We closed out March at Road Atlanta in the Pro Mazda with Arrive Drive Motorsports in SVRA Group 9 and that was an awesome learning experience.
After that, we moved to Carolinas Motorsports Park for some F1000 and F2000 action April 1-3.
Pro Mazda was once the middle rung of the Road To Indy ladder system. It’s a high-performance racing machine that can get around the corners and beat the likes of the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup 3.8-liter car down the long back straightaway.
It was very exciting to be back in that class for the first time since my unfortunate introduction the first weekend in January at Homestead-Miami Speedway. As we said in our opening column, I was supposed to be in the FA class as part of the SCCA weekend, but we encountered mechanical difficulties with the Pro Mazda and had to retire from the weekend.
That meant Road Atlanta would be my first weekend in Pro Mazda.
I qualified first and led the field to the green before pulling away from the field. Not only was the speed hot, but so was my engine, as the temperature pegged at around 230 degrees. At those temperatures, the engine can sustain some major damage. I didn’t want to ruin the engine and the weekend.
I pitted and the crew removed some tape from the right-side radiator. The engine temperature immediately dropped and we calculated that I could make it up to second with two laps to go.
Head down and determined, I raced into the lead with two laps to go. But in the final laps, the engine started to sound sick, so I backed off a little, which made the race more interesting than I expected.
As the fastest driver in our class with one of the fastest cars on grid, we had to make race two more challenging than just starting first and finishing first.
We created a lap-time goal, which was under 1:23.00, while lapping the entire field and winning the race. We accomplished all of those goals with a fast lap of 1:22.6, 10 laps into a 14-lap race. I lapped the entire field, passing the second-place car on the final lap.
The final race of the weekend was a one-hour enduro with a mandatory five-minute pit stop. I started off with the same tires that I ran in practice and it didn’t take long for my left-side tires to start vibrating.
My crew told me to back it off on speed, so I started pushing the right-side tires as much as I could to save the lefts.
During the five-minute pit stop, I hopped out of the car to refuel it myself because the rule calls for a driver to be out of the car during refueling. A driver filling his own race car is not something people see every day.
Despite having to save the car, I finished the race five laps up on the field.
Not a bad way to top off the weekend. I had amazing seat time and an awesome experience.
From Road Atlanta, it was off to Kershaw for the first weekend of April. I’d be driving for Arrive Drive Motorsports in the F1000 car in the North American Formula 1000 Championship and a new F2000 car in the F2000 Championship Series.
That’s a team that keeps me very busy because I drive for Arrive Drive in all of my Formula Race Promotions, SCCA and SVRA formula car racing. It’s a team that gives me cars that can win every weekend, so I have to live up to those high standards.
Rain washed out Thursday’s test day and we hit the track with both cars on Friday.
A new F2000 car was purchased from Legacy Autosport, a Road to Indy team I’ve worked with in the past. The car unfortunately had a few mechanical issues that needed to be addressed, but I participated in the final two practices sessions of the day.
John Walko, my engineer, gave me one of the best setups on a car that I’ve ever had. I went second quick in my first session to the fastest in my second. That felt like a promising sign heading into the rest of the weekend.
While the F2000 car was being setup, I practiced in all four test sessions in the F1000 car. Unfortunately, we struggled with the setup on Friday and Saturday.
After qualifying fourth for race one, we made some progress after spending a few hours Saturday discussing changes to the car’s setup.
If Friday and Saturday leading up to race day was a rollercoaster ride, I was about to be launched into space on Sunday.
Race one in F1000 was my first session on Sunday, immediately followed by the F2000 race. A good start to the F1000 race came after one of my competitors spun on the pace lap and I moved up from third place to take his position on the outside of row one.
Shane Prieto was my main competitor and we were matched in a great battle for the lead, including some gutsy moves on his part. However, his brakes started to fail and I was eventually able to stick with him, outbrake him and pass him for the victory.
I won the race by 11 seconds.
Race one in the F2000 car was a little more exciting. Starting in the back of the five-car field because my car was underweight after qualifying, I moved into third at the end of the first lap.
Once I passed my teammate for second, I had to make up a four-second gap between myself and Austin Hill, the pole winner, who was my main competitor in F2000 all weekend.
But I got on the brakes too aggressively and ran into the back of his car and spun myself out. A couple laps before the end of the race, I was attempting to finish second, but my team called me in early to check on the car.
There wasn’t much time to prepare for race two in F1000 and F2000 the same day. I qualified a half-second off Prieto’s pole-winning speed in the F1000 car. Also, I won the pole in F2000 by about a half-second.
After starting second in F1000, I passed Prieto in the kink and nearly lost control of the car. We raced side-by-side through turns 12, 13 and 14. I retook the lead exiting turn 14, but he passed me again on the front straight.
This battle went on until I put him away through the next sequence of corners.
I won the race by more than four seconds.
It was much more straightforward in F2000. I held my lead at the start and pulled away to open a 24-second gap over Hill.
Unfortunately, I got disqualified because my car was eight pounds underweight. This was because of a fuel/weight calculation.
Despite the penalty, I knew the result of the race would not have been any different.
Everybody, including the tech officials and my competitors, knew that I earned the victory.
I handed my first-place medal to Hill, but not before pictures with me on the top step of the podium had been taken. That’s because the podium ceremony happened before the official disqualification by technical officials had been made.
This weekend marked a crucial turning point in my formula car developmental career. It gave me a weekend of confidence-building I hadn’t experienced at that level.
All of my prior victories in a formula car seemed to come with a mental caveat that I kept in mind, which helped to keep me from becoming overconfident but instead staying realistic about my racing goals.
However, the caveats surrounding these most recent victories are the smallest they’ve ever been, which definitely helped to build my confidence.
That is something I plan on taking into my upcoming formula car races.
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