Corvettes showed up in force for Nationals! Huge congrats to everyone who came out and raced.
A few photos from the podium:
The TTS podium was all Corvettes! Danny Popp, Jarred McGillicuddy, and Geff Sawtelle (or Swaddle according to the announcer!). All three run Pfadt products and will take home contingency awards.
Jesse White finishing with a strong 2nd place in TTA.
Danny Popp ruled TTU with me in 2nd and Tom Glenn's Viper in 3rd.
The Hoosier guys gave us these weird neck bands and hats for their photos. But the way I see it, I'll wear pretty much whatever they want if they're giving me free tires!
After the TT awards, it was game time for the ST1 race. The weather held out and Group D (PTA, ST2, ST1 and SU) had a nice dry race. Because of my two Qualifying race finishes , a 4th and a 2nd, I was gridded 3rd in ST1 behind Danny and Dan Goldburg in the silver Panoz. We had a common start with the SU cars and were gridded behind them. That put Danny in 9th position on grid and me in 11th. We are quicker than many of the SU cars so it was bound to make for some interesting race start action.
We took the green flag on the back straight and had a good run into turn 7. We jockeyed through turn 7 and into Madness. As I turned in for the right hander at the bottom the silver Panoz edged up next to me and started to spin as he turned in. I made it through the turn and avoided getting collected, but the Panoz took a couple of cars with him. We raced up to turn turn one before getting a full-course yellow as they began cleaning up after the Panoz.
We were red flagged on the next lap and sat stopped for about 5 minutes. When the race restarted I was 5th overall and behind Danny and Norm (SU Porsche). They started us under yellow and we finally got the green at the on the back straight. The start was clean, but we sat long enough that my tires had cooled down and didn't have much grip.
I got past Norm, but Danny was consistently pulling away from me for the first few laps. Before long we had reached the back of the pack and had to work through traffic. One of the things that's tricky about racing in ST1 is that our closing speed on the slower cars in the run group can be pretty dramatic - catching up to cars that quickly can be tough because they may not see you coming and you've got to carefully plan your passes to keep everything safe.
Then I spun. I was coming into carousel and trying to pass a Factory 5 car on the outside and was just too hot. The car drifted into the marbles and I backed it onto the grass. Norm got back by me and of course Danny was driving away, but I got the car back under way quickly and tried to refocus on the race.
At this point I was 2nd in ST1 but probably 15 seconds behind Danny. I picked up my pace as much as I could, wanting to be consistent and clean. Over the radio I learned that I was slowly making up ground on Danny.
From here, nothing eventful happened until the last lap. I was slowly gaining on Danny and worked my way to within 15 car lengths or so. It was exciting because I could see him. I could also see that Danny was caught in a race with the yellow Panoz who was down at least one lap. The Panoz had come in to the pits at some point and it was just chance that he was near Danny.
As I was coming over the hill at 10B I saw the yellow Panoz and Danny spinning into the grass at turn 11. I passed Danny as he was getting his car back on track and took the checkered 4 turns later. Danny crossed the line right on my tail with Bob Mayer close behind.
It's hard to believe these three mugs took the podium. Me on the left, Danny in the middle and Bob on the right. We think what Danny has around his neck is the Ohio version of a Cool Shirt.
I probably blew out Josh's ear drums screaming into the radio. I was so excited. From there it was a trip to the scales and then to the dyno (again) just to make everything official.
It was a very cool finish with three Corvettes on the podium for ST1. It was a great showing for the Corvette, beating out Porsche's, Vipers, and Panoz's.
Here are Danny and I on the podium for ST1. Bob unfortunately had to run to catch a plane.
The best thing about the weekend was the sportsmanship, talent and good attitude of all the Corvette guys. Wally, Ken, John, Matt, Ron, Chris, William, Jesse, Bob, Danny, Jarred, James, Geff - Thanks for a great weekend and great job representing the bowtie.
I've got some great video in the rain, and of course of the race. Once we get caught up at the office, I'll post it.
-Aaron
It sure looks nice wearing it's new red paint. Meeting guys like that is one of the reasons that National events are so fun.
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