July 26-27, 2003 -- Road Atlanta SARRC/ECR

Four Chattanooga Region drivers went to Road Atlanta on the weekend of July 26th and 27th. Dwight Floyd, Will Perry and Kenn Walker competed in SARRC races, while I ran only the ECR.

The first race for our group was on Saturday afternoon. Will started on the ITC pole, and led flag to flag against four other drivers. There was never any serious challenge to his lead, but it does appear that the newer generation Civics are being developed to the point where they are closing the gap.

The ECR race was set to run on Sunday morning before quiet hour. While this time slot works out well for a 1 1/2 hour race if everything stays on schedule, it allows very little extra time if the schedule goes amiss. You guessed it; the schedule went amiss. The rumor I heard is that somehow the grid sent cars out in the wrong order. As soon as they realized their mistake, they called the field back in from the pace lap with a "Black Flag - All". Unfortunately, the chaos was pretty complete when the cars returned to pit road, so after several minutes of trying to sort things out, grid sent the field back on track. Though they may have made some corrections at the front of the pack, the net result was that many drivers further back gained or lost position due to the disorder. Oh well, in an endurance race there is plenty of time for the fast guys to move to the front on their own. In the end, the race was cut short by 15 minutes, leaving a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes of racing.
  

2003 Races

November
   ARRC
October
   VIR School
   Roebling Road
August
   Road Atlanta
July 
   Road Atlanta
June
   Charlotte
May
   Kershaw
April
   Roebling Road
March
   VIR
   Birmingham
   Road Atlanta

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I felt like I was driving pretty well, but my lap times weren't showing it. As a result, I managed to finish 5th in the field of 5 ITC cars. (Maybe it's time to ditch the two year old tires…) Even with my lap times being off, I still stayed within a lap of the first place finisher.

The remaining SARRC race group for Dwight and Kenn was run after quiet hours and lunch on Sunday, so I didn't stay to see them in person. Kenn had been having carburetor problems in his FP Crx, which he thought he had figured out by the start of the race. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and he didn't complete enough laps to get credit for finishing the race. Dwight, however, drove his SPU Baby Grand to 2nd in a two car field.

Thanks to everyone who helped out this weekend as workers and crew. Those include Chuck Fullgraf, Jamie Hamilton, Bill and Gail Perry, Will Perry, and the newest member of the pod, Wayne Alvarez.

-- Art Thompson