other crashes – one of who had a slick on the back. The exit of T5 had some hidden water past the blind crest that had caught several people off guard.

Just as we went out for the warm up lap, the rain started spitting again. Damn. I decided to grid at the back of the field, not wanting to test out the grip limits of a slick as water came down. I was 7th or 8th for the first couple laps and took it easy, gingerly making our way up to 4th.

With back to back races, there wasn't time to make any changes. I gridded up again from the back and circulated to 4th place. Ending the weekend on two wheels was the primary goal of the weekend and we were victorious – if you want to call it that.

Overall, I had been looking forward to a dry weekend at Pitt Race, but it just didn't play out that way. It became a weekend of survival. There was more to lose than to gain, but the win in Formula 1 was an added bonus. In hindsight, we should have left the rains on all-day Sunday, but it was a crapshoot either way. Ideally having a full-on intermediate tire would have been the hot setup, but they're in short supply and hard to get if you don't show up to the track with one already.

In any event, this one is in the rear view and we're onto Mid-Ohio. There's plenty of room for improvement after our last couple years there. I used to go really well there, but the last couple years have been a struggle.

A special thanks to my dad who stuck it out under the lackluster conditions both days. It rained so much, we had to go shopping for a new pair of shoes for him. That's rare.

Thanks for reading.

Friday, July 3rd, 2015 | POSTED AT: 5:01 AM
FILED UNDER: Race Reports