CFRA Round 2: Laguna Seca, Sunday March 11

The second event of the CFRA season took place weekend before last, as we returned to Laguna Seca. We had record attendance of 74 drivers, selling out groups A and B, and leaving just one unfilled slot in group R. Laguna Seca has a limit of 25 cars on track at a time unless you pay extra; it is the only track around here that operates this way.

This was also a record for our largest race grid. All 24 cars registered in group R took the green flag. Usually it is inevitable that someone's car breaks down during practice or qualifying, so this was pretty remarkable. One of the cars had mechanical problem and only finished 1 lap, and another had to exit early, so we had 22 cars complete the full race distance.

Once again we beat the late winter weather odds and had a warm, clear day. It was 64f° by the time I went on track, and got up 80f° in the late afternoon.

I got within a few tenths of my previous best in the morning sessions with a 1:47.59, but as the temperature went up my tires got just bit too hot, so my qualifying time didn't improve at 1:47.858, but it was good enough for 9th in qualifying. I would have been next to Nick's EVO and several spots ahead of my closest class competitor, but Nick either had car trouble or was late to grid and ended up gridding at the back, so I started 8th, next to Cris' extremely turbocharged white Miata.

At the rolling start the accordion effect landed me pretty high in 2nd gear, and I hit the rev limiter before the shift to 3rd, losing some momentum. Cris took off; Robert in the orange Exige S got the inside line into turn 2, while Rick in the blue Elise made his usual mondo start and passed two cars and followed me in. Robert passed on the inside through 2 and Rick and I drove more or less side-by-side through turns 3 and 4 before he pulled away on the straight.

After a few laps Kirk in the blue '85 911 3.2 started catching me. At the same time, JC's brand new Ferrari F430 Challenge found its pace and caught up to Kirk in my mirrors. I had to hope that as JC passed us I would lose less time than Kirk. I'm not sure how much time Kirk lost when JC went by him, but after JC passed me I found my self balked by the Ferrari in the hard braking zones for a whole lap, which let Kirk catch right up to me. With just a couple of laps to go, Kirk got a good run out of turn 11 and pulled even heading to turn 2. I hoped he would lose out by taking the long way around on the outside, but coming out of the turn my peripheral vision told me I needed to give him room at the corner exit, and he out-powered me on the run to turn 3 to take 10th place. I placed 11th and had a fastest lap of 1:47.657.

However, now that I have seen the external video taken at turn 2, I can see that I was being very cautious and giving Kirk more room than was necessary: I was actually ahead as we tracked out to the corner exit, so I could have taken the normal exit line and gotten a better run and stayed ahead a little longer. Not that it mattered, because our cars are actually classed differently! Always better safe than sorry. But it was a fun race and it's always better when someone is challenging you.