[Sam Strano]

Not bad for a lowly old autoxer in his first year of National road racing huh?

I'll be there Saturday morning. It's my birthday, and a good showing from Dave would be a great present. Then we'll have another autoxer's name to add to the list of top flight road racers. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) The fact he and I are pretty competitive has no bearing on this at all...... :leaving:

This post has been edited by Sam Strano: Sep 21 2005, 04:32 PM

[Sam Strano]

Went to the Runoffs on Saturday, and it was an interesting time to say the least. Not only did I get to see Dave race, but also learned something quite pertinent to a few other threads (will be posted soon.....) about some very fast A-Sedan cars and what they have for suspensions. Heh.

But is about Dave, so here's the report. He indeed finished 8th, and the car definitely looks like it was though the mill. The entire left rear is not black from tire marks, to go along with two donuts on the right and a crunched front when he contaced Hemmingson in Madness (station 8) at the start.

Considering Dave basically couldn't always get up to 3rd gear from 2nd, I think he did a hell of a job to finish where he did. I couldn't see the start, but Dave got the drop on Hemmingson and pulled him, but missed the 2-3 upshift, which hurt something internally. From then on getting into 3rd from 2nd was a crap shoot, but he could go down. So he ran most of the race coming out of the Carousel and the Keyhole in 3rd instead of 2nd. Both the corners lead onto the only straights @ Mid-Ohio.

I admit I'm a little jealous that Dave was out there and I wasn't. But money talks and frankly after watching Adam Dean's car get his and break the LF suspension, and then Rob Hines' 350Z get crushed in an accident which if sure wasn't his fault from what I could see. I can't afford to throw a car away, and that's what you need to be able to do to run T2 or A-Sedan. I'm proud of David, you drove well and I think the Pole and 8th (one of the top Kumho cars I think) @ your very first Runoffs is awesome. And he beat a hell of lot of FAST people. And it's pretty cool to watch someone you know you can run with out there doing the deed. Nice Job, and I hope when he reads this Dave will tell you himself. And I hope that he made it home to LA without any trouble.

As for the STi battle in T2... At one point Knowles hit Hemmingson pretty hard and had him about 45 degrees to the direction of travel. Hemmingson floored it and the car just dug out in a 4 wheel burning powerslide, never even losing the lead. That's one of those things that makes the rally-cars so formidable. Oh yeah, I forgot that Dave got a shot from Rosenblum (STi) into the Carousel and Dave tells me was what felt like 90 degrees to the direction of travel (I'm sure not that far, but he was way sideways) and that lost him a few spots initially too.

Chuck Hemmingson won. Skavnes was 2nd. Don Knowles was 3rd in a Firebird (and was doing some beating trying to get up more). So it was an STi 1,2. F-body in 3. An Evo was up there somewhere, maybe 5th? An SRT-4 was 7th (Stan Wilson). Schotz 8th. I think Terry Eskind was 9th....