Recent Media Highlights
Sunday, June 29, 2008, 10:30 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen
As some of you can probably recall, back in April I skipped a NASA-SE event in favor of a trip to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to race with the Skip Barber Mazdaspeed Challenge series for SPEEDtv.com. For those of you that missed it, you can find the article on SPEED's website in two installments at the following links: Part 1 and Part 2.

The adventure was a great experience, but I've recently gotten some additional exposure from a Road & Track writer that was also in attendance.  If you pick up a copy of the July issue, you will find an article covering the event on pages 111-112.  There's some more information on the event in the August issue of Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, including a picture with me at a driver's meeting (I'll take what I can get!).

Finally, the News & Observer published an article yesterday, June 28, featuring yours truly.  If you didn't get the printed copy dropped at your doorstep, you can find the article on their website.

Barber Motorsports Park - SpecE30
Monday, June 9, 2008, 09:38 AM
Posted by Mike Skeen
The trip to Barber was a last minute one for me. The two was going to be a long eight hours if I made good time, the heat was forecasted to be high, and the turnout wasn't looking too great. I finally decided I had to go in order to acquire points towards the Southeast SpecE30 Championship. Sure enough, the trip took forever and there was plenty of heat, but I did leave with some points.

The adventure started on the way to the track, of course. After making decent time through Atlanta traffic on a Friday afternoon, we found ourselves in traffic right before the Alabama border on I-20 due to construction. We decided it was a good time to get off the highway and take a break at the first exit where we ran into a fellow NASA racer. He had already found out that traffic went for miles and there was an alternate route via two lane country road. We followed. After that point it was clear sailing to the track and time to socialize at the local Mexican restaurant.

Saturday morning I found out the tire supplier didn't bring the right tires for me, which put me in a tough spot because I didn't have any of the new spec tires. Fortunately, everyone agreed to let the rule slide on this first event and I was allowed to run the old Toyo RA-1s. Unfortunately, the SpecE30 field was dwindling due to mechanical troubles in the enduro on Friday. By the time racing came around, there were just seven cars, but still some stiff competition. I managed to land pole and break away from the pack in Saturday's race, but Sunday wasn't quite as easy.

I had pole position for the start yet again, but this time there was a red flag thrown on lap one for a sports racer that caught fire. Everyone got out of that situation unscathed, but the restart put the SpecE30 pack right behind a group of Porsche 944s and PT cars that made the race interesting. After working traffic a couple laps with Damion Moses right behind me, he slipped by when I was slowed by a PTB car in the Tunnel Turn. He got a small lead on that lap with more help from traffic, but I looked at the clock and knew there was plenty of time to make up the difference. I took my time closing the gap and we went back-and-forth for a couple laps before I secured the lead on the outside of the hairpin. At that point, I put a couple cars between us and opened up a comfortable gap to finish in the lead.

What a great weekend right? Yeah, it was until I got back to Atlanta. The tow rig broke down and the weekend became a week. Oh well, see you at CMP even if I have to drive the racecar to the track!

997 GT3 Cup Test
Wednesday, June 4, 2008, 07:48 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen
What an experience! I wish all my Wednesdays consisted of driving to VIR to drive a Grand-Am GT car. The offer for this test came about a week out, but I was all over it. I had never driven a Porsche before, especially not anything of this caliber. Upon arrival, I watched another driver take some laps in the car for a shakedownand then it ws time to have at it.

The 997 was the first of the Cup cars to come from the factory with a sequential transmission, so that was the first thing to learn upon getting in the car. The procedure for starting the car is a bit more lengthy than a SpecE30, but after starting off it all came naturally.

The whine of the gearbox and the perfect sound of the boxxer six only added to the experience that 2500 pounds and 400+ horsepower will offer you. Despite the old Hoosiers the car was running on, it was a blast to drive. Very loose in the slow corners where there was no downforce, but very stable at speeds.

It was a bit of a tease for the moment, but hopefully I'll be wheeling something similar soon!

SCCA Enduro at CMP
Tuesday, June 3, 2008, 06:45 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen
Memorial day weekend offered up a great opportunity for me to run the SCCA ECR 90 minute race at Carolina Motorsports Park with Matt Moorefield in his ITR E36 325i. This was my first time driving this gorgeous car, but it wasn't hard to get accustomed to it. The car is just a little bit heavier than a SpecE30 with an extra 80 horsepower and a much more track-worthy suspension.

Matt was doing the normal sprint race double-header, so I went down on Saturday to check things out. The car was running flawlessly and Matt was getting comfortable with the track on his first visit.

Sunday morning I took the car in qualifying and got down into the 1:45s--faster than any ITR cars had gone that weekend. There were some slight handling adjustments to be made, which we took care of before Matt took the car out in the sprint race.

We left the car as it was for the start of the ECR and went to town. I had pole by nearly 6 seconds because most of the field was comprised of ITS, Spec Miata, and lower classes. The first several laps were trouble-free, but before long I caught traffic. Still, there weren't a ton of cars on track, so everything was manageable.

About 15 minutes into my stint, the shift knob came off in a 3-4 shift and went in the backseat area. It bounced around for quite some time before sliding under my seat up around the pedals. I nearly pitted to get it out of the way, but fortunately, it happened to stop for a bit right in front of my seat. I was able to grab it and re-install it before the end of the stint.

As everyone began pitting in the middle of the race, I caught the second place car to put them a lap down just before they made their stop. After another 10 minutes or so, I was also called in for our driver swap. Matt brought the car home P1 with second place right behind (one lap down!).

Be sure to look for the video to see some highlights!

Savannah Sizzler
Monday, May 19, 2008, 11:39 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen

After a short break following CMP with NASA Mid-Atlantic, it was time to head for the sandy pines of the Georgia coast—that’s right, Savannah’s Roebling Road Raceway. The track manager’s thirty cats were enjoying the perfect weather as much as everyone else as things calmed down Friday night. After the paddock began to fill in we had the chance to relax and stroll around the track as the sun set. The weather was forecasted as dry, mostly sunny, breezy, with warm temperatures that were just right—in the shade.

Following the CMP event, I had to change the transmission in my car and realign the rear suspension to get rid of toe-out on the right rear wheel that was the result of a hit during the Saturday race. The transmission went in successfully, but the alignment didn’t go as well. I cut the damage in half, getting the right rear to three-sixteenths toe-out, but it certainly wasn’t what I was looking for. I’ll have to install a new trailing arm or sub frame before the next event, but there was no time for that before Roebling.

Never to be without some drama, my practice session was cut short when the car’s water temperature gauge stubbornly climbed higher and higher. I pulled in before finding the melting point of aluminum and found an easy fix—the upper radiator hose developed a pinhole leak that was shooting out a bit of steam. With the help of Robert Patton’s copious spares inventory, I had a replacement on the car in minutes and was ready for qualifying despite the lack of practice.

JP Coates and I were quick to the draw getting in line for qualifying, but our attempts at clear track were for naught when we came around to take the green and found cars still leaving pit lane. After a couple laps managing traffic and trying to make a clear spot to get a lap in, I successfully turned a 1:24.2, which felt like all I could manage considering the alignment. It was good enough. I had pole by .152 over Damion Moses, followed by Jim Robinson and JP.

The race start was pretty uneventful at the front. Damion slotted in line behind me and kept the gap small as we threaded through traffic. Nearing the end of our allotted time, Damion got loose in turn four and went briefly off track, allowing JP to pass him for second place. Around the same time, a Spec Miata spun and got stuck in an impact zone outside turn one. This incident led to a full course yellow that ended our race. One down, two to go.

That’s right, there are three races this weekend. Roebling was to host the second inaugural Inverted Field Unlimited (IFU) fun race. The format changed a bit this year, as cars lined up in groups of four, starting the race from pit lane separated by approximately 30 seconds. Naturally, I was in the last group, which started almost 2 laps behind the race leader. I caught and worked through traffic as quickly as I could, and just as I caught the leaders, a full course yellow was thrown. I was the first car one lap down. The race was stopped at the Start/Finish line to grid the cars for a standing restart—no, this isn’t normal. I quickly worked to the front of the pack, but I was still a lap down and there was no time to catch back up. I decided to pit and let the crowd back through so that I’d have more people to battle with, but as I came in the white flag flew and I decided to pack it in. Unfortunately, IFU2 didn’t serve up the same action-packed video as the first one, but the racing was still good. Congrats to Damion, the IFU repeat champion!

Sunday morning, I awoke to the sound of a few sprinkles of rain, but the brief shower didn’t last long. It did, however, return just as cars lined up on grid for qualifying. The rain was just enough to bead up on the windshields and scare some folks, but it didn’t wet the track and it didn’t come down any more that day. A tight qualifying session put the top nine within a second of each other and I nabbed pole position again by nearly two tenths.

At the start of the race, Damion got an amazing jump from the outside of the second row to take the lead into turn one followed by yours truly. The first few laps reminded me of the end of last year’s IFU—me trying to pass Damion on the outside of turn one each lap. Damion was moving along quickly, driving a wide car, and not making mistakes. I continued to pressure him as much as possible and waited for lap traffic to mix things up. After following him past a few cars, we caught a Legends car on the front stretch that moved to the right to let us through. Damion went left to pass, but I moved right and split the Legends car in order to get position for the inside of turn one. With two wheels in the grass and bouncing over the optional chicane, I got alongside Damion and made the pass stick. He pressured me for a couple laps, but I managed to gap him a little bit with the help of traffic. This race was an exciting win with some tremendously close racing.

Two for three—not bad. I missed a good finish in the inverted race, but secured wins in the two races that really mattered. As of now, I’m leading the points in both the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. I’ll miss the next Mid-Atlantic event at Hyperfest in Summit Point, West Virginia, but Barber event with NASA Southeast isn’t far off. Stay tuned!

South of the border!
Monday, May 5, 2008, 02:18 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen

No, it's not that exotic, we just went to South Carolina for NASA Mid-Atlantic's Carolina Motorsports Park event on the May 3-4 weekend. The weather was great for racing, though maybe a bit hot for the time of year. A small field of just eight cars showed up, but most of the front runners came down to score points and try out a new track (this was the first time this group had run the new configuration).

Things didn't start out so well this weekend. In the first practice session, I went out and found a grumpy transmission in my car that did not want to go into fourth gear. Rather than put unnecessary miles on the gearbox, I brought the car in early and parked it. Before qualifying, we bled the clutch slave cylinder in the hopes that it would help, while knowing in the back of our minds that it wouldn't. I began to search around for a replacement transmission, just in case we decided to swap it out this weekend, we could tow the car up to B.R.E. Motorsports in Concord and swap it before Sunday's festivities. However, qualifying went pretty well considering, securing second place on the grid beside Jon Allen. At the start of the race, I managed to hold station going around the outside of turn one and just edged out Jon to take the lead out of turn three.

For the first several laps, Jon, Chris Cobetto, and myself had a great battle for the top spot. As we started to catch traffic, things got more interesting. In turn 14, Chris made contact with the right rear wheel of my car and put me briefly off track at the exit. Jon had a run on the outside of me into turn 1, but could not capitalize and slowed up himself and Chris in the process. With the resulting gap, I managed to continue putting traffic between us for the rest of the race while I battled a severely mis-aligned car with a dying transmission. With the day beginning as it had, I never expected to be atop the podium, but I'll take it!

Coming off a good result, I was a little more hopeful about making it through the weekend with the existing transmission. As a result, we decided to play it out and try to score more points on Sunday without doing the transmission swap Saturday night. I skipped practice altogether and only did a couple laps in qualifying, putting me a disappointing 5th on the grid.

At the start of the race, I got past Skip Bennett for fourth place and started to watch the top three pull away as I shifted from 3rd gear to fifth in three of the four normal locations on the track (I went to fourth out of the carousel because I could hold it for a long time). This race was stressful and boring at the same time; stressful because I never knew what to expect when looking for fourth gear, and boring because the gap on either side of me continued to grow. After about six laps, I made some headway on third place, but right as I get up to him I lost fourth gear entirely and that more or less sealed my fate--P4 was all I could muster today.

Not the results I was looking for headed into the weekend, but certainly not bad considering the obstacles. Time to call up Harrison Motorsports to get some parts! Roebling is in just two weeks!

MX-5s at Laguna Seca
Thursday, April 10, 2008, 10:55 AM
Posted by Mike Skeen

As I'm sure most of you know, I had the great opportunity to participate in the current season of SPEED’s hit show Setup, where I was fortunate enough to represent Pontiac, Geico, Stanley, and many other companies that offered the opportunity for me and 23 other amateur drivers to get some great exposure and experience. This exposure put me in the position to visit Laguna Seca to represent SPEEDtv.com and report on the brand new Skip Barber MX-5 Series. Unfortunately, I had to miss an event I had planned to run in my SpecE30 with NASA Southeast, but I guess it’s time to let somebody else win a couple races anyways!

As soon as I heard about the opportunity, I was all over it! First stop was Trackpedia.com to get local information about where to stay and go. Of course, lots of time was spent on the site analyzing videos, track data, write-ups, and information on the track to get a head start on the weekend.

I arrived in San Jose on Thursday afternoon to pick up the requisite cheap-as-possible compact rental car that would get me around for the weekend. Happy to see a handbrake on the center console, I knew this would be a good weekend. Fortunately, there was no rush to get to the track, so I had time to explore the area a bit and settle in before heading to the track Friday morning.

The schedule for the day included two practice sessions for each of the five race groups—three groups for the formula cars and two for the MX-5s. I was in the fifth group, so I would be there until the end of the day. Before all that, participants took turns doing “Van Arounds” with the Skip Barber instructors getting valuable information about the track and helping the learning curve immensely.

After the track orientation and driver’s meetings, I spent time hanging out with new and old friends, fans of the show, and anyone else that wanted to talk racing. I was happy to see a fellow KONI Challenge driver, Dion Von Moltke of APR Motorsport, and to have time to chat with him and his family between sessions. Unfortunately, we were not in the same race group so we wouldn’t have a chance to drive against each other, but we did share a practice session in the afternoon in which we were both under the lap record and just a couple hundredths of a second apart—a good way to end the day and head into the race weekend!

Unlike most track days at home, Saturday morning dawned before I had to leave the hotel room. Following a relaxed breakfast and trip to the track, I was happy to see that Northern California served up some great weather yet again. After greeting new friends at the driver’s meeting, it was time for the qualifying sessions to begin. Each of the five groups would get an 18 minute session to set the single fastest lap possible in order to establish the grid order. My session felt decent, but I knew I hadn’t set any personal best times. Though the time was off by about 7 tenths, it was still good enough to set pole position in my run group by a comfortable margin.

Since our group was last in the rotation, formula cars started to hit the track for their races just as we came off. James Hunt, a friend of mine from Setup, decided to come up and hang out, so we hit up the Cruisin’ Café for lunch and ventured around the track to watch the other race groups from different vantage points. The scenery at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is amazing on its own, but watching the Skip Barber cars carving up the hills is even better.

Unfortunately, in the third race group (the other MX-5 group), the #05 Trackpedia.com MX-5 that I had been running was wrecked in Turn Four, leaving it unavailable for my race at the end of the day. Luckily, the Skip Barber crew was quick to provide another car, help me transfer my camera equipment, and shorten the harnesses to a proper fit.

With the rush to get everything ready at the last minute, there wasn’t much time to “get in the zone,” but as I hit the track everything fell into place. The car felt great on the warm up laps and I was ready to grid up and see the green flag. The start was tight and the pressure behind was constant throughout the first lap, but this changed quickly on the second trip through Turn Four. As I came out of the corner, I looked up in the mirror to see the second place car drop a wheel on exit, begin a tank slapper, and take out the third place car. This left me a small margin, but my consistent times grew the gap to a 16+ second win.

I’d be remiss if I traveled all the way across the country without visiting the coast, so James and I decided to head for Monterey for the evening. After sampling the local cuisine on the wharf, we retired to the hotel early to watch some video from the day and keel over.

Sunday came way too quick! A weekend at Laguna Seca (or any track for that matter) can’t last long enough. The racing and camaraderie has been great, and Sunday morning is no different with a very relaxed environment and a trophy presentation for the previous day’s races offers up numerous opportunities for story-telling as drivers recount their experiences.

Sunday’s activities move along a little bit quicker because each race group gets one race with a brief warm up beforehand. This gets things done a little earlier and allows everyone more time for travel back to the real world. Qualifying is skipped and the result of Saturday’s race determines the starting grid.

Since the race on Saturday was pretty uneventful for me in the #07 Trackpedia.com MX-5, I opted out of my pole position and requested to start at the back of the pack for the race on Sunday. I had a mediocre jump at the start, but chose the outside line into Turn 2 trying to get around a pack of cars. Due to all the activity of the weekend, the outside of the track was just covered in dirt and I went wide, dropping two wheels in the dirt. Fortunately, I managed to keep two on the track (avoiding a stop-and-go penalty) and got back in line second from last. A good run through Turn 4 allowed me to setup a pass on the outside of Turn 5 and I got one more on the run up to the corkscrew.

On lap two, I made another pass into Turn 5—this time on the inside—and another into the tight final corner, Turn 11. On the exit of the corner, I could not find third gear very quickly—a foreshadowing of what was to come—and lost a position to the car I had just passed. With a re-pass in Turn 5 to put me back in 3rd Position, I set my sights on the frontrunners to make sure they wouldn’t get away. I was within about 6 car lengths by the end of the lap, but coming out of Turn 11 and going for third gear was a problem again. This time, it went into gear, but as soon as I let out the clutch I could hear and feel the transmission let go. I put it in 4th gear and attempted to lug the car around, but going up the hill to the corkscrew was trouble and I didn’t want to ruin any racing behind me, so I got out of the way and took the car to the pits.

Despite the short race, I had lots of fun for the first two laps and enjoyed hanging out to watch the end of the race—the two leaders were within roughly a second of each other for the whole race. Thanks to all the hard working Skip Barber guys that made the weekend run smoothly! I look forward to getting back out to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the near future!

Two-for-two at VIR!
Thursday, April 10, 2008, 10:05 AM
Posted by Mike Skeen

After spending most of my time in 2007 racing with the NASA-SE crowd (except for the maiden voyage at VIR), I was anxious to battle with the stiff competition in NASA-MA in 2008. The VIR race in February, for me, was hurt by qualifying with the traffic in Thunder group. After setting the lap record and making up lots of positions from my starting spot, I knew I had more in me than the result sheets showed. This event was redemption!

On Saturday morning, I decided to skip practice, which worked out just fine because I managed to grab pole position in qualifying! I had Jon Allen and a host of the series' top drivers surrounding me, so I knew I had to make a good start and focus on the track ahead.

The start went according to plan, but before the end of the first lap we were already catching 944 traffic. With Jonny right behind, I couldn't pause for a second to get through traffic. The two of us continued to go back and forth for the whole race with some of the best racing I've ever been a part of--or seen for that matter. In the end, I won with Jonny right alongside me.

The rain was back for Sunday. Qualifying was on a damp track, which made it hard to know what sort of time would get pole. I could see most of my competition on the track, so I could gauge my progress against theirs and I felt pretty confident during the session. Sure enough, when I showed up to grid for the race I had the pole! Still, the rain had picked up again and the track was wet. Having never raced with any of these guys in the rain, I didn't know what to expect.

The start was pretty uneventful until Turn 3, where I could see cars in my mirror drifting all over the place. I had made it through cleanly, so this bottleneck behind me had already started to create a gap. I started tip-toeing around the track as smooth and carefully as possible, and the gap just continued to grow. I got around several of the GTS-2 cars and made it all the way up to fourth overall before the checkers fell.

Can't beat that! Two wins from pole in the most competitive region for SpecE30--I'll take it! Look out at CMP!

Twisters at Road Atlanta
Tuesday, March 18, 2008, 11:13 AM
Posted by Mike Skeen
We knew it was supposed to rain in Georgia on Friday and Saturday, but we didn't know just what we were in for. The Friday night rain quit early Saturday morning and we got in practice and qualifying on drying track, but after lunch things got interesting. Numerous tornado warnings plagued the afternoon and stopped track activities so everyone could take cover from the hail and torrential downpours. After several on-and-off threats, the NASA Southeast crew adjusted the schedule and extended the day so everything would fit in.

Before all the weather-related fun, qualifying went down on a damp-but-drying track. Amazingly, I managed to qualify first overall, ahead of many high-powered GTS cars and the rest of the SpecE30 pack.

After the storms rolled through, our shortened race went down without a hitch for the Harrison Motorsports/B.R.E. Motorsports #143. I quickly got a comfortable gap on the first lap and simply cruised my way around, trying to stay out of the big puddles.

That night, after I left the track, several of my friends and fellow SpecE30 competitors were nice enough to "decorate" my car with NASA "winner" decals. I thought about leaving them on for Sunday qualifying in an ode to Ricky Bobby, but decided discretion was the better part of valor.

The track was still a little damp for our early morning qualifying on Sunday, but the sun was out and everyone was feeling a little more brave than the day before. The times came down some, but I still managed to qualify the car on pole with JP Coates and Damion Moses right behind.

Sunday's race was set to be a standing start, which meant it was great to be on the front row (just don't stall the car!). I got through turn one cleanly and looked ahead to set a couple blistering fast laps to pull away from the field. Damion spun coming out of turn five, and the field immediately stretched out behind me because of the confusion. After just a couple laps, I was catching traffic from the 944 start and I went into conservation mode. I simply managed traffic for the rest of the race and grew the lead to a healthy 25 seconds.

This weekend was pretty uneventful for me (other than the weather), but the next event at VIR with NASA Mid-Atlantic should prove challenging. I am going to miss the NASA-SE event coming up at CMP, but keep an eye out for a report from Laguna Seca!

Back to VIR
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 03:19 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen

After getting back out on track at CMP with NASA Southeast, it was time to head for VIR with NASA Mid-Atlantic to check out the country's most-competitive and largest SpecE30 region. Most of the veterans and a couple of new guys showed up for a 20+ car field on February 23-24 despite the cool weather. Due to the shorter days of winter, this event only had two race groups, which put SpecE30 in the "big bore" Thunder group with GTS and all the fast V8 cars.

This combination proved tough, with lots of traffic making clean laps difficult. Practice went by with little to report and the goal in qualifying was simply to find a gap in traffic. Well, it didn't work. On my fastest lap of the session, I had a low 2:19 lap going until Oak Tree (according to Traqmate data), when I was caught in traffic and lost well over a second. My low 2:21 was good enough for a 6th place grid spot, but it wasn't where I was hoping to be.

Not only was I a little farther back than I had hoped, but I was also on the outside of the track for the start. At Turn One, two cars got into each other in front of me, sending one driver off track and holding me up enough that I was barely in the Top 10 at the end of Lap One. After a short 7 laps, I managed to work my way back up to a mildly disappointing 5th place finish. As a little bonus, I managed to break the previous lap record, setting it at a 2:19.4.

On to Sunday. There was no qualifying, so we used the previous day's order, which put me back in 6th spot. After another rough start, I found myself in ninth at the end of Lap One. On Lap Two I got by three tough competitors with the help of a push from Vic Hall down the back straight. The five leaders were running nose-to-tail several seconds ahead of me, but with a new record-setting lap at a blistering 2:18.000, I was right with them by the end of Lap Three. In the next three laps I worked up to third place, but ran out of time to make any more head way.

The #143 Harrison Motorsports/B.R.E. Motorsports car clearly had the pace during the whole weekend, but the result sheets don't show as well as they could all because of the traffic in qualifying. Such is life. We'll move on to Road Atlanta and then come back to play with the Mid-Atlantic guys again at the end of March.

In the meantime, check out the race video in the media section and look for Setup on the SPEED Channel, Thursday nights at 8E/9P.

Winter Meltdown at CMP
Monday, February 11, 2008, 04:24 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen

Everyone has been looking forward to getting the 2008 NASA Southeast season underway and the weather was cooperating with us for the Winter Meltdown event at Carolina Motorsports Park. All three days were sunny and dry with moderate temperatures, though the wind was blowing pretty hard—especially Sunday afternoon.

This weekend started a day earlier than most. The new enduro series was set to kick off on Friday afternoon and I had teamed up with Travis Wilson in the #800 for the 3-hour race. With nearly everyone being new to these events, we did not know exactly what to expect in terms of pit strategy. The grid was formed by random drawing, giving us pole position. However, a couple high-horsepower cars from the second row engulfed the SpecE30s on the front row and we fell into line for the first few laps while things shook out. When that happened, I found myself ahead of James Clay (of BimmerWorld fame) who was driving Jim Robinson’s #008. We had a good race for a few laps before I managed to get a little breathing room in traffic. The #008 pitted early and that left me cruising around alone for the remainder of my stint, before handing the car to Travis just before the halfway mark. He did an excellent job getting it to the finish on fumes—our estimations were off on fuel and made it a close call at the very end. Fortunately, we did make it and finished third overall, second in E2, and the first SpecE30 (the real bragging rights!).

The first day got off to a good start and it was on to Saturday. My car had a new engine in it from B.R.E. Motorsports, so I was anxious to see how it would perform. In the first practice session I went out to make sure everything was right with the new install and to get an idea of what handling adjustments I might want to make. Mike Davidson lead the session and I was a ways off the pace, but not too worried because I knew I could get more out of the car. Sure enough, I qualified the car on pole with the adjustments made, a few tenths ahead of JP Coates and Mike.

The start of the race was pretty uneventful for the first few rows, but behind us there was a melee that caused a full course caution, which turned into a red flag and a long clean up period. At the restart, the SpecE30 field was at the back of the pack, behind Spec Miatas, 944s, Honda Challenge, and everything else. This made turn one very interesting. I got held up on the inside and fell back to third behind Mike and JP. Later that lap, I managed to get around JP with the help of some traffic and set my sights on Mike. I knew the long clean up left us with very little time, but I had no idea how many more laps there would be so there was no time to waste. I got around some more traffic and found myself about ten car lengths back from Mike when the white flag came out. I was closing fairly quick and found myself right behind him coming out of the carousel into Turn Eight. He got loose and I got alongside him going down the back straight, passing him on entry to The Kink. He almost got me back with a late-braking maneuver in Turn Eleven, but it wasn’t enough and I managed to keep it on track for the win!

Sunday’s race was a longer, 40-minute race in which SpecE30 would start at the back and have to work through traffic. I managed to qualify on pole again and got through Turn One cleanly. As the battle waged on for second place, I pulled a lead on the field and started setting consistent laps while working traffic. This race had little drama, much different than the shorter race on Saturday. I finished with an uneventful 22-second gap on the field.

But that’s not all! The racing was great this weekend, but I also had the opportunity to take out an S50B32-powered E30 owned by Carl Kircher. This was the first weekend for the car, but in just one session I had it down into the 1:44 range—just a couple seconds off the fastest laps of the weekend. There is plenty of development left to do with this car, so watch out for it at future events.

This was a fantastic event to start the season and now it’s on to VIR! NASA Mid-Atlantic will be hosting their season opener in two weeks and the event is shaping up to be a great one. Stay tuned and check out the video section for highlights.

KONI Challenge at Daytona
Monday, January 28, 2008, 04:23 PM
Posted by Mike Skeen
The high banks at Daytona offer a racing destination unlike any other. The huge facility has made history many times over in several different types of motorsport from motorcycles, to stock cars, to sports cars. Arriving in Florida during the winter is a welcome change of climate and the excitement of the Rolex 24 at Daytona weekend only grows during the week prior.

Arriving on Wednesday to see the track and watch the teams unload their equipment is a sight to see, but waiting for the on-track events of Thursday takes seemingly forever. Finally that time arrives, and the first practice session is about to begin. My co-driver, James Hunt, will start the practice and we will switch in the middle to let me finish the session. We are a couple seconds off the pace in this session, but considering I had never driven the car and neither one of us had seen the track before, it’s not surprising.

For the second practice session, we decide I will start and switch James in half way through. However, we discover a problem with the car when leaving the pits and lost over half the session. Rather than wasting more time with the driver change, I stay in the car the whole session. Because of this lost time, James has very few laps in the car, so we decide it would be best that I qualify.

In qualifying, I turned a 2:11.7, which is about a second off the fastest Chevrolet Cobalt of Jamie Holtom and Eric Curran. Still, with the tight field in KONI Challenge ST, this puts us in 19th place.
Friday morning’s practice session was used to let James catch up on track time, since he lost most of his the day before. I started the session to bed the brakes and practice the driver change.

Then it was race time. The goal for the first several laps was simply to keep the car out of trouble and let things cool down. After taking care of the car for a while, I started to move my way up the field, getting the car to 13th before the end of my stint. Right after our first stop for fuel and the driver change, there was a full course caution that put us down the order significantly. James was also suffering with a slipping clutch, which had begun during my stint. With about 30 minutes left, we came in for a splash of fuel, right after which the yellows flew again and we lost a lot of ground. At this point, the goal was just to get the car to finish, which we did, in 22nd place.

Although the result sheets for this race may not look outstanding, they don’t tell the whole story. James and I were driving for a new team, in a new car, and on a new track. Without any testing time, we really couldn’t get an ideal setup under the car. We made small adjustments that improved the car, but our steep learning curve limited our focus. I have no doubt that further development of the car and a little seat time will put us right up there with the fastest of the Cobalts.