Race Report 2002 - Round 4

Date: September 22, 2002
Venue: Miller Field - Dalhart, TX
Results: 2nd in Class (4 total), 2nd in Street Tire (19 total), 4th Overall (30 total)

This was an awesome event for me in several ways... perfect weather, great course, and the car ran great!  The weather started out cool (55°F-65°F) in the morning during registration and while I worked during the first heat, which was a nice change from standing around in the usual hot temps during the summer, but then it warmed up to a comfortable 70°F by the time I ran in the second heat (perfect racing weather, in my opinion).  The course was really, REALLY fast (shifted into third gear several times during each run) and very challenging.  Leon Stavlo always sets up a great course at Dalhart!

The M3 was impessively fast at this event.  I was able to push it much harder this time because I wasn't concerned with saving the tread on my tires anymore since I've got new street wheels/tires now... I even ran 6 runs instead of my usual 3 (free of charge, courtesy of Jay Messenger. Thanks Jay!).  I really flogged the car, and my times showed it!  My main battle for the day was with Carl Brightbill ('99 Ford Escort ZX2 in STS), since he usually wins the overall Street Tire class.  I was able to beat Carl's fastest PAX time on my last run, but a driver in a '02 Z06 Corvette (running in SS) managed to run 0.028 seconds faster (PAX) than me on his 8th run, so I ended up getting 2nd place overall in the Street Tire class out of 19 total.  I managed to run faster than Owen Lafferty ('98 BMW M3 Sedan) and Jeff Fox ('01 Porsche Boxster) in my class, but placed 2nd behind Steve Sucsy ('00 Honda S2000) who was on racing tires as usual.  However, I did come within only 1.81 seconds of Steve's best time, instead of over 5 seconds like at the last event!   What's even more surprising is that I placed 4th for the overall event out of 30 people total! (on street tires?!?! holy crap! )  That bumps me up to 3rd place in the 2002 Street Tire Championship points after attending only 4 events this year!  Since I'm not worried about saving the tread on my old 17" street tires anymore, I've decided to attend the last two events of the season in Lubbock in an attempt to maintain my 3rd place position in the 2002 Street Tire Championship.

I'm very confident that I could've won my class and placed 2nd or even 1st overall if I would've been on a good set of racing tires.  The 2003 season should be very interesting!