Congratulations Aaron! It would have been fun to see that. I guess I'll have
to read about it in the paper!
Best wishes,
Kristi
Milwaukie,Oregon
>
>Well, the Rose Cup Races at Portland International Raceway have come and
>gone.
>For those of you not in the area or from out of the area, you missed some
>great action and you missed me taking my first regional race win in my
>Spitfire.
>
>I started out the weekend with one goal, to finish all the sessions and
>finish
>the race.
>
>Practice:
>Practice went well, the ran good enough for me to get familiar with it and
>try
>a few different options for the correct line around the course. There were
>a
>ton of cars, the national and regional groups ran this practice together,
>so
>there were just over 50 cars in the session. About 3 minutes from the end
>of
>the session the water pump belt decided that it didn't like being apart of
>the
>working system and left, when it left, it took the crank sensor for one
>ignition system with it, switched boxes and made it back to the paddock,
>water
>temp never went above 230...Best time of the session was a 1:39.9 or so.
>
>Qualifying:
>Again the car ran good. The valve cover gasket started leaking putting a
>little bit of oil onto the header, a blue haze followed me around the
>course.
>I could see it in the mirrors, figured out what it was, and determined it
>nothing to worry about, unless they black flagged me. The black flag never
>came, and I finished the session. Qualifying time was a 1:37.9 For 39th on
>the grid of 43. I wasn't last and that made me happy, but I'm almost 10
>seconds off the pace of the other FP car who set a new lap record at 1:28
>and
>change. I figure this is not to bad for my second qualifying session ever,
>and the last time out the session was in the rain and red flagged less than
>5
>minutes in.
>
>Race:
>I got and excellent start and could have made up a bunch of spots, but with
>my
>whole goal for the weekend being to finish the race, I rolled out of the
>throttle when it went 6 cars wide on the front stretch. After the chicane
>I
>was in last place, so 43rd of 43 cars. Then I started to work my way
>through
>the field. As I got more comfortable in the car and more comfortable with
>the
>talents of others I started to know where I could make passes and where I
>couldn't. Our run group is AS, T1, T2, SSB, SSC, FP, GP, HP, Pro7, ITE,
>GT4 &
>GT5. I had a great race with several of the ITE Miatas which run in ITE as
>a
>secondary group to Spec Miata, and an even better battle with a SSB BMW Z3.
>Several of the Miatas, the Z3 and myself worked our way up, and on the
>penultimate lap, I pressured the Z3 into a small mistake which let me by
>and
>into 29th overall. I ended up 2 laps down to the overall leader, but to my
>surprise I ended up with the FP win as my competition dropped out on lap 13
>with a broken coil wire. It was a class win, and I'll take it. The car
>continued to smoke for the whole session and no victory lap for me as the
>e-crew wanted to make sure my car wasn't on fire. During the race I set a
>new
>best time for myself at 1:36.5 which shows I can run in the top 20 of the
>group as it stands now and there is easily another 4-5 in driver talent, so
>I
>think I can be fairly competitive after some work on the nut behind the
>wheel.
>
>I'd like to give some thanks to ReK Racing, Acme Speed Shop, The Motorway
>Ltd., British Parts Northwest and Lots of Members of the Spitfire Mailing
>list
>for the great parts, advice, information and support. Without you all I'd
>be
>about 1/3 as far as I've made it.
>
>All the best
>Aaron Johnson
>Albany, OR
>#38 F-Prod Spit MkIV Oregon Region SCCA
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