Peter, Jeff and Dutch discussing pit strategy during what was a cold, but thankfully dry, night Saturday Race Of course, running a 14 hour endurance race “without any serious problems” is a bit of a pipe dream, so…. We put the car to bed confident that if we could run without any serious problems during the race, a podium finish was not unrealistic. After lunch, everyone got in their required qualifying session, and we ended up starting 3rd, which was encouraging, since Brandon’s Miata is still tuned for SCCA Spec Miata, running with a restrictor plate which keeps us down on power relative to many of the other Class 1 cars. After Brandon drove a few leisurely laps scrubbing some new tires and bedding a new set of brake pads, we let John and Tom spend the rest of the morning practice sessions getting comfortable in the car, which was new to them. Friday Qualifying and Night PracticeĪfter unloading the car on Thursday night, we were able to spend a full day taking advantage of the time available on Friday. Dutch worked really well with our resident mechanical genius, Jeff Yatsko, and was a pleasure to have on the team. That turned out to be a great decision, as the young man (1/3 my age!) fit right in with the mostly middle aged racing geeks that make up the rest of the team. AER had contacted us to ask if we would be willing to take on a student from the Alfred State University Motorsports Program (from whom AER gets a lot of volunteer pit marshalls), and Brandon and I agreed to give Dutch Hurlbut a spot on the team. One new team member deserves special mention, as well. We had two new driver’s joining us (John Hainsworth and Thomas Smith), and we surrendered the critical decision making to a dedicated crew chief (Peter McParland). L to R, bottom: Phillip Moore, Melissa Fetch, Dutch Hurlbut L to R, top: Peter McParland, Jeff Yatsko, Brandon Fetch, Robert Myles. The roster for this race was:Ī subset of the team, just before the start of Saturday’s 14 hour race. We also had several new people join us, expanding the ranks of our group of racing friends. Team Membersįor this race, we had one member who couldn’t join us (Dan Jensen), since he had already committed to driving with Team NoRags for this event before we planned it, but we were in neighboring garage bays and pit boxes, so he wasn’t too far away. For most of us, this was only our second experience with night racing, the first being the Devil in the Dark that we ran with NoRags Racing three years ago. This year, Lunatick Racing finally ran some races as a real team, participating in the pair of AER races at NJMP, Lightning in June, and the one we had all been really looking forward to, the 14 Hour day/night race at Thunderbolt in November.
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