Hello All,

I have been fortunate enough to be on this forum for a little while, with the support of my partner, TNVC.  My name is Jeff Westphal, and I am a professional Racing Driver & Instructor, currently driving for Scuderia Corsa in the newly formed United Sports Car Championship.  The purpose of this post is to give inquiring minds an inside look into what it's like to work in the motorsports industry, but also what it's like to drive at some of the United States best racetracks in GT3 spec cars, particularly the #63 red one......  

Throughout the year, I will update this post with reports/summaries of what goes on at each race in our 11 Race calender.  I ask only of you, if you happen to be a fan of motorsport and at one of the races, come search me out.  I will try and show TNVC & AR15.com fans a behind the scenes look at our Racecar during a race weekend.

All of the races will be shown Live on; FOX SPORTS 2 and replayed on Fox Sports 1

You can also follow here for up to date info/industry happenings:

T/IG: @Westphalracing
FB: https://www.facebook.com/westphalracing
www.jeffwestphalracing.com

Daytona 24 HR

Start Position: 2nd

Finish Position: 11th



So the "France" Family that owns Nascar, buys out Dr. Panoz whom owns ALMS, Then combines the two sportscar championships, and the offspring of that merger is the United Sportscar Championship.  4 classes of cars, racing together for the same real estate to win each respective category's honors, points, prize money and presitge.  The first stop on our calendar is Daytona International Speedway, for the 24Hr of Daytona.  Sports car racing's Super Bowl, a place that I've been before and am looking forward to going back with a sharp weapon!

The test days prior to the race are to get not only the car pointed the right direction with shock, spring, sway bar and wing settings, but also to get the 4 drivers and crew to gel together as a unit prior to the event with all of their respective duties and tasks.  The race will have 67 teams, 29 of them in our GT Daytona class (GTD) that are all preparing for the battle ensuing.  The car will have 4 drivers, require 24+ pit stops, one full brake pad and rotor change, consume a little bit of oil, and A LOT of 100 octane fuel.  During our test, the engineer and strategist wasn't so concerned with overall speed, yet a car thats good in all conditions (hot/cold, dry/wet) and comfortable to drive as a 24Hr race cannot be won in the first 23HRs, but it sure can be lost!  We had the speed for the top 10 in practice sessions, which really doesn't matter much because everyone that's going to be there at the end is trying to play poker anyways, as a driver behind the wheel, you can tell who will be strong and who will struggle.  Leaving the 2 day test, I estimated there was about 10 cars that could win, a number that has gone up since years past.

Fast foward to race week, in typical fashion for a Saturday race I fly in on Tuesday, spending time on Wednesday with the team working on the small little prep things like adjusting the radio harness in the adapter on my helmet to plug into the car to speed up our sub 30 second driver changes.  Radio checks, system checks, scrutineering checks were all performed.  We were done by 3pm or so, which allowed me to get the final cardio training done for the week, a 4 mile run at a moderate pace later that evening before dinner.  Many ask why training is so important, because surely your just sitting down and turning a wheel.  I respond, go drive a go-kart (indoor or outdoor) as fast as you can, for 2 Hours plus straight without making mistakes that will cost tenths of seconds.....  Heart rates are 160+, the cars are 100-140 degrees F inside, and we have to wear a whole lot of fire proof gear.  Just for example, usually I loose 4-6lbs in a 24HR race from start to finish.

Thursday and Friday we were on track, making sure the pavement was where we left it (literally), giving all 4 of our drivers (myself included) the last few laps of prep before qualifying.  My team mates this year consisted of; Alessandro Balzan - last years champion who will be joining me in the car for the whole 14' season, Toni Vilander - a Finnish factory Ferrari driver who has been competing in similar red cars for the last 10 years, and Lorenzo Case - an Italian pro driver with Ferrari GT2 experience, most recently finishing 2nd at the 24HRS of Le Mans.  Balzan and I will race the full season together, Toni joined us for the 24, and Lorenzo will join us for the remaining long events (Sebring, Watkins Glen, Indianapolis, Petit Le Mans).  Toni was slated to qualify for us, and we knew the car was pretty solid, but with his herculean effort we landed P2 of 29, starting on the front row of our GTD field. Honestly speaking qualifying for such a long race isn't so much the focus, but it's more of a confirmation of our plan, car, drivers and strategy.  Starting towards the front is never a bad thing.  We went to the at track catering tent after all the prep was done on the car as a team, all 50 people to enjoy dinner together before the start of our 36HR day and 24HR race.

Saturday, race day..... So many feelings, with the new series being ironed out, there are a few rules that are changing up until the drop of the green flag, that truthfully could influence who gets hired to drive and who doesn't. As drivers we are always jockeying for approval from the owner providing the car/team, but at this moment it's time to shift focus to the race, the competitors, the strategy and physical work load I am about to put my body through. Manufacturers are still making pleas for help with the BOP (Balance of Performance) to give there car more of an advantage going forward into the season, a set of regulations controlling weight of car, intake restriction, wing gurney size, vehicle ride height, and maximum rev's used from the engine.  IMSA will use this every race to "keep the balance of performance".......  In the past, it was who wrote a bigger check but here's to hoping that doesn't happen with new management ;)

The green flag drops and I have a feeling of confidence as I have great faith in all of my team mates.  This 24HR, I feel I am apart of the most competitive driver line up that I've ever raced with, so that allows me to relax a little bit more when I am not behind the wheel, sliding our car around the 3.5 mile race track's hairpins in the infield, and flat out on the banking, lap after lap.  For the first 16 Hours, we were fluctuating between 1st and 5th position depending on pit stop cycle, things were going fantastic.  I had a radio issue in my first stint (Hr 4-6) where I couldn't hear pit lane, which made strategy calls and pit stops much more volatile than they needed to be, but we got through them successfully without loosing much if anything.  The car felt good, fuel mileage was in check with what we calculated prior the start, and it was my job to get in later on for the 3rd time in the race, and take us to hour 18.  The pace of the race was faster than it ever has, but while I was moving the Ferrari around the track in the 1.49.00 range, I was also lifting off the gas 30 yards before my brake point, then braking after my usual brake point to save fuel, and stretch our mileage.  We learned that the Porsche, although given the same amount of fuel was able to go 6 laps more than us, which was dangerous as we closed in on the end of the race.  The tactic described above is standard protocol to save a little distance of full throttle with the least speed lost, conserving fuel on a 25 lap fuel tank length.  I came into pit for the second time in this particular double stint (which was hour 6 in the car), handed the car over to Balzan and was told that I was done for the race.  "Ahhh", fatigued, dehydrated, hungry and wired all at the same time, I retreat to the catering tent to grab breakfast.  

As I sit eating buffet style scrambled eggs, I watch the live feed on the TV near the long table.  Much to my chagrin, I see our #63 Ferrari off track, pulling behind the wall under it's own power.  Balzan was passing a lapped car (#19 Porsche) who was 12 seconds off the pace and 40 laps down at the time, when the amateur driver panicked, lost control of his car, tagged us and pushed us into the wall, breaking our steering rack.  "Seriously!!!????  All of this hard work, prep and execution thus far, gone."  We would end up loosing 30+ mins (16 laps) in the garage while the crew feverishly changed the steering rack to get us back out on track to collect points/positions for the season championship, but all hopes of shooting for the win or the podium were finished.  Such a huge let down, felt like I was kicked in the gut actually, borderline queasy.

We came back into the race in 13th and ultimately finished 11th, ahead of many of the full season competitors that are expected to be strong, but bittersweet because of the potential shown from the team.  One would ask do I blame Balzan?  Its a solid question, but driving with him all of last year, and seeing the #19 on track, there wasn't a lot he could do to avoid that situation.  We will move on forward, and prep our car for the 12 HR of Sebring, another barn burner of a race, with intensity and history.  The pit crew did an amazing job, executing 25 pit stops flawlessly, with little to no sleep, multiple driver changes, and lots of gallons of fuel with no problems at all, which is a great sign moving forward into the remaining races.

My feelings are disappointment, yet excitement for the next event, a combination that awkwardly abnormal, yet commonplace in this sport, because for the next 5 weeks, I will be thinking about Daytona, and dealing with that feeling until we get another task...... Sebring

Sebring 12HR

Start Position: 5th

Finish Position: 18th

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/Stanky19/1467237_676507935725823_1533593291_n.jpg

Where to start…. Well, the weeks leading up to my first go at this historic event has been a little hectic but it’s mostly all of my own doing, so I really can’t blame anyone but yours truly.

As a pro driver, most of us pick up consulting work between races as it’s a great way to expand your network and earn while you wait for your next primary earning weekend.  Keeping the lights on is important, and although there are pro’s and con’s to living everywhere in this beautiful country, one of the con’s to living in California is that the day to day cost of things, land, ect. is quite high.  So it requires more income to be comfortable, and San Francisco is a prime example of this.  Happy Hours are my best friend, but enough of the locatonal issues.

In the last 15 days I have been coaching at the racing school, my clients privately and for my Ferrari team’s client based “Ferrari Challenge” race program in Palm Springs, N. Los Angeles, & Sonoma with a schedule something like travel Tuesday to palm springs at night after a full day in Sonoma with the racing school, Wednesday at palm springs with private clients, fly home Wednesday night, Thursday & Friday back up in Sonoma, Drive down for Sunday in palm springs with Ferrari challenge clients, Monday in N. Los Angeles with Ferrari Challenge, drive back up north for Wednesday in Sonoma with the racing school, and then squeezing in a 4 day commercial shoot for BMW (Thu – Sun), precision driving in 10-13 HR days.  The Monday of race week I was back in Sonoma for a Ferrari Challenge client test day, and Tuesday morning at 0700 on the plane to Sebring, Florida.  For those that think drivers just wait about until the next race, this gives you a look at my “work week”, which isn’t all glitz and glamour of the pre grid with a beautiful red 458.  

Having said this, I am tired from all the travel and hectic schedule, amidst trying to move forward with other big life acquisitions at the same time, but I LOVE IT.   I get to cherish the day or two sporadically in the month where I can escape for a few hours and run 5-13 miles, hop on my road bicycle and just check out for 2-5 HRs, enjoy some scenery and push my cardio limits up the hills around the SF bay area.  

Now I sit on the plane, taking all the clutter of managing schedules, clients preferences for learning during coaching days, scheduling new coaching days in the future, invoices, setting up endorsement deals, ect. And get to focus on one thing, making my 4 Continental Tires and my Ferrari 458 work to the maximum for every square foot of the Sebring 12 HR race circuit this weekend.   The 12 HR is a race I’ve never competed in, on a track that I’ve never seen in it’s entirety, so my focus is 110% now.  Time to be that sponge I was when I started my racing career knowing literally nothing about anything, just that I liked to go fast and had a knack for driving a car on a knife edge of hooked up, and sliding into corners.  Listen to every piece of advice from the mixed experience of my co-drivers for this endurance event, study video, and to some degree, some GOOD OL’ trial and error.  The race circuit is extremely bumpy, so much so that our car will likely touch the ground 3-5 times per lap and there is nothing we can do about it.  We compete on an old airport, which means little “bumps” for military aircraft that are acceptable become massive rollers for a 1.5 ton racecar sitting 2.5 inches off the ground.

I am extremely excited for this race though, because I think it’s a chance for some redemption from our Daytona 24.  We’ve added a new driver to our roster since Toni has World Endurance Championship commitments from Ferrari, and I think the ex Formula 1 driver Stefan Johansson will be a great person to bounce ideas off of regarding the circuit considering he’s won here before.  Wednesday is an easy day for us, team meetings in the morning, I will be coaching some private clients in a support series of ours for the day with their Porsche GT3 Cup cars, and we have driver change practice later in the day with the crew to make sure we are competent in and out of the car during the event…… that whole 25sec. or less target time for driver in and out of the car, ready to leave the box with gear on.  Thursday we hit the track for the first time, with 4 HRs of practice prior to the race, and 4 drivers to get up to speed.  The inevitable red flag during practice causing run time loss will occur, so I reckon we actually will have to get the car set up, and 4 drivers ready to race.  

Yikes…..

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/Stanky19/10009302_676480175728599_613518639_n.jpg

Just after the 2 days on track leading up to the race, my synopsis on the 12HR circuit is as follows:

1.  This track is Mega
2. Can’t believe I am here for this historic event
3. Turn 1 is a mother
4. My back is going to be sore after this race

The track didn’t take too long for me to get comfortable, I had 12 times through start finish over 2 days and 4 sessions, and I was able to do a 2.05.xx on 2 stint old tires, which should put me in the 2.04’s on new rubber (pole position was 2.04.2).  It is extremely bumpy, so much so that if you tighten up expecting the hit each lap it ends up hurting worse.  Its best to relax and be Raggedy Ann, I expend less energy that way.  I found the nighttime here isn’t as bad as I expected, & the visibility was quite good with our headlights (with “good” being a relative term for 40 meters of visibility).  I cannot wait to take the green flag tomorrow and put in my stints in the asset.

Qualifying; the top 15 cars of 25 were within .9 of a second, and the top 8 were within .5 second, so the racing should be tremendous, and our #63 Ferrari qualified 5th.  I am cautiously optimistic about tomorrow’s race due to the fact that this event is notorious for being equally as grueling as the 24HRs of Daytona, so we will head into the race tomorrow Am with our best foot forward, and I will bring the A Game since TNVC expects nothing less ;)

Fast forward to Saturday morning, all the pre race festivities are done, bar the opening ceremony and the national anthem, which I enjoy.  It’s a sporting event, but the pride for our freedom in this country is something I am very grateful for, that we get to enjoy events like the 12HR of Sebring and not worry about many things people in other parts of this world deal with on a daily basis, and we have our hero’s to thank!  The opportunity to compete for a living has been my dream since I was a child, so I am humbled by my good fortune.  I put on my gear around 9am, and head out to pit lane for pre grid, and opening ceremony.  As I leave the trailer, I feel the “zone” starting to come over me, that feeling you get when you’re out of body, present on location for a task with no other alternative but success.  I train physically to allow myself to tap into this focus more easily.  Running and cycling long distance help my brain function in subconscious, which is when my brain can process the most information while awake.  10am, “clear the grid” over the loud speaker is called, so all fans must return to the paddock of their respective viewing areas.  I walk over to wish my teammate good luck for the green flag, knowing I’ll be getting in shortly after him.  Not long after the flag drops, the ear buds go in, and the TNVC lid goes on, as do the gloves….

An early caution causes the team to put me in after 20 minutes or so of racing, to save Alessandro in the heat of the day for his time later in the night.  We drivers must complete a minimum drive time in the car in order to score the points of the finishing position of the car, so my task is to get my required drive time in the beginning half of the race, protect the car, and of course keep it towards the front while battling the cabin temperature in the mid afternoon of Florida.  I am the most fit of the drivers in the car, so the thought was to use me when conditions were the worst.  We opted to take early yellows to refill the fuel tank so that one stint for a driver would actually be 1.5 fuel tanks, maximizing drive time without completely wiping us drivers out.  I lost 2-3lbs (water weight) in my first 1.5 hours due to the safety equipment and the heat inside the cabin, and it wasn’t even a HOT day.  You wonder why the $2000 race suit is more expensive than the $650 one, this is why.  The suits we were given from a sponsorship program (Company will remain nameless) are like plastic bags, not very expensive (or good looking) and they will protect from fire, but they will not breathe to help keep the person cool.  If I had to choose, I’d probably use this suit for snow racing ?.  Upon getting out of the car it became apparent that I was overheated, Dizzy, on the verge of throwing up, my hands had little feeling in and were stiff to move and my low back was cramped.  I took a Gatorade and a recovery drink with magnesium, as well as plain water and took a cold shower in the motor home.  Within 25 minutes I was starting to feel like myself again.  I Started stretching to loosen the muscles up in the low back and legs, and then suit up and head back to the pit lane within 1 Hour of my first stint.  That first stint’s result was: lost positions with our splash of fuel, I believe down to 14th, then I drove us to the lead, pitted and we left pit lane with my co driver behind the wheel in 3rd

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/Stanky19/20140314-c-7079.jpg

Its very important to stretch our low back as drivers, on TV it looks like we drive into a corner, press the brakes and turn the wheel.  Actually we are breaking at the threshold of the tire grip, just before locking them up (with no ABS) and the brake system requires WAY more effort than the streetcars most of us drive every day.  To put in to perspective, when the pedal is pushed on a standard road car (car, truck, suv, ect.) very hard to stop in a panic, normal civilians use somewhere between 250-300 psi of pressure in the brake system.  In race cars, I’ve needed 1200lbs of pressure on the initial input, which to be honest even with my training for this purpose feels like I am kicking the brake pedal about as hard as I can, trying to make my kick the same amount each time, and have subtle variations for the different grip levels in all the different corners of the track.  Think about doing this 5-15 times per lap, every lap for hours while the car is 120+ degrees and your wearing many fireproof layers incase there is some catastrophic failure.  

My next stint I was suiting up not long after recovering from my first, honestly feeling like I wouldn’t mind them using a different driver rather than doubling me up after my first one so quickly, but I tell myself, “It could be worse!” so I keep quiet and prepare for the task at hand.  I was given the car in 6th place, and left pit lane with a full 90 liters of fuel and new tires.  It was a caution, so I met back up with the pack/field behind the safety car and awaited the green flag to start racing.   The team called in the cars ahead for position, the green flag dropped and off we went.  What felt like 5 minutes later, I was in second catching the leader, made the pass and put our #63 Ferrari at the front of the field again.   I led for quite a few laps, basically until we needed fuel, then another caution came out and I slowed behind the pace car, waiting to hear orders from the team.  It had been over 40 minutes, yet I had felt like it was a blink of an eye….. The team said I had reached my minimum drive time and that they would be pitting during this yellow for “full service”, which means driver change, fuel and tires.  

Upon my exit from the car, the team owner and his partner greeted me on what a great stint they thought it was, which I was happy with as well.  I gave my feedback on the balance of our racecar from beginning of stint to end, so they can prepare the car the most potently for the sprint at the last 2 Hours of the race.  We had a very well balanced car from full fuel tank to empty, which is a great sign for the rest of the race to come.  At this point, I was feeling like we had a chance for redemption post Daytona, the car was in good shape, and we were sitting in a good position with less than 6 HRs to go.  I went back to the motor home, took a shower and put on some dry clothes while I listened to the radio from car to pit box.  

With around 4 Hrs to run, I heard a message from the #63 that we had a fuel pressure alarm come on, with the engine suffering greatly.  Long story short, after 20 minutes of diagnosis in pit lane on why the engine wouldn’t run, we had a fuse blow that provided power to the fuel pump.   Unfortunately the bad luck has struck again, as we lost 9 laps from this first instance of no fuel pressure.   The car uses “direct injection” which puts the fuel injector at the top of the cylinder, which has a better atomization of liquid than traditional fuel injectors.  The positives are better mileage with more efficient fuel distribution in the cylinder, and more horsepower per fuel used.  However the downside is the injectors need extremely high pressure to operate correctly, something like 200 bar from the high-pressure fuel pump.  And when that pump operates at ANYTHING but 100%, the engines power output is compromised, or doesn’t run at all.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/Stanky19/20140314-c-7168.jpg

We had the problem crop up 2 more times before the end of the race, so it’s worrisome on why it keeps happening, however the team will investigate it and hopefully have a solution before our next event which is May 2-4 at Monterey (Laguna Seca Raceway).  We ended up 18th In a massive disappointment based on our early race pace, but that’s racing!

Laguna Seca

Started: 13th

Finished: 7th



Thursday, as I packed my things at my place in SF after a 50 mile bike ride, I was thinking only about the track.  The track that I took my first ever green flag at in a Skip Barber car.  It was 8 years ago, but I still remember everything about the day.  I was thinking about how the Ferrari would feel in the corners that I’d seen before,  the braking references I had used before, and the blind hill that I have figured out in the past.

Typically Laguna Seca is known more for being a track that favors Porsche, but the Ferrari will be strong in the last 4 corners due to the weight distribution of the car, and come Saturday morning I got to experience this first hand.  The weekend had a condensed schedule (which not many were pleased about) so the team was as ancy as myself after burning a few days without exploring the 2+ miles in Monterey.  Saturday was to be a busy day, 2 One hour Practice sessions followed immediately by a 15min qualifying session, on top of speaking to all the local media, sponsors, and guests for our teams home race.  If I remember correctly, I did 4 interviews, and one guest tech talk session at the tent between the two practice sessions while making all of the team briefings and being ready to go in the car 20 minutes prior to our next session.  Squeeze a hello to family and friends in there as well as lunch, and nearly every minute is accounted for from 8:30am-5:30pm.  Somewhere in there, I was able to chat with TNVC’s; Vic Di Cosola and AR15.com’s; Ed Avila (& family’s).  It was really great to have both of the guys and their families come check out the Scuderia Corsa #63.  The weather was perfect, and the surrounding area to the track did not disappoint.  



Practice went well, with the #63 ending up in the top 5 in practice 1, and top 10 in practice 2.  We made an adjustment to try and make the car better for Practice 2 but realized although it did what we wanted it to do, the car was now harder to manage over the lap.  Essentially the car lost it’s balance on the way into the corner, so I had to brake slightly earlier to keep the car stable when I turned the wheel, which wasn’t what we wanted in our race car for Sunday.  Qualifying was immediately after the end of the 2nd Practice session, so Alessandro Balzan stayed in the car, strapped on new tires and squeezed the most that we could out of our slightly imperfect 458GT.  At the checkered flag we ended up 13th in qualifying, about 1.2 seconds from the front of the grid.  Considering what the car was doing, we knew we would have a better race car come Sunday morning, so after a team meeting with the engineer that lasted until the series driver meeting at 645p, I departed the track to get myself prepared for making the horse prance at 10am.

Sunday morning was an early one, since we needed to use the 8am warm up session to verify our changes.  Balzan was the last one to feel the car, so logically he was the one to try it with the changes post qualifying to verify their characteristics.  Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time for me to sample the car before the race, but the benefit of the relationship Balzan and I have as co-drivers last year is that I know that we like the same feeling from the car, and if he’s happy with it, I can drive it.  My job in the next 2 hours is to keep the car clean by not abusing the equipment and keeping the other cars away from damaging our chances at a great finish, as well as make some forward progress through the field.

The parade lap begins, and I start to warm the tires.  As the green flag drops, I am sitting at the apex of turn 11, which is the last corner at Laguna Seca.  This is not ideal, since I can’t really accelerate until I open the radius of the corner up, so gaining a position at the start of the race wasn’t an option for me.  I would have to pick my way through the field in the upcoming laps.  I passed one car or so, and the yellow flag came out, bunching us back up for a restart.  This time we would be single file, so as soon as the green comes out I put myself in a better position to take advantage of the situation and begin slicing through the field right away.  The last group of cars I needed to clear was a Porsche and Viper running nose to tail, battling amongst themselves which allowed me to take advantage of their compromised corners and slip right past them.  The viper needed a little intimidation, so I filled his mirrors and moved like I was going to pass into a few corners just to get in the head of the driver.  Shortly there after he locked his tires going into a corner, missed the apex and started making mistakes in each successive corner after that, ultimately letting me pass him exiting the last corner and opening up quite a big gap until the next caution.  



From 13th to 4th in 40 minutes, with 1st-3rd right in front of me, but the team wanted to take advantage of the yellow and do the driver change since I passed the minimum time to score points, so I bring the #63 into pit lane with our #64 car pitting right ahead of me, meaning that I would have to stop the car in a pit stall with a car in the way, and not hitting the mechanics running out to service the stopped car ahead.  Normally they are mechanics from a competitor’s team, so they take a little bit more caution, but since it was my own crew, they flew out without hesitation, and I turned in as late as I could to still make it in my spot.  In perfectly choosing the best angle to allow the entire pit stop process to occur, we did have one casualty.  The drivers side mirror on the car hit the tire in the hand of the crew man running for the right front of the 64 car, which left our mirror dangling on the door.  But the team ripped it off so we wouldn’t be black flagged, and the 63 resumed after a short 35 second stop.  The only mistake we had all race was a speed violation during that pit stop, yet we are unsure of whether it was me on the way into the pits or my team mate leaving the pits.  Either way we lost 20 seconds, which truthfully only cost us 1 or 2 positions, as the Porsche’s pace on old tires was impossible to match late in the race.  With that said, it was a very enjoyable weekend all around, great to see industry folks, family, friends and a track that I haven’t been to in quite a while!

We scored some good points, and are ready to show up to Detroit later this month as that was a GREAT event for us last year.

Congrats on having a dream job. Welcome to arfcom.  There are a few other racers here and Larry works some of the events

Detroit Belle Isle

Started: 7th

Finshed: 1st



As I board the first of my two flights on the Wednesday before the race, I’ve already had my mind focused on the weekend.  The kind of focus that allows you to show up at the airport one day early for your flight, only to realize you’ve packed, got dressed at 0700 and left your place in a whir for nothing.  That was my Tuesday, so much to Us Airways the ticket agents and my surprise, I had the remainder of Tuesday to myself, which I then proceeded to make use of with a 3 hour bicycle ride to do some cardio work amongst other things.  But as I sit on the plane, my mind begins to wander, clearing it’s capacity of all deadlines, jobs and errands that I have pending, because I know that come Saturday morning I will be focused only one thing, be the best, the fastest, the smoothest I can be in our #63 Ferrari to give my teammate and I the best chance possible at a Ferrari taking the checkered flag first.

I was recently asked if I still experience butterflies or get nervous before a race.  And after thinking about this for a second, the once uncomfortable butterflies that make you pee 3 times in 30 minutes have now changed into a feeling of anticipation.  The unknown still makes me uneasy, but in a way where I can then start to visualize a host of different scenarios that will allow me to have a subconscious state of mind when I see the flag man’s arm begins to move and hear “green green green.” As if I have been In the moment before.

As discussed in an earlier AAR, one of the drawbacks of living in California (though I love the day to day life and what it has to offer) is long flights/travel days to most of my races.  The schedule has a prominent “east coast swing”, so from here on to the Austin, Texas race, I will be flying more or less 4+ hours each direction.  Though on the flip side of sharing space with hundreds of people on a flying cigar, I have lots of time to sit down and write about how the weekend is going or has gone.  This particular weekend is going to be busy one, as my client’s race team in World Challenge is going to be racing on the same weekend at the same venue.  A Bonus, in one regard to be able to coach/engineer for them and their two Mustangs when I have time, but the downside is the management of my focus becomes more critical as well as trying to find any time at all to even get over to their paddock and help them.  

Thursday comes along, after a day long of travel east and I am at the track, working on any little nuisance that will distract or take time away from us during the next 2 days.  Since the on track time is so precious, prep from all aspects of the team is paramount.  A few meetings go by, equipment checks, and I am with my teammates (sister car #64 has 2 drivers) ready for a track walk at 15:30.  These WALKS can be very important, due to their slow pace as opposed to using a golf cart/scooter; I can pick up minute details in the street circuit.  Being that the roads are used publically, and usually designed by a city planner, and executed by another party, details for drainage sometimes are larger than they need to be.  Crowns to the road are almost guaranteed to deal with rain runoff, man hole covers uneven, pavement and re-pavement seams that are not flush, and lastly drainage ditches are all things I am looking at more closely on a street course, on top of the usual corner shape, run off areas, pavement cambers, ect.  



The bumps, cambers in the road can affect the car’s handling potential greatly, especially the bumps.  There may be a way to avoid hitting the bump, or maybe there isn’t and so I should focus on telling my engineer as much as I can about how the car reacts to it after our first practice so we have the easiest racecar to drive come Saturday.  Work smarter, not harder applies here!  The drainage ditches can be particularly dangerous, In that hit once or maybe twice in a 2.75 hour race you may get lucky, but used repeatedly it’s almost guaranteed of a suspension failure.  Think of the worst metropolis city street you’ve driven on in a streetcar, with that one bump that you hit and think “yikes!” as you cringe over the jarring movement and loud bang the suspension made at the speed limit.  Now imagine hitting that same thing at a minimum of 70MPH, but likely faster, now with a stiff suspension built to control a 3000lb vehicles inertia/platform at speeds of up to 160mph.  OUCH!

The track walk (aside from a bunch of camaraderie caught up on between the 4 drivers) reveled that aside from the surface changing quite a lot throughout the lap with different concrete and asphalt, 2 of the curbs have been changed that will actually allow us to use them without destroying the underside of the car and disrupting the balance of the car mid corner.  This was a huge bonus for me personally because one of my Ferrari’s strengths is the balance and speed from braking zone to center of the corner.  With curbs that are now usable, the angle I can attack the corner becomes wider, thus allowing me to carry more speed through the turn and have a better lap time.



Come Friday morning, all the anticipation and preparation comes to a head.  We get to take the #63 on the motor city street circuit for the first time to see where we are in the field.  Though we were very quick last year, and I believe we would be good here again, the series has changed, the balance of performance has changed between the different manufacturers of cars (series rules on weight, hp, aero) and some additional talent has joined the entry list since 2013.  Having said that, we were consistently the best Ferrari of the field, yet we suffered straight line MPH and laptime to most of the Audi R8’s, Porsche 911’s and the Aston Martin.  The series does a pretty good job of keeping things close to equal, however at the moment if you had to race 1 car I would tell you to grab an R8 as the rules are such that they have superior power, and grip to our Ferrari.  Porsche has played the game well (per usual) and lobbied to get extra help with aero, and horsepower due to the new model 911 being a bigger car that is ultimately slower in top speed than the previous generation, and now all the 911’s are “turning up the wick” per se.  I don’t expect this B.O.P. to stay the same all year, however it unfortunately could stay this way for a while.  In the 2 practice sessions we had before qualifying, I had the quickest laptime in my car, yet we were still .7 seconds from the Audi leading the pack.  Seeing the rest of the grid, I knew qualifying was going to be very, very close.  My teammate, of whom I have the upmost faith in (a brotherhood sort of trust) qualified our car quite well, running the best time a Ferrari had run yet with less fuel and new tires in qualifying trim, but it put #63 7th on the grid of 21 cars.  The top 8 positions were within .8 seconds which equals 2 things, great racing for the fans, and extremely hard to pass for the drivers!  The feeling from the team and ownership was cautiously optimistic, with a little bit of concern due to an outright lack of sheer pace, so the brains went to work that evening and didn’t leave the track until 9pm or so with the plan for race day tomorrow.  I have clients racing in a support series, so after all of my Ferrari duties were covered, I stopped by their hotel to look over data and video from their 2 Mustang team to help them get prepared for Saturday’s race as well.



Saturday morning was an early one, and guess who was restless all night,………this guy!  After a late night arrival at the hotel (2300 or so) and a 0530 wake up call, I was dressed, and sleep walking down to the super luxurious rental car ride to the track.  If you’ve ever been to the circus and witnessed lots of people get out of a very small car, that was Scuderia Corsa, like the Italian Fiat commercial, in a Chevrolet Spark.  My co driver, the boss, an engineer, myself and our luggage.  Normally I can make do with 6 hours of sleep, but when driving racecars a lot, the high heart rate and adrenal spikes start to wear on me and typically can sleep 8-10 hours on a race weekend.  We arrive at the track for a 7am drivers meeting (never again IMSA if you’re reading!!!!) and then get dressed to practice driver changes for our 1 stop in the sprint race at 730.  Actually I got yelled at by my engineer for being late and squeezing a breakfast in there with the team owner, so by 740 I was dressed and getting into the car.  Driver change practice consists of a system my co driver, driver assist, and myself have developed to help one driver get out of the car (fully unbuckled and unhooked), and the next driver get in, buckled and connected, door shut and car ready to move in less than 25 seconds.  Sounds like a short amount of time, except the strategy called for us to be able to do it in less than 17 seconds.  Honestly, we have never been slow in any of our stops as usually fuel takes just about 40 seconds, but with the short nature of this race, fuel was less time since we’d consume and need less fuel to be full again.  And to put it into perspective, my best driver change with Alessandro has been 19 seconds, but that was our BEST!  After 5 or 6 tries, working on all the movements that I make, the driver helper makes and team mate make during this process, we were able to get it done in 16.5 seconds.  This seems like a small win in a big picture, yet with our stop being less than 17, we can pit, take 2 tires instead of 4, add fuel and change drivers without a wasted second.  Our calculations told us that we could maybe do the race on 1 set of tires, yet taking the heavily used side of tires off to be safe would’t hurt as long as it didn’t set us back any more time in pit lane.  This will come into play in later as you read further, yet with these practiced and iron out it was 8am and I was leaving the paddock to head out for our warm up.  

2 more pit stop practices later in warm up, and now headed back to the tent we discussed the car’s balance with some changes we wanted to try for the race day rubbered up track.   0930 was autograph session until 1045, then by 1100 I was suited and ready to take the car out to pit lane before the recon laps.  The fan walk which allows fans to get next to the cars on hot pit lane before the race lasted another 45min, and then it was go time.  If I had my way I would take a nap in the trailer, but my engineer has been implementing his rules on procedure, which means I am ready to move the car for the entire 45 mins before the recon laps.  Imagine yourself as a child denied dessert..... “awww mannnnnnn”  As I climb in the racecar around 1145, I start to visualize the start and what I want to happen.  For me, visualization is key to executing a plan during a race since it’s so easy to get overly amped up, it’s one of the tricks I use to get my brain in the sub conscious.  The national anthem sounds off, “gentlemen start your engines,” my Ferrari V8 roars to life, and away I go starting the parade lap behind the safety car.  The safety car pulls off after I’ve done my best to heat my tires prior to the start, and the green flag is dropped.  I make use of the start and immediately take 1 position on the outside of turn 1 of a street circuit that’s dirty and slippery, but I make it stick, now 6th place chasing the mega fast Aston Martin with it’s V12 and high top speed.  The Aston had 5 mph more than us at the end of the straights in practice, but I knew I might be able to coerce the driver into a mistake by applying pressure, so the mirrors I did fill between all corners.  What felt to me like 10 laps later, I finally got the Aston to miss an apex (inside of the corner) and stuck my Ferrari nose in with a plan of rotating my car (sliding purposefully at the entrance) so I could open up my steering input, and apply the throttle to get the best straight line acceleration possible with little wiggles and wheel spin as I was side by side with the Aston on my left.  Since the back straight has a slight right bend in it, I was able to hold enough of an advantage with the shorter distance on my side of the track to be able to stay just ahead of the freight train v12 into the braking zone of turn 7, and I am finally be FREE!!!!!  5th place, Now it’s time to unleash the Ferrari and push.  I immediately open a gap to the Aston behind since I was able to carry more speed through the corners and run clear of traffic, setting the fastest lap time on the track and chasing down P4.  As I reel in the one SRT Viper Gt3 in our class, he has contact with a slower lap behind car he was overtaking and spins, which after a small slide to change the angle of my car at the apex to avoid him meant we were P4.  P3 pulled into the pits due to damage on the car of some sort, and now I was P3 with 2nd and 1st in the distance.  I put the head down and pushed some more while keeping the tires alive so my team mate has the most car possible when he runs to the finish, and before I knew it I was very close to the leaders when a yellow comes out due to a damaged car dropping parts all over the track.  I switch the fuel map for the engine in the car to the most conservative (to save fuel) since we are under yellow, and the trio of P1, 2 and myself catch the pace car.  



After a few laps of caution before the pits were open, I hear on the radio “we will stop this time for fuel, driver and tires, watch your gap and call out turn 12.”  All part of the plan, when I get to T12 I radio into the pit “Turn 12” and I hear “okay, get close to car ahead but mind gap, watch your pit speed, and call out pit lane.”  5 seconds go by, “Pit lane!” as I cross the stripe that measures our speed with our speed limiter on and look for my pit box.  “Watch the lollipop, turn now, 3,2,1 stop!”  I lock the brakes and slide the last 2 feet to the pit board as I shut the car off in 1st gear, move my seat all the way back, loosen the shoulder belts, undo my harness, disconnect my helmet radio, and climb out of the now open door.  I get out of the way as fast as I can, and then slowly walk back over the wall as the race is out of my hands, which is the blessing and the curse of endurance racing I suppose.  My team mate gets in super fast like we practiced, the crew nailed their marks with the tire change and the car left the box in 19 seconds with fuel and 2 new tires.  As he drives down pitlane, the two cars that were ahead of us are still servicing during their pitstop/driver change, and so we inherit the lead of the race.  The remainder of the 45 minutes can be described by sudden moments of panic, followed by an assuring calm from within that honestly is unexplainable, but I guess I just felt this was it all while not wanting to watch.  Alessandro drove super hard, fending off the fastest Audi for the remainder of the green flag racing, and we crossed the line in P1!  Actually the Audi tried to pass us with 6 mins to go, Alessandro broke early suckering the #45 into passing us on the outside, which put his tires on the dirty side of the track and caused him to run wide, which let the Porsche in 3rd go by, and then the #48 Audi in 4th by on the next turn since the #45’s tires were still dirty, and then the 555 Ferrari tried to squeak by in the 3rd corner after that, ultimately causing contact to the #45 that was behind us originally.   Now I never wish bad things on anyone, BUT the #45 is the fastest car at the moment who also happens to be P2 in the championship standings, so their contact and poor finish GREATLY helps us in the championship.  The other car in the points we are chasing was the 555, which had contact and finished poorly as well….. cha ching!!!

Ultimately, the podium, champagne, interviews, photo shoots flew by in a blur of pure joy, and then I had to cut it all short, grab my packed bag and head to the airport for my flight in 2 hours.  Lifestyles of a race car driver, great job from the boss, now on to the next one ;)  I actually head north of the border next week to coach our clients in the Ferrari Challenge for their Montreal Rounds which is in front of Formula 1, an event I always enjoy working since the city itself is a blast on its own.  This feeling will fortunately or unfortunately last until the next race, at which point we are all searching for the next success, the next big triumph, but until then, Team TNVC, Scuderia Corsa and all involved are celebrating the achievement, hard work, perseverance and preparation that we accomplished.  



Next up in our TUSC Championship is Watkins Glen in Upstate New York, for the famous 6HRS of the Glen.

Photo Credit: Bob Chapman - autosport Image

Reserved for Watkins Glen 6 HR

Started: 10th

Finished: 5th



05:30 Monday morning comes up pretty quick when you arrive home Saturday night, and have Sunday to catch up on the normal responsibilities of life like paying bills, and running the business.  In any case, in a comfortable window seat I sit as I watch Nevada, Utah, and Montana pass underneath the plane on my way to Indianapolis.  Some may be thinking, “Indianapolis…., isn’t Watkins Glen in upstate NY?”  Correct, my next race is this Sunday in Watkins Glen, New York for the famous 6HR sprint.  However, I acquired a consulting deal for Audi North America (shhh, don’t tell the boss!) meaning that I fly in to Indianapolis Motor speedway during their Model Year 15’ event for guests of the VW group.  I land the evening of the 23rd with the hopes of meeting some friends from another race team based 1 HR outside of Indy for dinner on my short trip, then head to the racetrack tomorrow afternoon to fit into a 2015 Audi R8 and give hot laps around Indianapolis’ road course.  The same road course that I will visit with my Ferrari 458 GT in one month’s time, so it should provide to be helpful in preparation for that event.  After a few hours of hurdling an R8 around the track for passenger’s enjoyment, I jump in a car and head to the airport Tuesday night and fly to Buffalo, where I will drive to Rochester, New York for my “Good Morning Rochester” interview on Fox Wednesday morning.

I am excited for all the change, of different environments and tasks in the upcoming few days, yet it’s important for me to not loose focus on the big picture.  The most important thing is that I prep for the 6 HR sprint race around the rolling hills of upstate New York this weekend.  Last year “the Glen” wasn’t the best event for us, so I know I speak for the team and my teammate when I say I am excited to start off on a better foot this year.  We Won the last race at Detroit which was a high of emotion, yet it comes with yet MORE ballast weight added to our Ferrari 458 to balance the performance between cars, even though our car wasn’t the fastest…….. ?  So now we are heavier, but also is the Audi and the SRT Viper (which is the right call by IMSA).  Aston stays the same, and Porsche looses ballast weight, to the effect that the Porsche is now 250lbs lighter than our 458.  This should come into play for Porsche around the NY circuit because the track features many bending braking zones; long corners that require you to carry a light brake pressure into the first third of the corner, which all happen to be quite high speed (3rd gear or higher).  Precisely what a heavy car struggles to do, and a light car is pretty good at if you imagine a Bentley vs. a Lotus as an example of nimbleness.  Nonetheless, I will show up ready to fight as hard as I can, maximizing the tools I have, be it a heavy but beautiful tool at that.

Tuesday I wake up and get a medium to long distance run in, keeping my heart rate up in the race car driving relm (145-160 bpm) for 45 mins-1 hour, helping ready my body for the work load ahead on Sunday.  Then I stoke the fire, or feed the beast as it were, and pack my stuff before heading to Indy wearing a shirt with 4 rings on it.  Upon arrival at the track, I am told that a massive storm is rolling in, so we wanted to be prepared to start the hot laps around the famous oval around lunchtime.  2 sighting laps, and 12 individual hot laps later, my 2014 R8 V10 had ½ a tank less fuel, and a right rear tire that was just about down to the steel belts at the outer shoulder.  Fortunately a massive storm came through, with a tornado touching down not far from the track and heavy rain causing the remainder of the day to be cancelled pre-maturely.  Normally I would want to drive as much as possible, but seeing as I was doing 170mph in a street car (no roll cage), on street tires when the most important tire was almost dead, and I had a line of 20 more people to give a ride, I was eager not to have ask the Pirelli p zero to do more.  A chorded right rear means it was moments away from failure around the high load banking at Indy Motor Speedway.  My flight departing Indy was scheduled at 8pm, since I was supposed to be driving the R8 until 17:30 or 18:00, but I arrived at the airport early, logged into the airport Wifi (which was just below the “FBI-surveilance_van7”) and started to catch up on some work.  Long story short, I boarded my delayed flight, barely made my connection in Chicago of which my bag did not, and arrived at Buffalo around 00:30.  Once the rental car debacle was sorted, I drove the 1 HR to Rochester where I was able to catch 3HRS of shuteye before the Fox interview Wednesday am.



Wednesday I will refer to as the walking dead, I felt that way at least.  I ordered a coffee on my way to the studio, and proceeded to pull all the energy out of the reserve tanks to look and sound as alive as possible for the short segment on “Good Day Rochester.”  Even with my sleep walking stature, we did such a good job the studio came out again to do an impromptu second spot, score!  I’ll be honest, I wasn’t as nervous as I expected to be, maybe I am finally getting used to camera’s looking at me without freezing up and loosing my train of thought.  After a 1.5 hour drive to the hotel, I took a nap which was much needed, than ran some errands with the team to finish out the day.  Pretty lack luster by most standards, however it was welcomed after the travel day preceding.  With that said, I tried to shut it down early, hydrate and put in some time to sleep so Thru-Sun I am fresh.

Thursday, my teammate and I head to the track just before lunch time to unpack the truck, unload our gear, get tech to sign off on our equipment, the car and prep the whole team for the weekend ahead, with driver change practices, systems checks, and redundancy with all aspects that we can to make sure we are as prepared as possible come our first practice session.  Going into a weekend like this, practice time is at an ultra premium.  We have all 4 classes competing, some drivers that aren’t regulars participating which usually create a lot more variables than usual, a long race track which means a lot of time to complete a lap, and only 3 hrs before qualifying to get all 3 drivers up to speed and the car competitive.  This requires MASSIVE prep, from all angles.  Set up, strategy and execution will be very critical, so in a sense it’s like Detroit but 3 times longer.  



Friday was the first day we hit the track, and with the current state of the BOP (balance of Performance) it’s important that we maximize EVERY aspect of the lap.  We are the heaviest car, we don’t have the best straight line speed, and there are other cars that can stop shorter than us, so we need to be the best we can be in all aspects of the corner to be able to have a shot during the race.  Porsche, for example is not as good in the corner, however has great braking and mega top speed, so it can rely on those traits as defense when fending off a Ferrari or a BMW.  The BMW has great cornering ability; with the most down force in the group it can brake the latest, and corner the fastest yet it lacks top speed.  With that said, Watkins Glen has very long corners, so the Z4 GTD car looks to be a favorite which we knew from seeing that car in the infield of Daytona.  After the 1 Hour session Friday afternoon, we found the #63 to be pretty good in most areas, yet it could improve in braking stability.  I look at long corners like an opportunity to take my braking zone and blend some of that into the corner, thus allowing me to brake later initially, and carry more speed through the first 30% of the corner.  I’ve spoken of this technique before, and the Glen loves this trait in a car.  However our car was difficult to manage in this respect, as we were loosing the back of the car during the braking zone, which made the turn in and entry inconsistent.  Inconsistent means slides that are small, then big, and a speed that is not ideal.   All the drivers sat with the engineers after our session as we usually do in our team protocol, and explained the situations around the track, and places we’d like to do x,y,z with the car but we cannot at the moment.  Then the engineers kick the drivers out, and confer to make the adjustments that will best suit all of our needs.  

We hung around the track while the crew got on with the engineering’s decisions for the 63, which consisted of longer 4th, 5th and 6th gears to solve a non handling related issue, and adjusting the shocks to control the back of the car during braking.  At 17:30, engineering met the drivers outside the trailer for the track walk.  We all walked 1 lap of the 3.4 mile circuit to discuss the undulations of the track and make engineering aware of what we are talking about in our braking zones.  Along the way Joe La Joie, our chief engineer made some jokes to lighten the mood, which is always entertaining since the typical engineer sense of humor is quite dry, and watching an Italian driver who speaks some English try and make sense of a dry engineering joke with some Texas twang on it, you can imagine the conversations that ensue.  Just before the end of our lap, I took off as planned to get a run in and do one more revolution of the circuit.  4 Miles later, I was pretty beat as the elevation around the track is constant, and in typical Westphal race weekend mindset, I probably ran faster than I should’ve given the lack of my training the past.  It was 4 miles in 32 minutes flat, with hefty elevation.  For me, those numbers are pretty good unless I’ve been running more consistently.  Anyways, I digress…. Dinner with the team was next, and back to the hotel to get prepped for much more driving on Saturday.  2 Practice sessions, each 1 hour long and then a 15 minute qualifying to follow immediately.  

Saturday morning we hoped to make the correct changes Friday, and we would soon find out since we didn’t have a lot of chances to get it right before it counts.  We blitz through practices with the car in the top 10 each time, and each session getting easier and easier to drive, while the lap time gets better and better.  Alessandro Balzan was going to qualify the car, and we know straight away that pole position will not be ours.  We internally re-named the BOP to; balance of points.  We won in Detroit, and even though we won with strategy and execution, not pure speed, we still got more of a handicap.  Yet I understand why the decision was made by the series, a Ferrari possibly winning the championship 3 years in a row doesn’t look good for Porsche, BMW, SRT or Audi.  Porsche and BMW looked mega fast, like eye opening and jaw dropping.  15 minutes later, we were sitting P10 after a great job by Ale.  The pole was 1.2 seconds faster than us, and 1.0 seconds faster than the highest placed Ferrari on the grid.  This result is something strange though in terms of team dynamic.  We all know the efforts we put in, from ownership all the way to tire prep, so it’s satisfying and yet unsatisfying since we aren’t at the sharp end of the grip.  A confused air is about the team, but having said that we all know that the Ferrari races well, and we have a driver line up that can maximize our opportunities.  The team all goes to dinner and we continue the week long hydration, as the weather report has shown temps in the mid to high 80’s with humidity in the area, which can really wear on you in a long race purely through fluid loss.  I am feeling cautiously optimistic about our chances, we don’t have the outright speed, but I am ready to fight, and I can tell my co-drivers are in the same place.



Sunday morning I wake up with a determination that I honestly haven’t felt in long while, it’s as if the day was a long list of items that I was going to check off regardless of what circumstances come in my way.  It’s a mindset I’ve had before in the past, and I’m not sure what triggered it, but I’m glad it was present.  I had my work cut out for me, it’s a hot day, I need to do 2 hours straight in the car at minimum for strategy reasons, and I have a lot of cars to go chase down.  Not long after arriving at the track, I am suited and shuttling the car around the track for the pre grid fan walk to begin for the 45mins preceding the green flag.  Every race we have the grid opens to any ticket holder, a chance for fans to see the cars on pit lane ready to go to battle.  I make an electrolyte drink with 1 hr to go before the green, and walk back to the car catching up with fellow drivers and fans along the way.  

The national anthem was about to start, and we get the order to climb into the car.  Just then a fellow Arfcommer stopped by to shake my hand and thank me for visiting the boards and writing about my race weekend experiences, which I really appreciated.  It was great to meet you, and it’s my pleasure to share the racing from my eyes as I know that I weren’t as fortunate to be racing I would love to read something similar to this that TNVC, myself and Ar15.com are composing.  On grid, a uniformed service member accompanied each racecar for this event, and as I was strapping into the V8 Ferrari I thanked my Army soldier for his service in our nations defense, listened to both the Canadian and American national anthems, shut the doors, fired up the engine and began to plan my race.  I say plan my race because I have a picture of how I see it going, how I will drive the car into and out of every single corner, and what I am going to do in risky circumstances at the drop of the green flag.  

1.5 laps later, I am starting to catch the pack in anticipation of a green flag, which of course means go go go!  Upon entering T1, I am being squeezed on both sides by an Audi and Porsche who’s cars weren’t as fast, so I know they are trying to heed any advantage they can at the start, at which point I fall back on our teams mantra for the race, defensive state of mind for 4 hours, sprint in the last two.  I back out of the position, giving up two positions almost immediately, but knowing that I can fight them individually and win in a few laps time, so I sit back and settle in.  We typically loose front grip at high speed when we are chasing a car ahead closely because it takes the air away from our front splitter, so I expected that to be a factor in the race but it was MUCH worse than I have ever felt it, or anticipated.  So much so that 2 corners that are flat out, no lifting or braking necessary actually needed a lift off the gas to stay on track.   With that said, on my charge back up through the field after I got the front tires back underneath me, I called into my team to inform them about this condition, and which car style it was the worst behind so my team mates are not surprised when they hopped in.  During the next 2 hours, I had many close calls.  Mostly with prototype class cars being overly aggressive in traffic and hitting my mirror, almost shoving me off the road, ect ect, all part of the deal, but it was anything but relaxing, I can tell you that.  My first pit stop went pretty well as far as I can tell, no penalties and it seemed that I didn’t loose too much track position.   Racing while also being conscious of Damage control and trying to make positive ground is tricky, I can’t be too cautious yet I need to calculate the risk constantly to avoid a rash decision that risks the integrity of the car for the last 2 hours.  Many gear shifts later, little slides on power, and sometimes uncomfortable entries to corners slicing through traffic and passing cars, a yellow comes out at near the 2 hour mark for me after I’ve stopped once for fuel and tires.  The yellow was in the pit window where the strategy stayed good, so we took it to stop, change tires, add fuel and change drivers.  I’ll be honest, I was slightly glad to hear that we were doing a driver change as I had been loosing LOTS of fluid in the car and my low back was beginning to cramp a little.  On the upside, the team notified me that I was P2 at the moment, which was great surprise!  I knew I was passing cars along the way, but I did not know that we were so close to the front.  SCORE!  



I drive into pit lane under yellow when it opens, loosen the belts, stop in the pit box, turn off the ignition, turn ignition back on for the next driver, undo my belts, slide the seat back, take my radio harness out of the dash connector and hop out of the car.  Brandon climbs in and leaves pit lane, while retaining P2 on the grid, which feels great because we put ourselves in a really good spot for the remainder of the race.  The race goes green again and into turn one the 23 Porsche brakes later than he ever has, hits the #30 Porsche who looses the car and tags us, sending us spinning to the outside of turn one and de-beading our right rear tire.  Brandon gets the car fired again, and limps it around to bring it back in and check for damage/repair the flat tire that is now rubbing on the bodywork creating blue smoke as he limps around the 3.4 miles.  I’ve been in his shoes in a race before; 1.  You feel gutted that something like this just occurred. 2. The lap around the track takes FOREVER at 45-50mph.  I remember yelling, “NO, no no no!” at the monitor watching the live feed, because all the hard work just done in the past 2 hrs is now gone.  We are 2 laps down by the time we re-join the race fully and back in 10th.  Brandon did a pretty solid job clicking off laps in traffic and moving forward, ultimately we arrived back in p6 for Alessandro to get in for his 2 hour stint.  



I don’t think I’ve seen Alessandro drive so hard, so consistently ever.  He got up to speed when the tires came in and began to hunt down the leader to un lap ourselves, ultimately making it past the dominant BMW and putting us one lap behind in the closing minutes.  He really did a great job so my hat is off to him for a great drive.  In the end we finished 5th, which felt bad because we knew a podium was ours yet we we’re relieved as it could’ve been a lot worse, and it WAS a lot worse for many of the cars ahead of us in points.  Even still, the team was reluctantly celebrating the finish, as we all felt robbed.  Hopefully the BOP changes to the BMW and Porsche but I doubt it will, at the moment the BMW is going to be a shoe in for the W at Mosport if things stay the way they are currently.  But having said that, it is time for Alessandro and myself to get prepared mentally and physically for our fight at the High Speed Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 2 weeks time.  After long flights home, it’s time to run, cycle, eat healthy and hydrate as I anticipate another hot and humid one!

In! Will you be posting some videos?

Mosport

Started: 12th

Finished: 17th

It seems not so long ago I was starting at this view, a laptop on an airplane tray watching the battery life deplete over the course of a transcontinental flight, while thinking about home life with the family and missing the loved ones, the weekend of up coming filled with burning fuel and tires and a small percentage of my mind focused on the future.  Future Growth of my business with Scuderia Corsa, with partners and clients as it all operates independently.  Thus, these thoughts and this typing can only mean one thing…… RACING!

This week Scuderia Corsa and I meet with the rest of our peers north of the United States border, in Bowmanville, Ontario at the famed Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (a.k.a. Mosport).  A High speed 3+ mile natural terrain road course that is known for its fast turns 1 & 2 where you turn into both of them in 5th gear, blind going over a crest.  This should prove to be challenging and reward those who have experience around the circuit with more relaxed car placement at 130+ mph for hours.  With that said, my teammate,  Scuderia Corsa and myself have none at Mosport.  Yep, this is a new track for all of us, all aspects of the team.  Thankfully earlier in the year we had a young Canadian join us to pilot the #64 Ferrari at a couple of races who happens to live not so far from Mosport, and has offered to set up a time for myself or Balzan to drive the track prior to the start of our race weekend at a local club event.  Being as that Alessandro flies to and from Italy, his travel plans were already booked, but I still had time to work the schedule out.  

So here I sit, Monday morning on my way to Toronto to grab a rental car, drive to the track tomorrow to hopefully spend 30 mins with Kyle around the circuit in a streetcar, and then drive back to Toronto to pick up my original rental car that is booked for the week on Tuesday night.  I did however get to spend some time on the simulator with Mosport at a clients house in Los Angeles prior to the 4th of July weekend which I can already tell you was massively helpful.  We say “What separates the Pro’s from the Semi-Pro’s in motor racing is preparation”, with experience being the small piece after that.  This track seems to be extremely sensitive to car placement, and there are 3 corners that are absolutely PARAMOUNT for a good laptime, which will hand the advantage to those that know this battlefield well.  As a caveat to the importance of this pre race opportunity, 4 out of the 5 cars ahead of us in championship points have all raced at Mosport before, so we have an uphill battle for sure.  Any advantage I can gain, and bring into the team for the weekend will be of great use in the big picture.  



Tuesday I did get to see Mosport, my teammate during the 12HR of Sebring lives locally to the track, so he was able to arrange a car for me to use in Mosport for a few laps to see the circuit, “Thanks KYLE!”   What I didn’t mention, was that as soon as we were ready to hit the track, down came the rain, and not just a little, a lot!  I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, so I strapped in and left the pit lane in our new Porsche 911.  Yep, I was driving the wrong brand by my boss’s opinion, but it’s actually not a bad car, I like 911’s.  After squirming around the flooded track on old street tires for 20 laps or so, we called it a day.  Hopefully it will pay dividends to know where the puddles collect and where the grip is in case we get a wet race this weekend.  And I can bet that in the dry this place is going to be Awesome!  I drove the hour or so back to Toronto to drop off my rental that I booked for the one day, and picked up the rental car that the team had booked for me to run the duration of the week.

Wednesday was a free day, so I filled it in with my hotel change to the one where the team is for the week from my Toronto Location, some fitness training, some computer work and watching the final rounds of the world cup.  Overall a relaxing work day if you ask me!

Thursday I arrived at the old Mosport, now called Canadian Tire Motorsport Park with the intention of doing a track walk at the end of the day, so Balzan and I drove into the track around the lunch hour, and started to prep our things with the team in the transporter.  Around 5pm, we were able to start our track walk around the 2.4 mile circuit.   This place is MEGA!  Huge up hills and down hills, with most of those occurring just at or before the entrance to a corner, so dynamically it’s a very challenging but fun circuit to keep a racecar balanced properly for all the corners.  On top of that, all corners but 2 are 4th, 5th, or 6th gear, so you aren’t necessarily moving slowly!  The surface was just attended to 2 years ago, so the patches at the insides of all the corners have a new sealant on the ground, which means two things; 1. Color change in pavement for easy recognition 2. Lots of grip on the newly sealed surface.  In some places, we actually adjust our driving line to stay on the surface as long as possible because the grip change is significant enough to net a faster lap time.  The other notable thing about this track is that no curbs are useable for any car, meaning that you will likely loose time and damage the car trying to open the radius of the corner by cutting across the striped paint at the inside.  This is a bummer for me, because hopping curbs is one of my favorite things to due in a racecar.  It gives me a sensation that I am bending the rules of acceptable and getting away with it, while feeling vigorous in a way where the car is airborne for a moment.  We finished up the track walk, grabbed a meal and headed for the hotel to turn in early.

Next was Friday morning, the first day on track in our Ferrari.  I grab the roll bars and slide in the seat; strap myself in for what will be my first laps to inspect the car and the track together in our opening hour of practice.  To my displeasure, I have a HUGE over steer on corner entry, meaning that the rear is trying to rotate past the front of the car when I turn the wheel, mostly in the fast 5th and 6th gear corners.  This stopped me from carrying ideal speed into the faster corners which is what I need to do to make a competitive lap time around Mosport, especially with our handicapped car in terms of horsepower.  After the initial “oh S**t” laps, the team met in the trailer after the session as we always do to talk about the car’s performance, and how to make it better.  Then the engineer comes up with a plan of changes, applies them to the car and I get ready for our second session in the car to see what we feel/need to improve a few hours later.  It was the second session that we (being Ferrari drivers) realized the gravity of the Balance of Performance for this race.  If we finished top 5, it would’ve been like a win for us.  Porsche and the heavier down force cars (Viper/BMW) had a huge advantage on our Ferrari, and we would need to squeeze the proverbial orange super hard to get every drop of juice that our 458 had in it to be competitive for the race.  We did our next debrief, formulated a plan for Saturday which was the last practice before qualifying and I took off as early as I could as I had family flying in Friday night.  Dinners on the road with family from home are always a welcomed experience, because I end up spending so much of my time away from them and alone between jobs/races.  

With some family time in the books, focus was waking up on Saturday morning for wheels up at 6:45am to squeeze in breakfast before we have a team meeting at 8am prior to the start of the day.  Today we have one more practice and qualifying to set the starting grid for the 2.75-hour race Sunday afternoon.  Friday night we finished the day with a run plan for Saturday, including some changes like; more rear wing and ride height adjustment in the rear of the car to help make the balance more stable at 120mph+ turn in’s over blind crests.  Much to my (and Alessandro’s) pleasure, practice 3 was the best racecar we felt all weekend.  Gone was the “brown light” puckering moments of the rear walking on you into fast corners, and we had helped our poor traction issue in low speed corner exits as well (2nd & 3rd gear).  What I felt in my 20 mins of lapping, I could race Sunday comfortably and battle with other cars while not having to be on one line to not loose control of the rear of the car, important if you want to pass anyone or have to deal with traffic, like say faster prototype cars in the same race ;)  Next up was qualifying, where my teammate Balzan would sprint as fast as he could for 15 minutes to try and record a lap time that helps our Ferrari start in the most favorable position.  Unfortunately with the BOP, the Ferrari’s aren’t meant to be at the front of the field, with both cars starting 11th and 13th.  13th wasn’t the end of the world, but it did mean I would have my work cut out for me come Sunday afternoon, after all it’s tough to pass someone when you are down 3-5mph in a straight line.  Alessandro did a great job, as lack luster as 13th sounds, from 1st to us in 13th position was only .7 seconds different.  Unfortunately the other Ferrari in 11th was .1 second better than us, and if I look further up the starting grid, it is littered with Porsches, the rocket ships in the top speed department.  I prepped my suit and Nomex underwear for battle Sunday, and went for an early dinner in an effort to get some sleep, which didn’t start until 8pm, but the food away from the racetrack was worth waiting for as the catering at the track can tend to be repetitive even though it is superbly thought out logistically.



Sunday, my alarm goes off, I rub my eyes, and sit up from bed to wake my delirious self up and get ready to slide the #63 458 Ferrari into some extremely high speed corners in hope of moving up the grid.  The day would fly by quite quick, with the green flag at 2pm, that meant I was suited by 12:30 to move the car from the paddock to the grid where the fan walk opens at 12:45pm.  This put our strategy meeting at 11:45, and that was after our debrief following morning warm up at 9am sharp.  The track was wet with a large storm rolling in overnight, which completely changes the track as I found out on Tuesday, and had a chance again to sample the lack of grip Sunday morning.  Before the car left the tent in the hands of Alessandro, I filled him in on what I learned on Tuesday, which turned out to be very helpful as it was exactly what he felt in the car and I felt for the second time.  However the weather can change quite quickly here at this track, and we didn’t want to change the car dramatically after warm up to make the rain easier for a few reasons.  We didn’t have a lot of time to be honest, short enough that the changes needed might not get done in time, the track may also dry out before or during the race, which would be beneficial to have a set up that is meant to work for the majority of the 2.75-hours of competition.  And lastly, the Porsche’s are the best cars to have in the rain, so it doesn’t suit us to change our set up in hopes of being better in the rain, because it becomes a Porsche race anyways.  With the weight of the engine over the back axle, the Porsche has great rear grip, which helps in wet conditions under braking and acceleration.  

Funny enough, at 1:30 just as I start saying goodbye to my fiancé and family on the pre grid to get my head in the right place, I peer over the pit lane wall to check the track condition as the sun has been shining for the last 45 minutes.  DRY, not 100% but dry enough to be a dry race indeed.  “Phew!!!!, We still have a chance!”  The call is made, I start belting in the car and hear the Canadian anthem as well as our national anthem.  As we round the track under the safety car, I grid up only to hear “green green green” while I am just entering turn 10, which is not ideal as I cannot put the gas pedal down to win the drag race to T1 yet until I straighten out the car.  Having said that, I was still able to beat the car in P11 on my inside to T1 which happened to be P. Dempsey, then start clicking off the laps as I pass 2 more cars before getting swallowed by 1 Porsche who passes me before I reach the end on the back straight away, just motored on by me before we even go to the next corner (BOP IMSA!!!!)  About 15 minutes into my 1 hour run, I arrive behind the other Ferrari from Aim Autosport, the #555.  I catch the car quickly as my pace is well over 1 second a lap better, yet I am unable to pass because for some odd reason even with more wing, the 55 still gets up the two straightaway’s better than our #63 car does.  For 25 frustrating minutes I am filling the mirrors, falling back to create runs, trying to pass the 555 everywhere around the track, but the driver is insistent on keeping me behind by blocking, and then missing apex’s like an amateur driver usually does, doing nothing but slowing us both down.   Then we come down the hill in T2 and start to head into T3, with a lap down #35 Audi on the left of the track, a Corvette GTLM car passes me and passes the 555, and in the high tension situation, the 555 driver panics and crashes into the upper classed Corvette thinking he would gain an advantage on the car ahead or something, which I saw happening before it did, so I stayed wide left entering T3 knowing those two would collect each other.  What I didn’t anticipate was the #35 Audi to panic and stop on track ahead of me, AND one of the prototype cars to hit the back of me.  Long story short, while trying to avoid the 555 and Corvette wreck, I ended up getting into the back of the 35 lightly with some help by a prototype car rearranging my exhaust and rear diffuser.  The hit wasn’t so hard, honestly I’ve had harder hits in a go-kart, wind blowing at me on my road bike across the golden gate bridge, ect.  However the front structure on our Ferrari isn’t so strong, and we ended up damaging the right radiator.  The fluid was leaking and I didn’t know it until I turned left in 5th gear for Turn 4, then had to correct for 3 huge slides down the hill at 120+ because my right side tires were covered in coolant.   As I turned right through T5a & b, I pressed the radio button and relayed the message to pit lane that I might have a radiator going down.  15 seconds later I was at the top of the hill turning in for T8 again, with little grip, just 300 yards from the pit in asking pit lane should I pit to check the radiators.  They replied, “no, stay out we will look over the wall for damage” to which I heard, no visible damage as I entered T1, but I had a feeling the sweet aroma in the cabin wasn’t my sweat.  3 corners later, an alarm pops up on my digital dashboard saying “Water-T”.  This is bad, really bad, this means we did puncture the radiator, and now we are out of coolant, and the engine temp is rising about 115 degrees CENTIGRADE.  By the time I put it in 6th gear and limped back to pit lane, I saw engine temp of 143 C.  ?  Feeling frustrated, embarrassed, mad and ashamed I sat there waiting an order, which was take it back to the garage.  We are done, proverbially done at least.  The Team would thrash hard to get the car back together and me back out just to fill my last 15 laps of time in the car to score points, then we would park for the remainder of the race due to the damage sustained on our car.  And the 555 ended up hitting the tire barrier hard, but being able to continue with no damage, which just makes this whole incident harder to accept from my point of view since he was the catalyst.

What to say, sad, bummed out, let down, gutted, angry, cheated... this is motorsports.  It’s not the first time this has happened in racing, and it’s surely not the last.  I am just angry that we got collected and I didn’t avoid the situation.  What’s worse, if we had just a mediocre finish of 5th or 6th, we would be 3rd in points instead of 10th.  If nothing else, I can say that I am more motivated for the next race than I ever have been, and next time I see the 555 whether in practice or in a race, guess who is getting no respect…  Childish? Maybe, but he needs to fear me in the mirror and realize that it’s in his own best interest to let the ego down and not create problems for more people than just himself.

Next race is just 7 days away at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which you can see live on Fox Sports 1.

Reserved for Indianapolis

Started: 9th

Finished: 1st



After my last installment, I was left bitter, bummed and frustrated.  Mosport was a hard pill to swallow, yet in motorsports sometimes you are caught out in things that don’t allow you much control during the split second you have to react.  Having said that, the weeks that followed were filled with my desire to hit the reset button on the whole weekend, to get another chance to drive our #63 Ferrari where it belongs, even if we work harder than some of the other cars right now.  Immediately following the Mosport race my teammate and I drove 6HRS east to a track north of Montreal, called Circuit Mont Tremblant.  The Ferrari Driving Experience is hosted here, and the Monday-Tuesday after our Sunday race was full of our race team’s dealership clients.  We were to make an appearance for the clients 2 day driving course, so we made a late night drive across Canada.  I’d like to fill you in on what happened when 2 race car drivers shared a rental car for a 400+km drive, but for the sake of keeping our international racing licenses whole, I’ll only tell you that roundabouts were awesome, and there may have been only 3 wheels on the ground at times.

Alas, Monday & Tuesday was smiling and hanging with guests and a fleet of red Ferrari’s.... not a bad start to the week!  The little ski town of Mont Tremblant has a Louge that you can do in the summertime, so Balzan and I had to test out how fast the louge karts would go as we dodged civilians down the 1+ mile descent, racing each other, swapping positions and bump drafting down the hill.  Tuesday night we drove to Montreal, as I flew back to California on Wednesday, and was scheduled to be coaching a client in his Lotus Evora GT4 at Laguna Seca in Monterey for the weekend, which ended up going extremely well.  We made some real progress in his driving and he won the Lotus Cup races (Sat & Sun) overall, resetting his best lap time around the 2.4 Mile circuit.  It’s always rewarding to see my students thrive, or pick up on a new skill and apply it with great success, to the effect that I feel like I won the race as well.  

Sunday when my coaching was done, I drove to a town 45mins east of my home in San Francisco, where my fiancé works.  We shared dinner with some of our friends, then crashed at family’s house nearby which was nice because I don’t get to see loved ones hardly at all this time of year, so I take every day/opportunity that I can.  Monday was full of planning our wedding, and running errands, and now it’s Tuesday, with my rear end firmly planted into my airplane seat headed to Indianapolis, as I said ready to hit the “reset” button and have a great race weekend.  

This track is a famous oval, run with an infield portion that has typically very little grip from the surface and is quite flat with not much to use as references, yet I’ve been hearing comments swirling that it was just repaved which could change most 2 of those 3 details.  Either way, the layout was changed from last year as well so both Balzan and I will have some things to learn, myself more than he with this being my first time driving the track in anger.  I expect it to be a challenging race for our Ferrari with it being down on straightline performance given our BOP.  
Wednesday I wake up and head to the circuit for a track walk, which is an aspect of our race weekends that I have really been enjoying this year.  I bring my running shoes, and am able to squeeze some cardio fitness into my nomadic schedule, along with an intimate look at the surface changes.  Indianapolis was recently repaved in previous months, so I was eager to see the corners, curbs and areas that I might be able to make full throttle without lifting off the gas.  This day also happened to be my birthday, which is a pretty darn good birthday gift if you ask me!  At the conclusion of our reconnaissance of IMS and my run, the boss took my teammate, his friends visiting from Italy and myself out for dinner in downtown.  I am a huge fan of sharing meals with friends/people, it’s a great time to connect, talk, and enjoy company which is probably my Italian family heritage speaking because I think it’s the same in their culture.  



Thursday morning I wake up feeling more tired than I expected given the amount of sleep I had acquired, but this was no time for grogginess.  With our shortened schedule for this race, 2 practices and qualifying would be on the first day we see the circuit, with the race being the following day.  Not a lot of time to get things right before you have to go compete, so we would need to use our time extremely wisely.  On top of that, we had just over 1 hour between each session once the day got started, so we were limited in our “change” options to the car.  Prac 1 went pretty well, we seemed to lack a little pace to the field relative to our usual, but we started to uncover a few issues with the car that would need addressing to make a better racecar.  Some we would achieve in the next practice, and one other we would have to wait until AFTER qualifying.  This is not ideal, yet it’s a known quantity at that point in our day.  I found the track to have much more grip than I was expected.  I had heard stories of this famous place, where the surface is made with particular asphalt that isn’t particularly sticky, yet still manages to kill tires!  Having said that, there were little slides from the front and back of the car all the time, everywhere, (per usual with how hard we push) but I was expecting the car to be much harder to manage.  To me, this means the car is pretty close, or pretty good and only minor improvements need to be made to optimize.  We gathered up all we could do in the short time we had, and prepped for Qualifying where Balzan would sprint to collect as much time around the circuit as he could to hopefully have the car start as high up the field as possible.  And to that comment, he did a really good job, putting our Ferrari (which isn’t the fastest car in the field) in P9 for the start of the Indy GP on Friday.  Obviously as competitors he and I both share a desire to be #1, but we know our car isn’t likely to be P1 with the current balance of performance, and #2 our car is typically better on an average of laps rather than one flying lap due to the nature of our racing.  We collected our thoughts, feelings and data from the car and conversed about how to make the #63 as pointy as possible for Friday’s battle against the likes of Porsche, BMW, Audi, Aston, and Viper.

Friday:
I awake more refreshed than I’ve felt all week, which I am relieved by as soon as I open my eyes and clear the “mootah” from them.  My Co-driver, team owner, and I  head to a breakfast place (Panera bread) that has a particular fond memory with the team to grab a pre race meal, and then head to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, “The racing capital of the world.”  As we drive to the track, I can’t help but think of the theme music from “Days of Thunder”, which I watched relentlessly as a young child.  That or Top Gun, must have been the speed or something, but today it was the acoustic guitar on a hazy morning, ready to put the helmet on and go to work, full well knowing I had until 5:15pm before that happened.  So anxiously, I waited, heading through the days schedule crossing items off one at a time as the race drew ever more close.  
The warm up session 15min we used to verify the final adjustments on the car, which was at 2pm.  So after the drivers meeting with IMSA (sanctioning body) and the autograph session during the fan walk on the back straight away with all 50+ racecars (which is an awesome way for every ticketholder to get face to face with some really high end equipment and meet the drivers), Alessandro went out to verify the changes to the car were positive.  There wasn’t much runtime for both of us, but the plan was to get me some time if we could.  Turned out I would get 2 laps, twice by start finish, and unfortunately one of the factory Corvettes went as I call in this sport “full idiot” and tried to make a late pass after I had turned into turn 13 to start my first of two laps.  He only arrived to my rear wheel when he ran out of room from me committing to the corner, but I knew he had disappeared from my mirror which is usually bad, so I left ½  car width, just enough to let him bail.  He hit our left rear lightly, and spun himself to the inside, forcing my car to slide at the exit of t13 and blow my next lap.....  Awesome, contact is just what we want 2.5 hrs to the race start!  I was pretty upset, but it did nothing but fuel my fire for the main event.



As I strap into the car to take it on its short parade lap around the circuit before we stop on grid for the anthem in our abbreviated schedule before the race, I know that the next time I get out of the car, the race will be out of my hands.  The subconscious state of mind starts to set it, I shake the hand of my team mate and crew before pulling out to get ready for race start, and 2 pace laps later, I hear green green green in my ears and am flat out charging forward.  I started P9 of 17 cars, but since there are 4 classes of cars in the race, when the green flag fell, I was still in turn 12.  This posed a tricky proposition because by rules I am not allowed to pass at the initial race start until I cross the start line, regardless of when the green flag comes out.  More specifically if my “row” at the start overtakes the other row, I am okay, but the grid hadn’t formed 2 rows yet when the green flag was called, so it was single file until the line to play it safe.  A couple of laps later, I was 7th from a pass into the decreasing radius braking zone of T4, then 6th and we caught our first yellow flag.  The field bunched up, and on the restart I watched 5th and 4th place cars rub doors for half a lap before one of them was turned backwards at the exit of T12.  Now we are P5, and chasing down the pack ahead when we get our second yellow.  We go green again for a short while, one more car is picked off for 4th spot, and then we have what is the longest caution of the race.  At the time we didn’t expect the caution period to last that long, but shortly into the yellow flag procedures with each class pitting, we noticed more and more service vehicles arriving at the new exit curbing of turn 6.  Basically what had happened was the cars were flattening the curb out, braking the 3 spot welds holding each metal panel of the curb together, allowing them to move around.  I’ve seen the movie death race, but I don’t fancy driving on metal panels that move around at the top of 4th gear while at full throttle.  

Shortly into the long caution period, the engineering staff became aware that it was likely the minimum drive time to score points would be complete under caution, which gives the team a bigger buffer for pitstops since a green flag pitstop would make you go 1 lap down due to the length of pitlane at Indy.  Even better was the 3 cars ahead of me pit, which gave us the lead for 10 minutes or so while we tried to figure out timing behind the safety car.  We orchestrated it so I wouldn’t cross the pit in threshold until the 60:00 minutes were recorded with me behind the wheel, and at precisely at 60:03, the #63 Ferrari rolled across the pit in speed limit line, ready to execute the driver change under the caution period.  As I’m typing it here, it seems pretty straight forward, however it required a lot of precision communication as to not cross the line early, and force the car to not score any points because of my time not being fulfilled.  The pitstop from the driver change end went flawlessly, yet the car was hung up in the air longer than it needed to be, so we did throw away 2.5 seconds or so.  2.5 seconds that my teammate would have to earn back chasing down the car ahead from 2nd place.  We made one more pitstop, which was flawless, and again allowed us to come out in a good position, effectively P2 when the other cars ahead made their final stop.  

From this point on, my team mate drove an amazing stint and made the pass for the lead on the outside of turn 1 under braking, which gave us P6, but we knew it was P1 once the pit stops cycled through.  Now we just had to keep the nose clean in hellacious traffic, and keep a field of 17 hungry world class GT machines behind us for 1 more hour as different classes shared the same real estate to duke out each of their respective battles.  60 minutes later, the entire Scuderia Corsa team was able to kiss the bricks at start finish at the famous Brickyard, and add a WIN at Indianapolis to our resumes.



The feeling afterward has taken a while to sink in, sure a win feels great, but the history, what that track stands for in the USA, it all makes this win that much more special.  I don’t know if I’ve had a single race win that has felt this important, ever!

Race finish was 8:30pm, and the next few hours from the consisted of interviews, podium ceremonies, changing hats about 15 times for photographers, and a team dinner in downtown to finally eat something since the race began just before 6pm.  In what seemed like a blink, It was T minus 2 hours from me needing to leave the gate at 6am on Saturday morning at the airport, so I got a bit of shut eye, packed the bag and left for the airport at 4:30am the next morning.  

And its on to the next one, we have Road America, Wisconsin in just 2 weeks.  Time to start writing my reports on the car’s dynamics, and work out bits and pieces before travel on the 6th of August, but first some time with family and friends at home for a few days!

Road America

Started: 11th

Finished: 16th

This weekend started out with an early flight and layover in Chicago’s O’Hare Int’l, which as usual had delays and messed with my day.  I wasn’t able to make the track walk as planned because my United flight was 2.5 hours late leaving ORD, but none the less I arrived safely and healthy, so I can’t complain too much.  I caught a ride from the airport with our team owner, and we ended up arriving at the hotel around 2000, then grabbing dinner and talking all things motorsport, F1, GT3, Tudor, World Challenge, ect.  

Friday was the first day of on track activity, but with our session not scheduled until 16:45, we woke up late and met in the gym at 0900.  I say we because we actually got my team mate Alessandro to join the boss and I, who normally is allergic to exercise.  We all then spent the better part of 45 mins voting for the Wall Street Journal and Microsoft “Team to Win” contest, since we figured out you can vote many times in one day before the system shuts you down.  It became and obsession almost, the thought of loosing was not fun, so it drove me to be the fastest clicker on the interwebs, voting time and time again to mount a last minute charge for Scuderia Corsa.  At the end of the day, with many of your help from the Arfcom, as well as the 7 girls working at the Beverly Hills dealership, and all of us here in WI, we were able to win by less than 1% of the votes.  I heard it was an 8 vote margin!!!



We were awarded the prize of $1,500, which we turned over to our favorite charity, Camp Boggy Creek.  Boggy Creek is a camp that is funded by donations and run by volunteers in Florida for kids that are ill or have serious conditions, with families that may not be able to send their child to a summer camp due to financial constraint of medical expenses.  I love what this charity stands for and does for the kids, that on a given weekend feel completely normal.  

Saturday:  An Early day on Saturday with a late arrival at the hotel on Friday night, so I think there was an outline of a pillow on my face when I walked downstairs.  We had 2 practices today before qualifying, and I was looking forward to seeing the track again for the second time.  I felt like there were a few spots in practice 1 where I wasn’t “maximum attack”, and that the speed would be better today.  



Practice 2 and 3 I was able to refine my driving, working on maximizing the braking zone without over rolling (too much speed) at the apex and loosing the front grip of the car since Road America has very high straightaway speeds and low corner speeds.  We were also making the #63 better as it needed a little refinement from practice 1.  We had a large under steer on Friday, meaning that the front tires were relatively unresponsive at the limit, causing my teammate and I to wait for the front to catch up to what we were asking of it, and thus loosing time.  The end of practice 3 (the second session on Saturday) Balzan got in with a new set of tires to do a what we call a “pre-qualifying”.  This is a chance for him to feel the car in practice the same exact fuel load and tires (new) as it will be in Qualifying, just 20 minutes later.  He reported that we were okay, but still had some issues that were slowing us down around the long lap of RA.  The Porsche’s, and the lone BMW and SRT looked mega quick, so it would be a tough afternoon.

Overall we qualified P11 (The Aston in the pole position would crash out tomorrow in warm up and miss the race), which is just “ehhh”.  The Ferrari’s seem to lack pace on the single “kill” lap if you will, yet we are good multiple laps in a row so the races are typically better for us.  The team owner, engineer, my co-driver, his better half, and myself finished up by heading over to the track café, which apparently was pretty famous and none of us had tried it.  We tried some local brats, pork and beef on the patio and enjoyed the scenery, after all Road America isn’t just a fun place to drive, it’s in a gorgeous part of the country while day became night and there was a football game on the big screen inside the track.  

These are the moments that often go away for a bit amidst the adrenaline filled excitement of the job, but every now and again I am reminded of how lucky we are to live in a country like this, and be able to experience the simple things that go along with my job and travels.  

Sunday: I woke up Sunday feeling the most refreshed I had all weekend.  As I was getting ready I was imagining the race going perfect, picking up some spots in my stint, handing the car over in a good position and letting Alessandro and the team work for the remaining time left.  We arrived at the track at 0800, to grab food before our pre-brief to the 0905 warm up session where we needed to break in some new front brake pads.  I was first in the car, got the new pads mated with the old rotor surface, and was out of the car in 3 timed laps to let Alessandro sample the car we changed overnight.  The grip was quite poor around the track, so we opted to soften the car up in general hoping to help the tire work better with the asphalt surface.

I liked the package we had in the short time I sampled it, and was comfortable driving that car into the race in the afternoon.  We debriefed about the changes and feelings, and prepared for the autograph session where the fans can come to our trailer, meet us, chat or get some racing paraphernalia signed; hats, shirts, programs or one of our hero cards.  1 hour later, we were talking strategy for the race, and I was getting changed to go move the car to the pre-grid about an hour and a half before the race start.  At this point, I am finishing my last water, and small snack to last me through the race, which would end around 4pm.  It was warmer than I anticipated, so I was trying to get a little bit more hydration in before it was too late.



At the start, per usual it was strung out meaning we weren’t grid up at all because IMSA insists on using 1 pace car for four classes and 50+ cars, but I was able to get passed a Porsche before the first (and long) yellow came out.  The car felt pretty good actually, still had room to improve, but it was finally a RACECAR, something I can use, adjust and it reacts the whole time to my inputs.    The yellow was for massive crash at the exit of turn 12 before turn 13, which was going to require A LOT of clean-up, so I was starting to save fuel to the best of my ability.  6th gear, low revs and as little throttle as needed, factoring in hills and trying to be off throttle up the hill to use the least amount of fuel possible.  About 15 mins into the caution, I get the word that we would be going green this lap, so I proceed to start getting heat in my tires and brakes by accelerating and slowing down.   As the field bunches up in turn 12, they start having an accordion effect from some people being anxious.  Yet I don’t want to leave too much space to the car ahead, so I play along cautiously.  By the third time of us bunching up, I stay right to fill the space not used as the field compressed ahead of me, but apparently the #35 Audi behind missed the memo that we were slowing down and hit the #44 Porsche directly behind me, at the top of 3rd gear, pushing the 44 into the rear of my car, and sending me spinning to the left.  As I feel like I have been shot out of a canon and hurdling forward and left I catch the rear quarter panel of the 45 Audi, spinning him out and damaging my front left.  I didn’t fully spin (at least I don’t remember fully spinning), rather I slid sideways for a while and caught the spin on the grass, and continued on trying to access the damage to my car as I am flat out up the front straight at 160+ mph.  After completing that lap, I decided that it would be wise to pit as I felt like I may have had an issue with the left rear tire that lacks grip.  I thought I had a puncture, but it turns out we were slowly loosing coolant, so when I arrived in pit lane, the mechanics quickly decided to send me back to the garage to repair the car.  Unfortunately the damage to the rear was quite high, so we lost a lot of time repairing the car, which put us in a similar game plan as Mosport.  Try and get the minimum drive time for me to score points for the team and myself.

This was a terrible feeling, upon entering the pits I was praying the car was okay and the tires were bad, a simple tire change and some body work repair to send me back out.  Yet when I heard that we had terminal radiator damage, it was like being swiftly punched in the kidney.  But I am not a quitter, especially while I watch my crew change a radiator with hot coolant pouring everywhere, so I sat in the car for 30-45mins while the team repaired the 63.  Ultimately when the time for repair was finished, the best strategy was to send me out in my damaged car just to collect enough drive time to score points for the team, and myself which would be 20 minutes more.  



The most depressing 20 minutes ever, some under yellow but none the less I couldn’t help but be sad for the team and our chances being swept away by a blunder by another driver.  But from this point, I got my time, we parked the car and started preparing a parts list and logistics to get the car ready to do battle again in 2 weeks at Virginia International Raceway.  What a salty way to end a race weekend!

Reserved for Virginia International Raceway

Started: 9th

Finished: 2nd

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Coming off of the catastrophe known as Road America 2 weeks ago, I am eager to get this race weekend underway.  It’s a chance to forget the emotional pain that is associated with our last event.  Sitting with the feeling of being ripped off and not even getting a chance to compete was brutal, and it was only a short 2 weeks.  With that said, I am on a plane to Charlotte to connect to Raleigh, and then drive 2 Hours to Alton, VA where the Virginia International Raceway is located.  VIR is a famous US country club style track (one of the first) with properties on the border of the safety barrier in certain parts of the lap.

This is a track that neither my team, team mate nor myself have any experience at, which will make the “learning” the track extremely crucial since many of the other teams/drivers have had quite a lot of time around the 3.4 mile winding circuit.  Yesterday (Tue 19th of Aug) I received a call from my technical director, which went like this:
“Hello Jeff, how are you?”  
“I am good Robby, how are you, what’s up?”  
“Good, I have good news for you...”

At this point, the silence could’ve lasted for an hour, since I have heard this phrase before and I know the words that follow could be anywhere on a scale of -10 to awesome, so I patiently awaited my fate.  Fortunately for me, Roberto did have some good news!

“I have rented you and Balzan a Maserati Tropheo car for one day, 3 sessions, since neither of you know the track and it is very important to get you two up to speed before we have our 3 sessions and qualifying as to not loose anytime.  The only bad thing, is you will not see new tires in practice.....”

    “Oh so you mean like normal, ALMOST           new tires this weekend then?”

“Haha, yes” said Roberto

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?  This was great news actually; I have driven the Tropheo car for a weekend last year when I raced for Maserati of Silicon Valley with Jon Becker, so the car was familiar.  Even though the Tropheo cars are slightly heavier than my 458GT, they sound great and are pretty fun to drive.  And that means that Balzan and I would share 1.5hrs of track time the day before our practice which will mean a great deal to us since we’d have a night to sleep on the sessions, ingraining all the things we consciously learned while driving the car as well as the subconscious things that we didn’t recognize day of, but become familiar the next time you see the track.  So it stands that Thursday morning, I will show up to the track ready to drive in the beginning of the day, then have a track walk with engineering and management in the evening to get our “Oak Tree Grand Prix” started on the right foot, or should I say correct foot!  


Thursday:  I head to the track knowing that it was the start of my weekend behind the wheel, yet not in my usual 63 car.  I would be driving an unknown Maserati Tropheo car, something new to control, feel, and manipulate.  I like the word manipulate because I feel it ties the relationship to the driving craft and the machine very well.  At the end of the day, It is my job to manipulate the machine on top of the tires to maximize that tire at all times, no matter how heavy, light, wide, tall, narrow or short.  Vehciles all speak a language, some just slightly different than others.

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I found my #28 Maserati to have a significant aerodynamic package on the car (different from last year), meaning physical pieces that visually look like they will provide decent grip with speed (or airflow) over the car.  This brings to mind one technique immediately; something that I have been working on for years since my open wheel/downforce car days; called Digressive braking.  The brake application that is defined by a massive pressure exerted extremely quickly, with a rapid release of the brake initially, then ending in a slow release at the tail end.  

Think of brake pedal effort on a scale from 0-10.  10 is threshold, or maximum pressure and 0 is, well, none.  Aero cars like to be driven with a brake style of: 10-7-5-4-3-2-1 with the whole “time” on the brakes lasting 2 seconds, maybe less.  This style utilizes the extra grip for braking provided by the speed of the vehicle (or air moving over the vehicle), down force; to a rational effect, something like the square of speed.  In basic terms, without the down force the “10” pedal wouldn’t be attainable, but because of the down force that 10 is possible, however as speed falls off the car, the brake pressure needs to coincide since there is no ABS on this (and most) racecars.  More speed = more down force.  Now this Maserati is still a racecar, but it’s no featherweight.  So my release from 10-7-5 can be a bit slower than a light weight aero car, because the mass will take longer to stop, thus allowing the down force to reduce on the car more gradually as the air speed decreases more slowly than something like a formula car that weighs sub 1500lbs.  I am trying to match my brake pressure to the aero grip of the car.

Before I even sat in the car, this was one of the plans my brain had conjured up to make the best use of the little time I had to learn the track.  With that said, I found the aero kit on the Maserati made the 3000+lb car quite a blast to drive.   The aero was balanced linearly, so I didn’t have rear grip growing out of proportion to the front, and the “balance” of the car (when the front or rear of the car breaks traction) felt the same at slow speed and high speed, which means it was designed well and easy to drive through corners.  45 minutes later over 2 sessions, I had a pretty good feeling about the VIR circuit.

What a blast, high speed corners, elevation, blind turns, all things that make the “brown light” come on, and that’s what I think makes a track challenging/rewarding.  I have a feeling I am really going to enjoy the well balanced, nimble Ferrari around the rolling hills of rural Virginia.  I went for dinner with my team mate, his girlfriend, and their two friends from Italy who are racing the full season in the Maserati championship, who tried to teach me more Italian..........

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Friday was the first time that I would see the track through the cockpit of the Ferrari, and the first session did not disappoint, although it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.  As I left pit lane I found the car to be EXTREMELY sensitive to the steering wheel, more so than I’ve ever felt.  It was to the point that if I turned the wheel 2 degrees, the rear of the car was on edge, starting to break free.  By mathematical theories one would say that’s a good thing, less steering = more speed.  However we are human, and humans make errors.  No two laps are exactly the same, and we would probably crash the car before the end of the race the way it was.  So I relayed my feedback to pit lane, and let engineering go to work on figuring out the best solution for our racecar.  We discussed and deliberated in the trailer after the short 30 min opening session, and defined a plan of action for practice 2 later in the afternoon that would probably take some edge off the rear instability.  

Practice 2 was a step in the right direction, PHEW!  What a welcomed change that was.  It honestly had felt like the car was out to get you when you drove, sneeze and you change 3 lanes with a little sideways step from the rear.  Not conducive to a flat out, up hill S section where we climb the curb at 155mph in 6th gear and go airborne with a little steering in the car, only to land for a moment, brake immediately, downshift 2 gears, and turn left for the back side of the table top hill as you feed on the power in 4th gear without seeing your exit.  But the changes made calmed the rear’s motion, and we carried on sorting out the 63 to make the best racecar we could for Sunday.  Along the way I learned a few things about the track, like which angle to take certain curbs to help turn the car, and which curbs to avoid, ect.  That session ended at nearly 1900, so before I knew it I was back at the hotel with some food in the belly around 2200, ready to get some shut eye for my 0600 wake up call Saturday morning.

Looking ahead to Prac 3 had me feeling cautiously optimistic, some of the other cars had some great pace but the track was feeling very familiar to me, almost like I had been there a bunch before.  No issue sliding the car up to the tip of the exit curb over crests, ect.  Yet again we improved the car, making it more comfortable and drivable so my team mate and I were able to push harder, and uncover some more lap time that was hidden around the 3.27 mile circuit.  Yet as we were on track, I could see the speed the little yellow Turner BMW Z4 was hiding as it made its way around the track.  I know one of the drivers really well, and at the end of the day they must drive the car, even if it is stronger than the rest of us.  But having an extra 1 + seconds in your pocket that you can use if you need it sure makes the risk you take a lot less, as well as making it easier to manage traffic, fuel and the race itself.  Since there is only one of the Z4’s in our championship, there is no sense in them winning by a 10 second margin, so my hat’s off to them for “playing the game” as well as they are.  But at that point I knew that a win with the 94 still circulating on track was highly unlikely.  The reason they have the extra speed is that car was developed and homologated (or accepted) by the FIA as a GT3 car most recently, so BMW was able to apply more information and resource into maximizing the rules that are currently allowed vs. a car that was created for competition in 2011 with a different set of rules as guidelines.  So the BMW has massive down force over everyone in the series, which means they can brake later and corner faster than the rest of us.  Since the track in Virginia has very little straight away that don’t have high speed bends, the BMW is barely hindered by the higher drag it has due to the big down force it creates, and thus becomes an extremely capable racecar.  It seems to struggle above 160 mph, but only a few tracks on our calendar have sections where you are going over 160 without turning the steering wheel.  

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At the end of the day, I am a competitor and will never say die, but at the same time I am realistic factoring in the different capabilities of other machines, and just trying to optimize what my Ferrari can do, not match someone else.  This is important in multi make multi class racing because a particular car ahead of you may pull away in certain corners, which makes the fight in you push more, but occasionally it can lead you to over drive and make an error that costs you even more time, so you must be calm, patient and strike when you know you have the car to do so.  As it was, Alessadro qualified our 63 P9 so that very mindset I just spoke of was going to be my mantra at the start of the Oak tree Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.  

After a great night of rest, probably the best I had all weekend I arrive bright and early for the morning warm up, to bed in a set of new pads on a damp track.  We were pretty happy with the car, so validating a laptime wasn’t super important, it was more about prepping the machine for the race at 1600.  Unfortunately after warm up the team noticed the front rotors had begun developing a crack, meaning that I would need to start the race on new discs, which have had no use and need some bedding before they are ready, but it wasn’t the end of the world.  I would just need to warm up the brakes A LOT as well as the tires on my 2 pace laps before the green flag.  

The drivers meeting, auto graph session, and pre grid flew by after I stole a little nap in the trailer, and before I knew it I was strapping in to the car getting ready to start the engine just after our Nations anthem.  I fire up the 4.5 Litre V8, and pull away to the track with 27 other snarling machines getting ready to have a 2.75 hr speed contest.  I was trying to get the tires ready, as well as the brakes, while speeding up and slowing down with the cars ahead, careful to not get sucked into another incident like the one that crippled us at Road America 2 weeks ago.  We stack up 2 by 2 after one car had an issue, so I was promoted one spot, and came down the front stretch awaiting the words; “green green green!” in my ear.  I was positioned on the inside lane of heading into turn 1 which was ideal at the start, yet was bottle necked by a car ahead that had botched a shift or something, so I had to check up twice with no where else to go before we arrived at Turn 1.  I tried to square the car up to the inside curb and get to throttle as early as I could to beat the Audi on my left to turn 2, but the road bent in his favor so he was still a nose ahead entering 2/3 complex.  I was much faster than the couple cars ahead, so in the next 2 laps I was able to pass 2 on track before I had Spencer Pumpelly behind me in the 35 Audi on lap 3.  He was very aggressive early on in the race, and was trying to stick his nose in for a lap or two before I let him by without a challenge.  I could’ve blocked him, but the way he was driving seemed to me like it was going to end in disaster, throwing the car into and out of corners on lap 4 of a race that still had 2.5 hours to run.  Sure enough one lap later I see him spinning off in the grass after the last corner.  My guess is he ran wide and lost the car based on where he ended up, and on that next very lap there was a small tangle from the cars immediately ahead of me going into T4.  I don’t remember which cars it was exactly other than the 007 Aston Martin and the 23 Porsche, nor how many cars it was beyond those two, but I do remember just reacting before a thought of which way to pass the blocked track came to mind.  I darted right, drove slightly in the grass heading into 4, and was free and clear.  Next stop, the 22 Porsche in P3.  A few laps passed and I had closed the 5-second gap and was looking to make a move.  In the preceding laps I noticed that I was braking about 1 brake marker later than the 22 heading into turn 1, so I tried to get a good run leaving the last corner, and set him up for an out braking maneuver into T1.  He drove well, left room and realized that I was inside so we made the exchange as smoothly as possible, and I continued on.  At this point I built up a 5 second gap to 3rd, and was catching the leader, the 94 BMW Z4.  I was instructed to save fuel, and so I went about keeping the same lap time as best I could while conserving fuel during my run.  I did this by lifting off the gas, and coasting into the braking zone further than normal, which saves seconds spent at full throttle.  The BMW was conserving as well, but those guys can afford to drive in the rear view mirror, and as soon as someone gets close, they put 1-2 good laps in and have another second added to the gap.  Even from 4-6 seconds back, I could see this happening.

Time flew by, and before I knew it 1hr + had passed.  Just as I saw my fuel light come on, a yellow came out and my team instructed me to come in immediately for and emergency splash of fuel which we are allowed to do even if the pits are closed to avoid running out of fuel under the caution.  As long as we don’t service the car beyond the fuel, we take no penalty.  I circulated under yellow for a little while and came in to hand the car over to Alessandro.  Unfortunately we took a drive through penalty for pitting out of sequence, but it turned out to be the best strategy call of us whether we meant to do it or not as it saved us track position when we stopped to service under caution.  We left pits in P9, but with some cars ahead of us were out of sequence meaning they would need to pit for fuel soon there after, meaning we would inherit their position when they did.  Balzan had a great restart and in the opening laps made it up to 6th before a second yellow came out.  We would come in to fill the tank again, and hopefully make it to the end with just over 1 hour left.  We knew our tank wouldn’t quite support that, but the length of the yellow was unknown and would help, as well as one more yellow flag make us good to go for sure.  We left pitlane from our splash in P5, and then Alessandro made up another spot in the succeeding laps after it went green.  One more car ahead of us pit, and we were P3, hunting down the Dempsey Racing Porsche ahead of us in second with the 94 BMW still leading the field.  

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Ultimately we would make it by the Porsche, and catch the BMW, but as soon as we got within 1 second the BMW would build another 1 second gap in 1-2 laps and then sit there again, baiting us to burn our tires off chasing them full well knowing they could set the fastest lap of the race If they wanted to.  But they don’t need to, so they just played with the “sand in the bags” for the rest of the race and took the win comfortably even though they will never admit it.  

But for us, a P2 finish coming off the disaster that was Road America was like a win, especially because the Balance of Performance currently, and we celebrated like it was a win.  We know BMW has speed in the pocket if they need it, but we are flat out, and it feels good to convert that effort into a result!  We packed the truck, and started planning the best strategy for Austin, Tx coming up in September.  ?

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Circuit of the Americas
ST Started: 11th
ST Finished: 4th

GT Started: 17th
GT Finished: 11th



Austin race weekend started on the Monday before the race, when I received a phone call from a team owner other than my own, asking if I was interested in helping them out with their second car (the #22 Burton BMW 128i).  The current driver situation had some changes, and they wanted to fill the hole by adding me to the roster.  Once I cleared this with my current team, Scuderia Corsa, I started to prepare mentally (and physically) for driving on one of the hottest weekends we’ve had this season, twice as much as normal.  

This was a goal of mine, to pull “double duty” and race in both the Continental Tire Sportscar Championship as well as the Tudor United Sportscar Championship, or whatever multi syllabic name they go by these days.  And as a driver/independent contractor, it’s important to talk to everybody and develop relationships for opportunities just like this.  If there were a Racecar Driver 101 course in college, the first topic would be networking and what it can do for you.  You never know what can happen from relationships or introductions, even if it’s intangible immediately, a year or two down the road your name could come up, so I view every opportunity as a potential new network of contacts and opportunities both in the motorsport business and out.

Tuesday for me was a burn day, which meant I got to move some of my stuff out of my apartment in SF to my new place in San Mateo.  This move would be ongoing during the month of September between my races, coaching jobs, the final planning for my wedding in October and honeymoon, as well as sorting out racing programs and partnerships for 2015.  I was supposed to test my time attack Subaru (the 1000+hp monster seen earlier in the thread) but the team had an issue with the tow rig, so we rescheduled my test day to evaluate the new engine package and chassis set up.  Although moving is a major PITA, having such a small apartment helps because frankly, its less crap.



Wednesday was a travel day, 0600 departure from SFO to arrive in Austin just before 2pm.  This was selected strategically due to a track walk at 1700-1900, and for me, an intro/logistical planning with Burton Racing and the BMW over the next 4 days.  Not only would I need to manage being at the right trailer at the right time in the right suit, but also have my equipment pulling double duty as well for all supporting meetings, debriefs and sessions.  This would provide to be more of a mental stress than I originally anticipated, but ultimately was manageable in that both Burton Racing and Scuderia Corsa were very accepting of my timetable being tight at times.  The caveat to this situation is that though the new Austin track is glamorous and new, it’s also VERY spread out, as are the two paddock spaces.  Not a walk away, as it’s more of a 5 minute scooter ride.  None the less I was able to get everything set up, mapped out and learn the dials, switches, dash, and nuances of the BMW before the first intimate drive on Thursday morning before the track walk with my engineer for the Ferrari.  3.3 miles and 1 hour later of scouring the surface and 20 corners, we head into the truck to pack our stuff and grab BBQ at a local spot that is pretty famous called The Salt Lick, then head to sleep.
Thursday was the first day on track for the BMW and the Ferrari, with 2 practice sessions and a qualifying in the BMW just before the 1st practice in the 458 GT with a 0730 arrival.  The plan was to get my full season teammate comfortable in the BMW before I got my time, so I would do a maximum of 50% of the practice, but probably less.  Then I would qualify the car at 1630-1645 before I had to change outfits and jump in my Ferrari for practice at 1700-1800.  This meant I would have to learn a new car, a new tire and the respective characteristics of both in less than 1 hr of track time, then be ready to qualify.  Luckily for me, 3 years ago when I met Victor from TNVC, I was racing for a BMW team called Insight Racing that was affiliated with Dinan, and this Burton Racing BMW 128i is not so different from the BMW 328i I drove for Insight/Dinan.  It’s a bit shorter, and taller, but otherwise it’s similar.  It has 4 tires and a little blue/white roundel on it. ?  Working with a new team, teammate and engineer is a challenge, but something I was ready for, and kept my ego checked at the door to help expedite the car’s progress on track with handling, as well as my teammate and I progressing together.  You can’t force the sort of “gelling” that takes place with a good team structure, which is essential for success and lack of mistakes.  Ultimately all worked out though, as I prepped for qualifying sitting in the BMW on false grid thinking about running over to the Ferrari truck after qualifying and If I would make it on time, I was able to find some clear track during the 15 min session and put a lap together that would have us start the race from 11th, a season best for the #22 BMW as well as being the fastest BMW of any team.  This was an uplifting result after working diligently to cure some handling imbalances the car has in the first 2 practices.  We had a small amount of understeer (lacking directional grip from the front tires) that stifled the momentum the car was capable of around the slower corners, and an oversteer (lacking lateral grip from the rear tires) in the high-speed corners, mainly the esses.  We made some changes to the car, and the car responded well.  Yet I am a perfectionist, which is why racing still keeps me so interested, it’s the constant pursuit of perfection without the possibility of ever achieving 100% perfection.



I jammed over to the Ferrari and sat in for Practice 1, putting in about 25 minutes of laps in the much higher powered, bigger tired, and lighter red car.  What a difference!!!  About 20 seconds or so per lap, boy what aero, grip and horsepower will do for you.  There was an abnormally loud whine from the gearbox, which after the session we diagnosed as a piece of gear material floating around the gearbox case that eventually found the big 1st gear and ejected itself shown below.  But otherwise, the hardest thing to adjust to was actually the braking, the braking power from the 458 versus the ABS system in the BMW, and optimizing both.  ABS is a nice tool to have in the pocket, however it’s not the MOST efficient way to slow down.  Most street ABS systems detect lock up, then release the brakes momentarily to let the tire spin, and re-apply the requested pressure.  On a scale of 1-10, it goes from an 11 to a 9, then back to an 11 if your foot hasn’t moved on the pedal, which in a panic stop it usually hasn’t.  This is great to avoid locking the tire for 100 yards, yet it’s not the most efficient way to stop.  The most efficient way is to put the braking system at 9.99 and keep it there, or in other words not to go beyond the threshold of the tire to stop in the shortest distance possible.  But the ABS sure is a nice human error safety net!  The Ferrari team and I debriefed after the 1 hr practice, and then ran to the catering tent at the track for a bite at 2000 before driving back to the hotel.  My family did fly in today, but I was so wrapped up with everything I forgot to eat lunch, so come dinnertime I was wiped out, and called it an early night.

Good thing I got 8+ hrs of shuteye, because a 0745 meeting at the track to welcome the new race director and staff had all of the drivers wiping the sleep from their eyes with an informational, yet quite dry meeting that lasted 30 mins.  Then it was time to pre-brief practice 2 in the Ferrari, and get in the car.  As I pulled out of pit lane, I felt a significant amount more of confidence in the grip of the car, and left pitlane in a flurry of V8 acoustics.  After this run, of which I improved my lap time in, I got changed and ready for the start of my Continental tire race in the BMW just 1 hour later.  With the pre race festivities, fan walk and grid it actually was full throttle for me 15 minutes after the Ferrari practice.  Time to switch gears, get my head around shifting the car with the clutch and actually moving the shifter, having ABS, way less HP and less grip.  My teammate meets me on grid with the #22 car, some 15 minutes before the anthem and the cars roll off to discuss the driver change which we forgot to practice, one of the casualties of my busy schedule this weekend.  After that was ironed out, I got comfortable in the 90+ degree day with nearly 90% humidity in my suit and helmet, aboard the #22.  One last look at the switches; “ignition, starter, wipers, defrost, diff cooler override, engine fan override, ABS reset, ECM fuse, alarm reset, page change, pit speed limiter, radio” got it, all the essentials I might need.



Sure enough, after a jumped start by a few cars around me, it was a good idea I knew where all the ancillary controls were.  As I worked my way forward, a rain storm started to fall in 3 sections around the track.  Not enough to need wets because 70% of the lap is dry, but wet enough that I needed to KILL my rolling speed in the corners where the storm was happening.  Racing on slicks, door to door with weather that’s changing like that, is a blast.  Other cars were cautious down the back straight with a torrential downpour, yet the rain stopped at the 150M board which was good, because I brake at the 100M board in the BMW.  So I could stay flat out, door to door and confidently out brake the others since I knew that I would have dry grip once I hit the brakes, or at least I knew it last lap ;)  After thinking, man this sure is along time in the car, I get the call that it was within 12 minutes of the pit window.  In this class of car, the strategy is a one stop race, meaning one pit for tires, fuel and driver change.  Almost immediately after that radio transmission, boom, there goes the grip from my rear tires, oversteering into many of the corners around the lap, especially the long 4 apex right (turns 16-18).  I hang onto the car for 5 more laps and pit under green.  As I am rolling down pit lane and loosening my belts, I am going over all my responsibilities I needed to do for Conor to get in and going.  It was at this point I realized just how hot I was, my brain was having trouble recounting all the tasks I needed to do.  So I would be doing it by the seat of my pants more or less, going off prior experience.  Speed limiter on, foot to the floor, belts are loose, find the pit board, keep the car on once stopped, disconnect my radio, stop, seat back, window net off, GET OUT!  Next, help Conor get belts aligned as he buckles them, move for the jack man, get his window nets, shut the door, ahhhhh, nailed it.  I got back to pit lane and put down 2 water bottles and one Gatorade, then proceeded to walk down pit lane to cool off.  I had driven the car up to 5th place, and we only lost 1 spot during the pit stop, so Conor sat a strong 6th, still the first BMW in the field.  Through the remainder of the race (just over 1 HR), Conor made up 2 spots with rain that became heavier as the race progressed and brought the Burton Racing BMW home in 4th place, almost a podium and a 2014 season best.  Job well done, now I have 15 minutes to change and get into the Ferrari for our last Practice before the race.



Alessandro drove his tail off, but with the current BOP (Balance of Performance) or as I call it Balance of Points, the Ferrari just took on more weight for this race, so the best we could qualify was 16th......of 17.  Everyone was in shock just how bad it was for our car, since they gave the Porsche less weight, and a 55mm front splitter (bigger), and dive planes, AND vented front fenders to create more downforce.  It was truly ridiculous; we are not even close to competitive on a single lap.  Both Ferrari’s were 1.5 seconds from the pole time.  This meant he and I would have to focus on the long run, and make headway on track over many laps, not just a single one, with good pit execution to overtake cars on pitlane as well.  The team all soaked in the reality of our fate from the series, and talked about productive ways to get them to revisit the regulation change, otherwise we are dead.  This night I was able to wrap up with the team and enjoy a meal with the family in town, which was a nice break from the guttural hurt that was our situation with the car.  I found a great new place on South Congress street and I refilled the tanks for the big Tudor race tomorrow.

Saturday morning, 0700 drivers meeting, warm-up session, autograph session and pre grid all within 3 hours, a VERY compressed morning that was so hectic I almost forgot to pee before the race start.  Amidst all the rushing, racing 2 cars for 2 different teams, surprisingly I was the most calm I have been on pre-grid, able to just soak it all in with a jovial attitude.  It was hotter than the day before though, a moment of “oh sh*t” in the mind before we actually get started since this race is longer, the cars are faster requiring more focus, and they produce more heat.  I climb into the #63, and head out for the 2 recon laps before the green.  As we pack up and line up double file, I hear the call for the green right before I arrive at the last corner, except my message is “YELLOW!”  No start was given, so we all sorted ourselves out in the following lap for a second try.  Bingo, we got the green, and I was able to make up a few spots immediately.  Then in the next 30 minutes, I was picking off one car at a time, and having a long drug out deal with a faster Audi from Flying Lizard.  I was MUCH quicker than the driver in the #45, yet the Audi had a better straight line than us, so even though I could get close, it wasn’t close enough to control the corner for the pass.  So I started to fill his mirrors, looking left, looking right, watching him start to react to me, and lock his tires under braking.  Eventually he would make an error big enough for me to get by, and he did in the form of a decision to go around a car that was spun out at the exit of turn 12.  He hesitated, then went the long way, I went the short way and was able to get along side him on the outside, but far enough ahead that I could start to slowly squeeze him and get him to concede the position.  “YES, finally!” I thought to myself, and began to pull away from him about 1 second per lap.  8th place from 17th all in an hours work, ready to hand the car over to my team mate for the remainder of the race (1.5 hours).  We had a debris caution for a bumper that was sitting in the middle of the track, and on the tail end of that I was summoned into the pit lane for the driver change.  

As I got out of the car, I realized how hot I really got in the car.  I actually had a hard time forming my words to my engineer about the car over the stint.  I took 1 water and 1 Gatorade, and once I started to have my heart rate slow I grabbed some food, a sandwich to be exact.  Just a scant 30 minutes later, after Balzan pit with a flat tire, he called in reporting heat stroke.  Loss of vision and loosing the head’s ability to focus.  My engineer turns to me and gives me the “Suit up” gesture.  “WHAT!?  I literally just finished my food and my Pellegrino soda, I hardly think this is a good time to get BACK in the car for 50 minutes more.  But it didn’t matter, the point is that the #63 needs to get in and out of pit lane as FAST as possible, then turn laps for the remainder of the race.  



I left pit lane on old tires, and noticed that I had significantly less rear grip than I thought, and these tires needed to last me just under an hour more, which would be a tall order!  I pushed as hard as I could while fighting the heat, and limiting my wheel spin exiting the corners, actually feeling queasy at some points, like I was about to loose control of my gut.  None the less, there are far more people that have it worse off, so I suck it up and charge on.  After about 40 of my 50 minutes I feel my feet getting really hot, and my heart beating very fast, gut still feels odd, and I almost could pee myself for relief in the stomach yet I had nothing to expel as I was sweating out like crazy.  I hear the radio message, “5 more laps bud, hang in there” and in my mirror I see a Porsche catching me.  NO way do I want to yield my position that I had gained to the Porsche behind, but in the next 4 laps I watched him get closer and closer, every braking zone.  Hindsight, I always feel like there was something MORE I could’ve done, but when the Porsche caught me with it’s less restricted engine, 286lbs less weight and more down force, my used up tires were no match for his machine.  I could’ve blocked him hard for 2 laps, but my guess is when we hit the straightaway on the last lap I was a gone-er anyways since the Porsche has a trap speed 3-5mph better than our Ferrari.  The current balance of performance is very frustrating, and I hate to blame it but there really is an gross imbalance currently, which makes the competing side of it as a driver a daunting task to still perform.  

As I crossed the checkered, my mind was filled with thoughts, thoughts about the next race, how our car would fare, how many more seconds in this heat do I need to endure before I can get out, what would the team say, I wonder what I am going to have to drink tonight...  At the end of the weekend, I had a cautiously positive feeling moving forward since it was a good effort from me in both cars, regardless of the results.  Yet I am a team player, and am sore about our P11 finish in the Ferrari.  Oh well, on to the next one!

How about some car or hot girl pics?

Petit Le Mans @ Road Atlanta

Started: 13th

Finished: 9th



Not long ago I came home after COTA, I am gearing up for the season finale; Petit Lemans, at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga. I am excited for a few reasons in particular, but the most of which is that I REALLY enjoy driving around this track.  The first and last sections are a real treat to drive, without the usual middle sector that’s just vanilla.  The least fun corner here is still quite good, and it’s a place we went well last year so a reunion sounds good to me.  The other notable bonus about this event is that it’s a 10 Hr race (or usually 10 hours since it’s distance based.)  Travel started Monday morning for me, since I would have a Ferrari North America and Scuderia Corsa press obligations on Tuesday AM with the local Fox channel.  Apparently I am talking about the Ferrari and the team on both the 8am and 9am morning shows.  Wednesday morning I would be back in Atlanta to pick up a Ferrari FF at the Atlanta dealer to drive with my teammate and a reporter to the track to do an interview on pit stops, driver changes and the mechanics of those tasks.  I am happy to do these things because this is the part of the business that continues to make the sport flourish and keeps me working doing what I love.

So I board the plane Monday in SF with one of my engineers who also happens to be Northern California based, which offered me another look at our past race weekend.  He was compiling data, and video from the pit stops, segments and results of COTA, and putting them into spreadsheets and charts for easy comparison through out the field, showing us where we are strong and where we suck.  Just as I thought, the two “sandbaggers” were quick, with the least amount of change over the laps as the tires degraded.  If you’ve been following my thread here, you may recall which 2 cars those might be.  In any case, it was a great way for me to analyze my own actions, especially with the video of the driver change in an effort to shave every last second off possible to expedite my stint with the car.  Looks like I can shave 2 seconds by changing how my legs enter the cockpit with a more committed motion of both feet in instead of one at a time.  I am going to practice this during our driver change practice this weekend since we have 3 drivers, so I can assume extra practice will be had.  But as with most west to east coast travel days, I arrive at night to grab a bite of dinner, and then try to adjust myself to EST as quickly as I can by going to sleep no later than 2300,... or at least that’s my excuse for the beauty rest before my TV appearance, LOL.



Tuesday morning was what I call “shocking the body”.  There is nothing like kick starting your recovery from jet lag (or feeling the pain) than sleeping 5hrs or less and needing to function straight away in the am, at what would be 3am and jumping on Fox Atlanta’s local morning show for 2 segments.  After my sleep talking segments were over, I finally started to come to and the pr responsibility for the day was done. I opted to stay locally in Atlanta because I had the Wednesday morning PR deal with the FF, so I tagged along with our PR guy for his visit to Brandware PR’s HQ.  Sneaking in a few hours of work keeping the other aspects of my life outside of motorsports is always a welcomed thing!

Fox 5 Petit Le Mans Preview

Wednesday morning I had another PR responsibility, but this time it was to head to Ferrari of Atlanta to pick up a Black Ferrari FF, then head over to NBC 11 station and pick up an anchor that would be doing a piece on the Petit Le Mans and Ferrari to air later in the week.  While this was happening, the Fox 5 piece from Tuesday was airing, and I have to say my sleep talking surprised me.  I got many compliments on the interview, and how polished it sounded, almost like we rehearsed it.  I guess this falls under the “better to be lucky rather than good” clause?  Anyways, I grab the FF, throw on my Scuderia Corsa white button down shirt, and hit the road.  All 650+ hp of V12 roaring down the Atlanta expressways, making use of the acoustics of each underpass or tunnel that I came upon. ;)  I arrive at the studio, meet the anchor and the cameraman, than briefly go over the plan before we start shooting and picking up little pieces to be used.  We head to the track as I fill in my guest about the car, and features it encompasses before we REALLY get to the fun stuff...... putting the anchor to the test by having her do a driver change in our #63 458GT.  I think she was pretty intimidated by the car, and all the switches along with the small opening to squeeze through while trying to complete a driver change in under 30 seconds.  Balzan and I’s best change has been 18.1 seconds from start to finish, but most of them come in around 21-22 seconds.  Fuel takes just over 30, so I gave our new guest the easier goal to achieve.  I must say, she jumped in even with a bit of hesitation, and nailed it.  On her second try, she was able to get it done in just under 26 seconds, not bad!  Later that day, we wrapped up with meetings and a track walk to get prepared for the first day on track, Thursday.

NBC 11 Ferrari FF & Petit Le Mans

I wake up from the best nights rest I’ve had all week, looking forward to driving our Ferrari on one of my favorite racetracks of all season.  Balzan and I arrive by 0800 to grab breakfast and make our 0840 meeting with engineering to cover the car’s status, and current run plan for the session.  Balzan would start practice 1, get a baseline on the car and when he felt good about it, he would hand it over to myself.  The key word there was WHEN.....  As drivers we refer to it as “rolling off the truck”, the setup as planned prior to running the car on the surface.  When you roll off the truck well, the weekend is off to a great start on the good foot.  When the opposite happens, you are on the back foot trying to play catch up with the rest as inevitably most of your competitors have got it right from the get go.  I’d say 10-20% of the cars in the field probably roll off the truck poorly.  In our case, the car was VERY loose at turn in, to the point where we could barely turn the steering wheel without loosing the rear of the car sideways, even in some easy bends!  Beyond that, once you dealt with the corner entry instability, the front of the car would give up after that, making the car very tough to drive and get speed from.  I jumped in the car with just over 20 mins to go in the 1hr session after Balzan had run through some changes to try and correct the cars behavior, and then I proceeded on the same program when I got in.  The team tried a few changes to help correct the handling characteristics, but nothing we did made a big enough change to get on the other side of our issue (over correct), which made me believe that it could’ve been a tire characteristic since the set of tires we were running was used in practice at Austin.  Sometimes you can “hurt” a tire, or give it a tendency/characteristic going from one surface to the next, and chasing balance on the car with that damaged/worn tire can send you down a path that ultimately is incorrect for the current track your at once new tires are put on the car.  This is common mistake in motorsports, one that only the more experienced teams are good about managing; limiting variables.  We strapped some new tires on the car for the night practice, of which I did only the required 3 laps to be eligible to race at night during the race, and we concluded that the used tires were influencing the car’s balance heavily.  Steps had been made in the correct direction, but we still needed more.  After we wrapped up night practice at 2100, we debriefed, grabbed dinner and called it a night for our 0700 departure on Friday morning.

Friday was qualifying along with the last official practice session, yet rain was looming on the forecast so the practice was a no go ultimately.  Since the race was going to be dry, and the risk of hydroplaning is always a threat in the wet, it didn’t make much sense to put the car on track, even if I would like to drive it as much as possible.  What we would have learned wouldn’t really be useful for us, so it ended up being a burn day at the track for me.  I hung around, did some driver change practices, but I didn’t turn a wheel in the car all day.   Alessandro readied himself for qualifying, and set out to secure our starting position in the afternoon.  The car had been slightly ill handling so far this weekend, and with our BOP not favoring the Ferrari, we knew it was going to be a tough session.  We ended up P15 on the time sheet, but 2 cars had issues in tech afterwards so we started 13th come race day.  I really wish I could’ve been more productive on a day like this, grab some running shoes and do some cardio or head to the gym at the hotel, but the drive back was far enough to make it a PITA.  



Sat/Race:  Petit Le Mans is one of those endurance races that every driver wants to compete in and win.  It hosted at a track that is usually in a driver’s top 5 due to the elevation challenge and the high-speed nature of the lap.  The day seemed to blur by for me, from responsibility to responsibility in the morning, with the car being ready to roll by 10am for an 11am race start. 10HRs of racing that ends in the dark, with a speed disparity between traffic that is a recipe for memories, or disaster.  For me, I found that I would be 2nd into the #63 after Balzan started the first stint, so I was ready to drive, in the right frame of mind from 11:30am on.  We started P13, and If I recall I received the car in 11th.  As the car dropped off the air jacks, and the lollipop turned to green, I revved the 4.5 V8 and waited for the lollipop to move.  Up it goes, I dump the clutch, spin the new Continental tires to help alleviate the sheen on them as well as not stall leaving the pit box, and accelerate to the pit lane speed of 45mph.  For the next 30 minutes, I begin to hone in on the handling of my racecar, and see the cars ahead as they slowly came towards me.  One after another, reminding myself “go catch that guy, get him!” as to not overdrive the car, but to not get complacent as well.  A yellow comes out 35mins into my stint, in which we decide to take tires and fuel when the pits open.  On the speed limiter in the pit lane, locate the box visually while staying at speed, turning in and stopping right on the board.  The car goes in the air, fuel and tires are being added, then the air jacks release, car drops, rev’s up, ready to launch.  I leave pit lane and notice that the cars in my class ahead of me in the pack are fewer and fewer, and I begin to go “hunting” again at the drop of the green.  Another 30 mins, and some more positions we get a second yellow, at which point I was up to 4th place.  It was time for a driver change, so when the pits open for GTD under the yellow, I come in to let Brandon Davis take the wheel.  After a quick debrief with engineering, I head back to the truck to get out of the sweaty clothes in the 50 degree weather, grab our scooter and ride up to the catering tent to get some lunch in the tank.  Upon my return, we had fallen to 7th during Brandon’s stint until he reported to pit lane, “contact with a PC car that forced me off into the grass, but the car feels okay”.  I was mostly fearful of the alignment since the Ferrari is not known for being the most robust machine in our class, but aside from clogged radiators the car WAS okay.  Brandon pit to do a driver change and clean the radiators since our data showed the water temp rising to 118C.  Kyle Marcelli was next in the car and began to circulate.  He had a little issue with a tire that felt like it was going flat, so an emergency stop put us yet another lap down within 45minutes of racing.  



Unfortunately from there, even though I drove what I feel like was one of my best stints yet in my second appearance with 63, holding off both of the class leaders to not fall another lap down with a best lap of 1.23.7 and a 10 lap average of 1.23.9, we were not able to regain control of the race and get back to the lead lap.  With the leaders able to run lap times that were so much quicker than us, even with our better average laps, they still stayed ahead of our 63 easily.  We continued circulating two laps down for the rest of the race, to finish P9 at the conclusion of the Petit Le Mans.

Season Recap/Thoughts:  This season has been a tumultuous one both emotionally and physically, but having said that looking back I have learned quite a lot of the 11 races.  Some things about myself and my driving, how to make things a bit sharper, and also the crazy world of Sportscar Racing and the direction of things in the future; Manufacturer’s feelings and positions for 2015, and sanctioning body’s motives/stance on certain topics; mainly contact and rules.  At the end on the day, I am fortunate to be able to race a Ferrari, for Ferrari NA and Scuderia Corsa; that is icing to the already positive cake that was 2014.  After all, winning 2 races (Indy included) isn’t so bad ;)
But we always want more, and that’s what drive me, my team, and Ferrari.  Its been 2 days since the checkered flag and I am already thinking about Daytona 24, 2015, and have gone on one 5+ mile run to maintain my endurance.  On to the next one!

I will be there, cant wait

Thanks all, working on getting some pics and Vids up as they come, as well as some info on the Daytona 24HR.  TNVC and I welcome you and appreciate your support!

I want one of these...

congrats on a dream job

car is super nice...helmet looks good too ;)


they allow NV equip in the cars?  lol   would be fun for a 24hr race

any new vids for youtube?

You should strategically slap a BFL on the car for the next race.

Do it.

I need to get the new forza.  The 430 GT car is my favorite in the one I have  

Ever up in the Kern County area for Buttonwillow Raceway or Willow Springs?

I am close to both.   I am building up a 95 Cobra for HPDE and maybe a few autocross events.   Engine  build 1.0 will be around 300rwhp with version 2.0 at 400+.   Eventually I want to do the HPDE with me in my 95 and my dad getting to play with my 05 GT.

Dont think I have the intestinal fortitude to go much beyond that with things I am doing out of my own pocket.  Karting maybe some day.  My dream is to get a Ford Daytona kit car and build it up for track events.   That is years down the road.

I look forward to your posts and maybe getting to meet at a track some day.

Welcome to the forum.

Tag.

Nice ride!!

I predict this thread will be awesome. TAG for updates.

tag...

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Do you mention your support for 2A rights on your facefook and website pages?

Tifosi tag!

Why a Ferrari?

Sweet!  How many rolls of temporary body filler do ya need on average a year?

In for car porn!

in on this


Nice car as well!

Tagging.

I drove a ford fiesta once, any chance I could take a few laps?

This!

Do you know Ricky Bobby?

or this is not a tag..

From the looks of the tape on the left front fender/bumper that you subscribe to the philosophy that 'rubbin is racin' son'.

Yea or nea ?

I double dog dare you.

Why?


That's as relevant as the gay basketball player telling ESPN he's gay.

Looks like someone trying to get free advertising...



 

WTF are you talking about?  This guy is sponsored by TNVC who is a site sponsor.  TNVC made an announcement last year as well, when they first signed the driver.

thanks, Night vision in the car is something TNVC and I think is really cool, always looking for new ideas!

awesome, it's always fun to get out and enjoy the track.  A 95 Cobra will be a great platform from the drive train point of view.  Make sure to spend some time on chassis rigidity, I've owned one of those cars with strut bars, a 4 point cage, subframe connectors and racing suspension, the chassis still wanted more!!!!

Rubbing during racing goes like this:  I give a kiss and a punch!  Just not on the front corners so I don't pop a radiator ;)

Sorry. I missed the TNVC thing. I apologize to all.



 

Welcome, thanks for sharing. im not a sports fan, but im a huge racing fan. Not a NASCAR fan. Love road racing, the 24hour races.

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I'll have to search you out then. I'll be at all the races too.

OST and all that.

Edit... I think I recall this car from the 24. A few pits up from ours. You guys were just around the second break in the wall IIRC.

Awesome
Best of luck.