Asphalt racing is the best (when it doesn't rain). Weather made this past weekend a struggle. The race team in Seattle was very level headed (and I bought beer when it was raining). Our new track spray program worked amazingly well with on and off rain on Saturday. We got 4 rounds of qual points was executed on Saturday afternoon/evening before mains on Sunday. The changing conditions made it fun to test various mighty gripper traction compounds - trying White, Black and Orange.
::: 21.5 TC
Starting with my car from Bakersfield all I got to do Saturday was change my pinion and spur. Thankfully Sunday weather was good and I could dial in my 21.5 awesomatix A800RR handling and jimdieterracing JP1 21.5 motor gearing. We would run triple As, with me rolling off 2nd behind Canyon Thompson and in front of Brian Bodine. A1 was the first time I felt like I was quick enough finishing within the same second. A2 was full send with one more pinion and using my saved set of Sweep Racing 32D tires (limited to 2 sets for the event). After about 5 different passes for the lead Canyon got a body tuck with 30s to go on the entrance to the infield and unfortunately the battle was over. A3 was another tight battle, but around the 3m mark I was able to get inside on the fast infield double right and just made sure to not tap out to take the win.
::: Mod TC
I tried a totally new setup this week based upon items tried last time out (ETS inspired, thanks Simon Lauter - RC ) and after reviewing Speed Zombi setup from the prior week. With just two runs on the car before qualifying I was shocked at how close I was to Stuart Mason after Q1. I tested prior week car in-between Q1 and Q2 but decided to stick with the new car for the rest of the weekend as I felt it had more promise, I just needed to tune on it more. Sunday morning I would roll off 4th on the grid. My Sunday tire prep game was on-point thanks to Thee Mangler advice on how to leverage mgv3orange. A1 was going OK until it wasn't -- I was driving angry and caught a bump that sent my car tumbling off track and tko'd it. A2 was on fresh tires and went worse than A1 but at least I finished the run. Thankfully setup change ideas from Korey Harbke before A2 and A3 made the difference. In A3 with Stu sitting out cars 2+3+5 on the grid all got each other on the first lap allowing me to get away. I took the lead and didn't look back.
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