Road America
- Thread starter CorkSport
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Andy Hollis
Member
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- 2012 Mazda 2 Sport
I saw that in person. Pretty spectacular.
Of course, there was also the Fiat that flipped over twice in the weekend, including once with a hit by a teammate.
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- All Mazdas!
One of the Mazda 2s had some help from the Porsche. I think Andres posted the link for the video up a while back.
I expect to have some body damage after the race is over at the runoffs but not to the level of the wold challenge guys. I was talking to a local guy who ran the Rio last weekend at Sonoma and he said all of the cars are beat and contact is the norm.
-Derrick
I expect to have some body damage after the race is over at the runoffs but not to the level of the wold challenge guys. I was talking to a local guy who ran the Rio last weekend at Sonoma and he said all of the cars are beat and contact is the norm.
-Derrick
Cool, yeah I think thats it. I will see you in a few weeks.
Andy Hollis
Member
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- 2012 Mazda 2 Sport
Watched the STL race this am on SpeedCast...as the race ended, Derrick came under the checkers alongside the 2nd place car for a seeming podium finish...except that the B-Spec car had just been lapped and was a lap down. Should make for some fun pics, though.
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- All Mazdas!
The STL was a warmup for me. We made some big changes with the setup of the 2 and they worked like magic.
-Derrick
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- All Mazdas!
Here is the short story at the week at Rain America. I arrived on sunday night and got the card unloaded from all of the extra cargo we packed in it to send out on the transporter with Joey Jordan Motorsports.
All of the Mazda 2s where pitted together under the shed at corner 14 so we got to chat a bit each day.
On monday I was way off the pace of the other B-Spec cars, best time I was able to get was a 3:00 flat and the fastest other B-Spec was running in the 2:55-2:57 range. This was my first time out on the track so I knew there would be some learning to do as a simulator can only do so much. On tuesday the first qualifying session a Mazda 2 was clipped in canada corner and flipped. It spun across the track and flipped back over in the gravel. The driver was ok and he hopped out saying something funny about his stunt driving. The car lost its windows and was cosmetically messed up but all of the safety things were still in great shape.
It took them 3 days but they got the car back together to pass tech and race on Sunday. We made changes through the week but there were quite a few black flagged events due to people crashing out on cold tires. I saw several cars be destroyed by hitting the walls in corner 7 and the kink on the back straight.
Here are a few pictures from some of the qualifying events and practice
On saturday we decided to make some wholesale changes on the car and see how they would do on my warmup STL race on sunday. My goal was to get into the 2:58s so I would stand a chance of keeping up with the rest of the cars fighting it out for the lead. The changes worked like magic and I was able to get into the 2:57s so we left the setup where it was and bolted a new set of tires on the car for the race.
I qualified in 8th place due to being off the pace on tuesday and not getting a clean run on wednesday and thursday. The race was very intense especially with the first lap cars going off. Joel who was the pole sitter had the steering wheel come off in his hand and he hit the wall taking him out of the race in the first corner. I was able to pass one of the fits going into 5 due to him missing the corner and locking up his brakes which put me into 7th. There was also a wreck coming out of turn 7 where a few cars made contact and the fiesta was destroyed when it hit the wall which moved me up to 5th. After a few laps the 2 which was in part of the wreck was able to get around me (he also set a new track record playing catch up with a 2:54). We did some bump drafting to try to get past the 4th place mini but there was some questionable blocking of the 5th place 2 including some contact. I made two errors in corner 6 which dropped me back too far to catch back up and try to get around both of the cars in front of me so at the end I was in 6th overall. This meant I was sent to impound with the rest of the front runners to pass tech.
After 4 hours, a few protests, and the tech inspectors not being able to find information on the camshafts in the minis they cut us loose to load up the cars and hit the road. Last I heard the 5th place car was being disqualified for jumping the start and I am not sure if he protested it or not but the race results from the B-Spec event are still provisional. This means something is still in dispute and I may be 6th or 5th overall. In the race I was able to get a low 2:56 which was great to see from the car and myself. I believe I can do better if given more track time.
Overall it was a crazy week of learning at the track. The result is not what I wanted but to make it through the race with no damage I am happy
-Derrick
All of the Mazda 2s where pitted together under the shed at corner 14 so we got to chat a bit each day.
On monday I was way off the pace of the other B-Spec cars, best time I was able to get was a 3:00 flat and the fastest other B-Spec was running in the 2:55-2:57 range. This was my first time out on the track so I knew there would be some learning to do as a simulator can only do so much. On tuesday the first qualifying session a Mazda 2 was clipped in canada corner and flipped. It spun across the track and flipped back over in the gravel. The driver was ok and he hopped out saying something funny about his stunt driving. The car lost its windows and was cosmetically messed up but all of the safety things were still in great shape.
It took them 3 days but they got the car back together to pass tech and race on Sunday. We made changes through the week but there were quite a few black flagged events due to people crashing out on cold tires. I saw several cars be destroyed by hitting the walls in corner 7 and the kink on the back straight.
Here are a few pictures from some of the qualifying events and practice
On saturday we decided to make some wholesale changes on the car and see how they would do on my warmup STL race on sunday. My goal was to get into the 2:58s so I would stand a chance of keeping up with the rest of the cars fighting it out for the lead. The changes worked like magic and I was able to get into the 2:57s so we left the setup where it was and bolted a new set of tires on the car for the race.
I qualified in 8th place due to being off the pace on tuesday and not getting a clean run on wednesday and thursday. The race was very intense especially with the first lap cars going off. Joel who was the pole sitter had the steering wheel come off in his hand and he hit the wall taking him out of the race in the first corner. I was able to pass one of the fits going into 5 due to him missing the corner and locking up his brakes which put me into 7th. There was also a wreck coming out of turn 7 where a few cars made contact and the fiesta was destroyed when it hit the wall which moved me up to 5th. After a few laps the 2 which was in part of the wreck was able to get around me (he also set a new track record playing catch up with a 2:54). We did some bump drafting to try to get past the 4th place mini but there was some questionable blocking of the 5th place 2 including some contact. I made two errors in corner 6 which dropped me back too far to catch back up and try to get around both of the cars in front of me so at the end I was in 6th overall. This meant I was sent to impound with the rest of the front runners to pass tech.
After 4 hours, a few protests, and the tech inspectors not being able to find information on the camshafts in the minis they cut us loose to load up the cars and hit the road. Last I heard the 5th place car was being disqualified for jumping the start and I am not sure if he protested it or not but the race results from the B-Spec event are still provisional. This means something is still in dispute and I may be 6th or 5th overall. In the race I was able to get a low 2:56 which was great to see from the car and myself. I believe I can do better if given more track time.
Overall it was a crazy week of learning at the track. The result is not what I wanted but to make it through the race with no damage I am happy
-Derrick
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- All Mazdas!
Funny part is under the really hard corners and the kink there load tires are keeping you on the track and the inside tires are barely touching. Watching a few of the other cars are the track view it becomes very apparent of this.
-Derrick
-Derrick
Andy Hollis
Member
- :
- 2012 Mazda 2 Sport
Sounds like you got the full experience, Derrick. Road America is a very special place. Curious...what setup change did you make to drop all that much time? PM, if you don't want it public. Or just general like "front toe" or something.
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- All Mazdas!
I have lots of video from the AIM Smartycam which I need to edit up and make a greatest hits video showing all of the crashed cars. I have never seen so many wipe outs from people on cold tires at the track. I will see if I can get it done next week.
-Derrick
-Derrick
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- All Mazdas!
Thanks for stopping by at the pits. How did the race look from your corner station?
-Derrick
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- 2012 Touring MT
Nice pictures !!
Good job
Anres
Good job
Anres
