After getting into Winchester VA at 12:45am after a properly long haul from Peru Indiana, we did get sleep. We were up and rarin to go and try to get some shelter in case the weather turned poor. We got one of the good spots and it did not rain while we were there.
Summit Point is the track where I first drove on a road course in 1994. In the early days we did 2-3 events annually at the good ole Main Circuit. It is a 2.1 mile course that has a devious blend of high speed, elevation change and techincal aspects like changing camber and uneven paved surfaces. The ruddy grounds and paddock have played host to some of he best moments of my driving life.
In recent years, I've only been geting to drive it about once annually. That said it still feel like home base. To boot, my dad "Bad Bob" and our friend Steve Fisher came down to watch and cheer us on.
The pesky part is that our most aggressive rival has Summit Point for his home track as well.
Brian Hair drives at Summit Point one heck of a lot more than I do these days. He was not taking prisoners on Sunday. He turned in killer performance in the morning with a 6th place against all the big guns!
I lined up to run early because I was anxious to go. Our other friendly rivals, the Schauts had their supercharged and more aggressively modified version of our car in front of me. I figured I would try to see how fast they could disappear with more power and grip.
It was dry but overcast and chilly and the track was not only covered with dust, but also had a lot of new pavement installed just since two weeks ago when I was there for practice! Knowing my tires and brakes are best COLD, I took off with aggression and squirmed around a fair bit with the car. The apex of 6 had some new curbing that was actually falling apart lap by lap!
Dan Schaut was cookin, but I was able to keep him in sight, so I didn't think we did so badly. The result was 15th out of the entire field for that run and going intok lunch we still had 10th overall. Dan took an excellent 10th. Another highlight was getting some good video with the cool "Harry's Lap timer" iPhone app, which was useful to help Mike.
Teammate Mike ran the second session and this was his first ever time to drive summit point. He took 27th with one slight bobble into stony exit of turn 3. He brought it back alive and had fun. Monday's tracks in South Carolina will offer another chance to shine.
We are 10 points out of the top 10 holding 15th as we drive to South Carolina. We just departed I81 with no Virginia enforcement issues and if we an find some on a Sunday night, we may just have time for a beer or two before bed!
