My video camera didn't work for Sunday's race (described below), but Jim Child, who eventually won the race, got his posted last night. My little loop-the-loop starts at 25:15, FWIW. Enjoy...

Unfortunately, I don't have video from my Sunday race (described below), but here are the highlights of Saturday. I had a terrible start but the BMWs that come by are from a faster class. The red Porsche is Mike, the white and orange one Brad, and it took me a while to work my way back to the front.

Last weekend I raced with NASA at Putnam Park, a 1.8-mile 10-turn track in the rolling hills of Indiana, about 30 miles West of Indianapolis. Conditions were dodgy Saturday morning following several overnight inches of rain. Although showers came and went several times during the morning, somehow the track managed to be dry every time we went out.

Saturday I qualified on the GTS2 pole (8 cars in class) and won pretty easily with a 17 second margin over second place. That, after losing several positions on the start when the car in front of me was a little slow to the throttle at the green flag (video coming soon). Sunday I ended up second but that fact is not as interesting as how it came to be.

I had tweaked my wing before qualifying Sunday to take out a bit of downforce to see if that improved my turn-in in the faster corners. It turned out I went a bit too far and now the car was a little too loose so I couldn't really lean on it for a fast lap. Ironically, it was also tending to push in the slower turns as it had on Saturday so pretty much everything was going the wrong way. I ended up qualifying second in class behind Jim Child (black 968), the 2007 GTS2 National Champ.

Starting in a mixed class with my wing re-adjusted and two more clicks of rebound in the front shocks, I was ready for action. Jim started 4th overall while I was 5th, a row behind and on the inside. I got a great start and pulled even with Jim on the run down to turn one. Neither of us was willing to give way in the braking zone so we went through turn one door-to-door, then through turns 2, then 3 the same way--neither of us giving the other a chance to move ahead.

Finally, going into the left-hander turn 4, I was able to come around the outside and force my way to the front. Jim and Mike Ward (in a red 968) and I ran nose-to-tail-to-nose-to-tail behind the 2nd place GTS3 qualifier, a next-class-up BMW M3 that was going just a teench slower than us but too fast to actually get around. The four of us stayed like that for several laps until the M3 made the wrong choice while trying to pass a back-marker and Jim, Mike and I freight-trained him, sending him from 3rd to 6th in the space of about 50 yards.

Clear of the Beemer we picked up the pace a bit and I was able to put a modest gap between Jim and myself while he, in turn, gapped Mike (who was eventually passed again by the BMW). Just as I was starting to feel comfortable with my lead I got caught in lapped traffic and Jim closed right back up on my bumper to the point I had to make a couple of really deep runs into turn 1, the fastest turn at the end of the main straight, to keep him behind.

Eventually, after several hard laps, I was able to open up another 5-or-so second gap and things were going pretty much according to plan.

Until I hit the oil.