The race for the regional title was a one race deal this year. Past years it was a three race point series. It was to be held on a sunday with a warmup/club race on the day before (saturday). I wanted to go to the warmup race but due to working late and just simply needing the rest I decided to take saturday morning to sleep in and get things ready for the race.
I got to pasadena, Maryland about 6 pm sat evening. Just in time to get setup and wait about 10 minutes for the A main of the warmup race to finish. The track was open for practice after the warmup race and I needed this time to continue breaking in a new motor that i had just put in a few days previous. The track was a fairly easy layout and was very fast so seting up the car/clutch/motor/pipe was pretty easy. The track did start to get a few ruts in it at the end of saturday so I could see where that was going. As it ended up the track actually held up much better than I expected on sunday so all I did on setup change was go up in oil a little. Everything was performing perfectly.
Sunday, the track open for practice for two hours in the morning so took advantage of this to get some more fuel through the new motor. The first qualifier came and after the first round was over I was in the top ten but according to the print out on the qualifier I was 7 seconds off TQ pace.
After I reviewed the print out I descovered that the computer was setup wrong. We all started out of pit lane and it took almost a full lap to get to the line. It was suppossed to be IFMAR starts, everyone on their own clock. Well, as it turns out they race director) had the computer set so that when the first car crossed the line the clock started for everyone. After bringing this to their attention, the first round was re-run. I was insistant that we run the first round over because I didn't get out of the pits first so I laid back to get out of the rolling crash of 6-7 cars that didn't understand IFMAR qualifying. So my first lap alone was recorded as being 15 seconds off pace. So, after we ran the first round over again I was TQ and ended up staying TQ for the rest of the day. The car/motor/radio, everything performed flawlessly.
So for the main I started on the pole. Right from the start I concentrated on just being smooth and crash free. The track was so fast, if you crashed just one time you could lose a quarter lap and if you got a bad marshal it was more than that. My plan worked perfectly, second place followed close for a few minutes and then he made one mistake and I was able to get some breathing room. The announcer never called out how nuch of a lead I had so I didn't know so as a result I never slowed down to pace myself. I knew that I had a good lead but wasn't sure of how good. For the entire 30 minute main I never let up and at the end I was 3 laps up on second and when I crossed the line the final time second and third was right in front of me, so it was almost four laps. Again everything ran perfectly and I couldn't have been happier with the way anything performed.
I would like to thank everyone for thier support, I couldn't do it without all the support. Thank you everyone.
