Thunderhill April 1-2 2006

As most everyone knows...it only takes two of anything, for example: shopping carts, scooters, riding lawnmowers and GTI-Cup cars to have a race. And that's what we had for this race weekend...two GTIs...Ron Swett of Shed Racing and Scott Neville.  The other half of Shed Racing, Tom Aiken, was staying home this weekend as his wife was due to give birth any day....and on Monday April 3rd  gave birth to Alexander James Aiken (A.J. Aiken)...Mom and baby are reportedly doing fine.  Congratulations Tom!  A.J. Aiken  has a nice ring to it.... future racer?  With the Honda Challenge racers in Buttonwillow this same weekend, Race Group A fielded only 18 cars.  The crappy weather forecast may also have kept some folks home as well. In any event there was PLENTY of room in the paddock.


Saturday: Saturday's weather was pretty nice...no rain with puffy white clouds and blue sky. We did however have an unrelenting stiff cool wind all day long which gave everyone an acute case of face windburn. Ron qualified with a decent lap time of 2:15.65...Scott was one second slower with a 2:16.67.  The GTIs were gridded in the rear of the first standing start wave of RX7s and PT cars. Behind us would be a flying start of 6 Spec Miatas followed by two super unlimited cars.  Ron and Scott gridded about 15 car lengths behind the front pack but even with this distance found themselves quickly approaching the pack by Turn 3...the GTIs have a lot of standing start acceleration compared to the Pro7s....most likely the lack of torque with the rotary motors.


Scott leads Ron in the dry Turn 5 bypass (photo courtesy of Miller Motorsports)

In any event...Scott managed to get in front of Ron at the start (Ron admittedly tries to not abuse his drive train on the starts....Scott admittedly has a drag racer's mentality when it comes to the starts) but Ron clung to Scott's tailpipe for the first four laps until Ron's throttle stuck wide open due to the errant throttle body stop screw.  Ron had to retire and Scott ended up hot lapping all by his lonesome for the rest of the race. Too bad as this was shaping up to be a real close entertaining GTI-Cup battle.  Ron's fastest race lap was a 2:15.82 and Scott's a 2:16.28.


Sunday: NASA racers woke up to low, dark clouds Sunday morning and everyone knew it would be raining sometime today...Ron and Scott hoped that the rain would hold off until 30 minutes after the Race Group A start time of 1:05 PM.   Practice and Qual times were mostly dry....we had a slight misting of rain but the track was dry enough to run shaved tires. At the end of the Qual session you could feel the track getting a little slick. Ron got the pole with a 2:17.06 Scott clocked a 2:17.56.  By the time of our race it was raining pretty good and the track was completely soaked with no hope of drying out...so we put our treads on.  Again, we gridded to the back about 20 car lengths of the standing start grid and on the green flag drop Scott managed to get in front of Ron by Turn 1.  The first lap on a wet track is driving the "great unknown"...you have no idea how fast to take a turn..Scott decided to drive off the racing line in the marble zone which worked OK until Turn 4 where his rear end went loose for a partial spin.  Scott stayed on the asphalt and was surprised that Ron hadn't passed him during the spin....he found out later Ron had spun simultaneously with him and we were told our spins looked like a choreographed ice skater's routine.    Click here to see the spin from Ron's car video.  After the Turn 4 spin Scott was able to stay ahead of Ron as they continued around track.


Rabbits in the Rain Turn 3 (photo courtesy of Miller Motorsports)


 


About lap 4 Ron took a chance with an inside pass on Scott in Turn 1 which was successful see video clip...now it was Scott's turn to ride Ron's bumper.  On this same lap by the time the GTIs got Turn 8  they were driving somewhat faster than previous laps when entering the turn....this faster entry speed caused Ron's rear end to come around but he caught it...Scott's car did the same exact thing but ended up half spinning and shooting off into the mud on the inside of Turn 8...slid sideways and ended up with the nose of his car pointing towards the track just before Turn 9.   Click here for a in-car video of Scott's spin.  Scott was able to get back on track and not get mired in the mud. Ron now was 20 or so seconds ahead of Scott who thought his race was all but over....but anything can happen on a wet track.  Scott ended up catching up to Ron with about 2.5 laps left in the race.  Ron had bobbled in the braking zone in Turn 14 which helped and by the drop of the white flag Ron and Scott were only a few car lengths apart.   Scott tried like hell to find a passing opportunity on the last lap but could not find one.  His only hope was to stay on Ron's bumper while exiting Turn 15 to maybe  have a chance at a drafting pass.  But Scott  was a little too heavy on the gas and spun his tires on the exit of 15 which caused him to drop back a couple of car lengths with no hopes of a drafting opportunity.  The two cars crossed the finish line with only a couple of car lengths separating them (only 0.35 seconds difference) with Ron holding on to 1st place.


Close Finish (0.35 seconds) for Sunday's Race (photo courtesy of Miller Motorsports)

Click here for a video of the last lap of the race from Scott's in-car camera.  This was a great race.  After the race at the awards ceremony some people told us what a good race we had.  Fastest race laps were" Scott 2:29.46 and Ron 2:29.62....surprisingly these lap times are only 8 mph slower than our dry laps times....72 mph vs. 80 mph.


Sunday's Podium and Ron first place Scott in second





 Here's the NASA link for race results.
 
 

Shed Racing Report Click Here
Back to Home
Back to News