No races this week. I missed ARCA at Richmond, Formula Renault 2.0 at Okayama, and Skip Barber at Long Beach.
I did not enter any races this week. I missed ARCA at Rockingham, Formula Renault 2.0 at Watkins Glen, and Skip Barber at Donington Park.
ARCA at New Smyrna: I ran a not-very-interesting race here, starting 11th and finishing 12th as the 15th-ranked driver in a field of 21.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Monza: I entered this Monday night and did very well, finishing 6th as the 10th-ranked driver in the field. This looks like an easy track, but I found it pretty difficult. The long flat straight braking zones leave you a ton of time to second guess yourself and make (incorrect disastrous) adjustments.
ARCA at Daytona: I entered this race Tuesday morning, and it was a disaster. I got caught up in a wreck, then went back out on the track and caused a huge wreck at the front of the field as a lapped car on the next-to-last lap. This is really bad. People were very angry at me (which I understand). I really screwed up here.
Skip Barber at Bathurst: I decided to skip this one -- the Daytona race really threw me off for the week, it got in my head and made me afraid to go out on a track again for awhile. But this is an interesting track, a long dull stretch with a mountain climb and plunge in the middle. I made a video of a practice lap, which gives you a feel for the track.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Brands Hatch: I ran this race Thursday evening, and did pretty well, starting 3rd and finishing 5th. I blew the start -- I was all set to start and when the green flag waved, I let out the clutch only to find that I'd never shifted into 1st gear! A bunch of people went by, thankfully there weren't any incidents. My head was all messed up because this was my first race since my disastrous Tuesday at Daytona.
ARCA at North Wilkesboro: I ran an OK race here with a few mistakes. I started 7th and finished 7th as the 12th ranked car in the field.
Skip Barber at Interlagos: I entered a race on Wednesday evening, and got into an incident on the first lap, which damaged my car so it was 2 seconds a lap slower than normal. I started 3rd and finished 8th. This is a fun track to drive, but I don't know if I'll try again this week or not, I often take a beating (I get wrecked by someone else frequently) in the Skippy races.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Donington Park: I entered the first race of the week on Monday at 7:45pm, I was the 8th-ranked driver in the race, and I finished 8th. This is a difficult track to drive, and I had no intention of racing anyone, I just wanted to keep my nose clean and check this off my list for the week. At the end, there was a 20-second gap between most positions, the field was very spread out, which reflects the difficulty of the track, there's a wide variance in how well people can handle it. This one I'm just glad it's over.
Indy Pro at Silverstone: I finally raced something this season outside of the 3 series that I've been doing every week! I entered this twice, and ran well both times, but in the first one someone spun in front of me and I couldn't finish. In the second one I finished right where I should have, everyone ahead of me outranked me.
ARCA at Charlotte: I ran this race three times, finishing in 3rd, 6th and 10th. All 3 races were good races with no incidents, and I finished ahead of my peer group in all 3. This track was much easier driving than last season's race at Texas, where it was a race-long battle to avoid spinning out.
Skip Barber at the Charlotte Roval: I started 7th and finished 6th on Tuesday evening. I let a lot of faster people pass me during the race, but then a lot of cars in front of me spun or crashed. Driving the track was fun once I learned how to go (kind of) fast. Only two drivers finished with zero incident points against them, me and the fellow who was about 1 second behind me.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Circuit Zolder: I started 4th and finished 2nd in the first race of the week as soon as the new week opened on Monday. It turned out I accidentally warmed up and raced with the wrong setup on the car! But it worked out. I was the only driver in this race with zero incident points.
ARCA at Iowa: I ran a couple of good races here., but I struggle to keep up with the better drivers once tire wear becomes severe, about 3/4 of the way through the race. In my best race, I qualified on the pole, and led the first 32 (of 40) laps, until tire wear set in, and I ended up finishing 4th.
Skip Barber at Circuit Zolder: This was a new track for me, and it will be the FR2 track next week, so I got a head start on learning the track for that. I started 5th and finished 4th in my best race here where I was the 16th ranked driver. (I entered this race two other times earlier the same evening, and got caught both times in incidents that happened 15 feet ahead of me, which seriously dinged both my safety and skill ratings.)
Formula Renault 2.0 at Phillip Island: I ran this race on Monday as soon as the week began, and then again Saturday for my last race of the week. In the Saturday race, my best one, I was in the top of two splits, where I was the 14th ranked driver, and I started 9th and finished 5th. In the Monday race I started 6th and finished 6th, handicapped by car damage on lap 4 that I think made me 2 seconds per lap slower. I might have done a lot better had I not hit a car that spun in front of me. (Video of the Monday race is up, with extensive notes.)
ARCA at Southern National Motorsports Park: This is a 0.4 mile track and it can be hard not to spin out on this track. In general it's easy to spin out in the ARCA car on a short track, because you can easily overpower the back wheels and spin coming off the tight turns of a short track where you're really slow and need to get on the throttle. I entered this race four times and got in crashes every time, with my best finishes in 9th and 10th after continuing on after the wrecks.
Skip Barber at Imola: This is a difficult track for me in this car, a lot of fast turns where you can lose the back end just by letting off the throttle too abruptly. I ran one race here and did pretty well, starting 5th and finishing 6th. I lost a lot of positions at the start, I was slow off the line and also I don't usually fight people while we're on cold tires during the first lap. I fell to 10th or 11th, but then gained a lot of that back throughout the race.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Zandvoort: I ran this race on Tuesday evening, and did very well in an uneventful race. I started 5th and finished 3rd. I got a lot better at driving this track this season, I struggled with it when I tried it in both the Skippy and the FR2 last year.
ARCA at Nashville: I ran this race twice on Sunday morning. It's a fast short track that looks pretty flat but has more banking in the turns than you would think. In these ARCA cars, that usually means a lot of crashing. In the first race, I got smacked from behind, then damaged a couple more times by wrecks in front of me, and finished the race one lap down. In the second one things went much better, I started 3rd and was in 2nd until the final two laps, when my tires were so worn that everyone still on the lead lap caught me, and I finished 6th, but it was a good race overall.
Skip Barber at Watkins Glen: I ran a fantastic race here on Saturday where I battled with another car for position for the entire race, until that other car inexplicably wrecked us a lap and a half from the finish. We should have finished 4th and 5th, and instead finished 14th and 15th.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Tsukuba: I wasn't looking forward to this race, but I entered it and did very well, qualifying 4th and finishing 3rd in a field of 21. There were only 4 of us on the lead lap at the end. This is an unusual track for running this kind of car, it is very short, with laps at about 53 seconds.
ARCA at Sonoma: I ran this race twice and did OK, but with bad mistakes both times. I got a one-second time penalty for cutting short the hairpin turn before the start-finish line in the first one, and in the second one I just completely missed the braking point going into the same hairpin and crashed into the tire wall (but kept going). I really wanted to do better at this track, and I should have, but I never went back and put the needed time into it.
Skip Barber at Suzuka: I entered this race three times, and never did well. In one of them, I crashed on the first lap when the car ahead of me got loose coming off a corner and slowed so much I rear-ended it. In the other two races, I just never got my act together, I think I spun (without taking anyone else out) in both of them. I love this track but I'm embarrassed enough about my races that I did not put up any video of them.
Formula Renault 2.0 at the NĂĽrburgring (Grand Prix): I had a good race here, starting 3rd and finishing 5th in the bottom split. This was a fun track, I liked learning and driving it a lot, but I was never comfortable on it, always felt on the verge of spinning out (though I did not spin or go off the edge at all during the race). It has the feel of an F1 track (which it is), like Barcelona or Spa.
ARCA at USA International (Lakeland, Florida): This is a pretty flat one-mile oval. I entered this race 3 times, and did best in my first try at it. In the middle race of the three, someone wrecked me at the start so I never completed even one lap. In the others, I finished a lap down to the leader (which isn't that bad on a track of a mile or less). I think I learned that to go fast at this track as your tires get old, you need to dip your left side down onto the apron a tiny bit to make the car go almost out of control as you accelerate onto the straights, so that you can hit the gas without pushing up into the wall. But I learned this too late in the week to try it out.
Skip Barber at Sonoma: This track starts with a curvy hill climb and then winds down hill to a series of very fast flat sections. I practiced a ton for this race, and never felt like I got good at it. I was good enough that it was fun to drive the track, but I was still 3 or 4 seconds a lap behind the fast drivers. I got the pole (first qualifying position) for my race in one of the bottom splits, but several other drivers were faster than me. Also I got a time penalty of about 1 second for cutting a bit too much off one corner. In the end I finished third, which I was very happy with.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Barcelona: This might be my favorite track so far in these cars, it's a wide Formula 1 track with generous curbs. Like most road races, I'm about 4 seconds off the pace of the really fast drivers. I started 2nd and finished 4th here.
ARCA at Atlanta: I entered this 4 times, scoring 84 points in my best finish. This was a boring race all 4 times, in a mostly good way. The tire wear is pretty bad at this track, everyone has to slow way down in the last 10 laps of the 35-lap race. I have to slow down more than most, so I usually lose 2 or 3 spots in those last 10 laps.
Skip Barber at Oulton Park: I ran this race on Friday morning, and did pretty well other than a couple of dumb off-track incidents. I started 6th and finished 4th. I struggled for a long time getting ready to run this race, until I discovered that in the fast turns it's more important to get to the inside curb than it is to start from the outside of the track.
Formula Renault 2.0 at Road America: So far, every time I run at Road America I get wrecked. I ran this race twice on Friday, and got wrecked coming out of Turn 3 the first time, and got damaged about a third of the way into the second race and then wrecked for real two-thirds of the way through. (I got wrecked twice here trying to run Indy Pro last season.)