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SCCA Daytona Double SARRC Race Report...

Southeast Division South Atlantic Road Racing Championship – SARRC

Daytona International Speedway - August 6 & 7, 2005

The team was anticipating a hot weekend at Daytona. It usually is in August. We were 3rd in the championship points after our two GT-1 class wins at Roebling in July. There are many SARRC races during the season, but only the top six finishes count for total points going into the SARRC Invitational Challenge (SIC). The SIC counts for double points. Dave had five 1st place finishes. If he could get another win or a 2nd place finish, we would be in good shape for the SIC.

This was our first race at DIS since the new garages were built with the fan zone area. We had rented one of the Busch garages for the weekend and were lucky to be assigned one close to Tech and the entrance to the paddock from pit road (with bathrooms right around the corner). Registration opened at 1:00 pm on Friday and after registering, we were escorted into the track. Keith Corderio came with us and was a big help getting the car and equipment into the garage.

Keith gave us a ride to our hotel before heading back home. Thanks Keith!

We joined Karen & Mark Kalfas for dinner at Uno's. Karen works for the same company as Susan, but out of the Boca Raton office. They run an ITB 914 Porsche. We enjoy meeting up with them at the races. They were also our ride back to the track on Saturday morning. Thank you Mark & Karen!

The Saturday schedule was one 15 minute practice session, a 15 minute qualifying session and a 10 lap race. GT-1 ran with Group 5, which included GT-2, GT-3, AS, ASR, SPO, T1, T2 and ITGT. We ran 6 laps in practice and in qualifying.

There were 49 cars on track for qualifying. Given the difference in the cars and closing speeds, we were happy with our 1:59.318 time for a 3rd place grid position. Dan Shaver was 1st on the grid in his lightning fast SPO Corvette with a 1:57.133 and Guy Ratliff was 2nd, running a 1:57.277 in a Camaro. The final grid position ran a 2:43.237 time. It would be an interesting race.

We had a great crew for the weekend. Our son Mark, Dennis Monroe, Debbie and Casey worked in the heat to prep the car for the race. The car had no major problems. A couple of wheel weights needed replacing, the return throttle spring was repaired, they bleed brakes and checked everything out. Oh, yes, Dave's off track excursion to avoid another car in qualifying gathered a lot of grass that had to be removed.

At race time, our group was held on the False Grid forever. The five minute warning was really about 20 minutes as the workers towed cars in from the previous race. The cool suit ran out of cool before the race even began.

It was around 4:45 pm by the time our group took to the track. At the Green Flag, Shaver pulled a quick lead as expected, with Ratliff hot on his tail. When you are concentrating on your race, you see things happening and cars alongside the track, but it is hard to remember exactly what happened. Also, Daytona is a long track and you can't see what is going on elsewhere in the race.

Ratcliff went out on lap 5 when he got together with a lap car in the International Horseshoe. We went to the left of that crash and Bill Riddell in his vintage Buick Sommerset went to the right and came out ahead.

I think Shaver broke something around lap 8 and was out. Early on we dropped behind the SPO car of Bill Smith who later spun in the bus-stop. We fell as far back as 5th. Coming out of Turn Four, 2 Porsches and a Mustang were 3 wide and it was necessary to go down onto the flat part of the track to get around them at about 180 mph.

In the last few laps we worked our way back up to 2nd overall, but ran out of time and couldn't catch Riddell who took 1st.

It looked like there was some metal-to-metal going on, but we managed to stay out of it. A second place in GT-1 should put us in the points lead. The team discussed Sunday's race. The only way we could better our points would be to take first place in class and then we would only gain 4 points. Considering the risk to the equipment, we decided not to run on Sunday. It would conserve on fuel, tires and wear-and-tear on the car and crew.

It was too late to cancel our hotel rooms or to get everything loaded up before the track closed. We gathered things together a bit and headed back to the hotel to clean up. The crew deserved a good steak dinner for their hard day's work. I guess the crew wasn't completely worn out. We found out Sunday morning that they went to shoot some pool after dinner. It was amusing to hear about the first bar they went to, which appeared to have only male patrons. It didn't sound like they stayed there very long.

Sunday morning we went back to the track and loaded up. We pulled out around 11:00 am. It was nice to get home early and have the rest of the day to unload. Overall, it was a good weekend for Tropic Zone Racing.

The SIC in October should be a good race. If the car works well and the driver doesn't make any stupid mistakes, we have a good shot at the Championship.

A big thank you to our great crew: Dennis Monroe, Mark Bacher, Keith Corderio, Casey & Debbie Miller.