MOORESVILLE, N.C. — The first half of March meant back-to-back weekends at two of the nicest road courses in the south.
The first stop was the beautiful Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham, Ala., in the Hammer Motorsports BMW M4 GT4 on March 3-6.
Barber is a very technical and challenging track, especially for a sports car, so it was the perfect weekend to really challenge the skill it takes to drive a sports car. By the end of Friday’s practice, I had a good feel for the car, although it felt tight in some high-speed corners and very loose in other turns.
Hammer Motorsports was running two M4s with eight different drivers for the weekend, which meant eight different opinions. All the drivers debriefed together with our crew chiefs and engineers to come to a consensus of what direction we wanted to take the cars’ setup. We generally decided to take a big swing at the setup, loosening it up in an attempt to gain more speed in the high-speed sections.
We had to take some big swings because heading into the first race. The car was pretty far off the pace.
Instead of hitting for singles, we needed to take home run swings in order to compete for the victory.
But like so many home run hitters, this was a swing and a miss.
The car was very loose and harder to control, especially under braking in turns 14 and 14a. Despite our struggles with speed, strategy helped us finish sixth after beginning the weekend around 25th.
It was time to step up to the plate and take another home run cut for the Sunday race, but we made the car too tight. The car could be raced hard in certain sections, but it took finesse to get the car to cooperate.
We’ll never know because the co-driver was involved in a heavy crash that damaged the right rear of the car while I was preparing for a two-hour driving stint.
We repaired the car and returned to the track midway through the race. My driving stint lasted for one hour and I discovered an even tighter setup than before. That allowed the car to be much more stable in the rear and that helped get the power down more quickly.
The result was my fastest lap of the weekend. It was also the fastest lap completed by any of the drivers from either of the Hammer cars.
Despite the weekend’s lackluster results, it was a learning experience. A successful race weekend isn’t determined by race results; it’s determined by meeting goals that are set in advance.
Of course, some of those goals are winning races, but the most important thing is how I got there: whether I was a better driver in pursuit of the win, a good teammate, a coachable driver and a ready, willing, and eager participant throughout the course of the weekend.
The weekend at Barber allowed me to adapt and maximize two very different car setups, work with my crew chief and the whole Hammer team of engineers while also helping my teammates get faster.
By these standards, the developmental goals were accomplished. Those goals will become even greater when I return to the Hammer M4 again at the WRL round at Road America.
We headed to Road Atlanta on March 11-13 and it proved to be a rollercoaster ride. It was my first run in a formula car at the track, but it was delayed when the trailer transporting the car broke down along the road and was delayed for a full day, which kept us off the track until Friday.
As God would have it, I missed 95 percent of Friday’s first practice. My out-lap ended up also being my in-lap, giving me less than a lap of practice before qualifying.
Somehow, I managed to qualify in fourth position among my FA class competitors. I was in a F1000 car against faster Swift 016 Atlantic cars.
With a mix of faster and slower drivers in a variety of cars, it’s not unreasonable to think that I can beat a car 15 percent faster than mine by driving 20 percent better than the other guy.
In the race, I moved up to second place by driving aggressively in turn one. A Swift 016 was in first place and started opening a lead over the next lap and a half.
A full-course caution on lap two bunched up the field and that allowed me to drive even more aggressively on the restart to take the lead.
Unfortunately, I lost the lead on the long back straight because the Swift has overwhelming straight-line speed. The only shot at getting in front was to challenge the Swift into the heavy braking zone in 10a to retake the lead.
Once in the lead, it was crucial to run faster through the infield portion of the course to build up a gap because inevitably, the Swift would be able to pass on the back straight.
By the fourth flying lap of the race, I couldn’t outbrake him this time around the outside of turn 10.
Without a chance to win the race, my focus became learning the car, pushing the limits every lap to learn as much as possible.
It all turned when my dad informed me a few laps later that the leading Swift had pulled into the pits with a mechanical issue. That put me back in the lead.
I cruised to the finish with an unlikely victory.
For race two, it was crucial to run competitive lap times to keep up with the Swifts. That meant taking the lead at the start and trying to outbrake the Swifts into turn 10a and do that over and over again.
Unfortunately, I did not have a good start to the race. The driver in front of me checked up at worst time. Another Swift took over second because of traffic and it took me multiple laps to finally get around him.
The leading Swift continued to build a lead that was insurmountable.
We finished the race under caution with a solid second-place finish.
I ran a lap of 1:22.37 during the second race — that’s not shabby for my first weekend in a formula car around Road Atlanta.