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Old 08-12-2012
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TJAndriesen TJAndriesen is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Barrington, IL
Age: 64
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Road America

Saturday was my first race of the year here at Road America. I run with Midwestern Council and run a '73 Datsun 240Z in vintage. Last year I was able to break 3 minutes by a very slim margin. I recall chasing a rather obese Volvo around the track not being able to get a pass off to get by him. After thinking about what I could do to make my car faster over the winter, I made a rather different decision - to improve my driving.

This Spring I attended the Advanced Driving School at Laguna Seca. Mikel Miller, Jeff Rodriquez and Rick Schmidt all spent time with me tuning up my driving skills. In June I did a lead follow with Keith Watts at Road America which really gave me much more confidence in my ability to drive the course. All along the way Peter Stoltz has been passing me tidbits of encouragement via entertaining e-mails.

I qualified slightly just above 3 minutes but never really got a clean run at it. I was 17th on the grid of 33 cars. At the start I dropped 2 spots but quickly got to work. Right in front of me was my favorite volvo from last year. With what seemed like little effort, I out breaked him going into 5 and passed him on the way to 6. By the end of the first 3 laps I had picked up 5 spots. I was carrying significantly more speed out of corners and had much more confidence in my driving. Keith had given me great feedback about how to handle the faster corners and I was picking people off just beyond 7 and even got a pass on the outside of the carousel. Unfortunately I went into 8 once a bit too hot and went 4 off. By the time I was back on, I had dropped 5 places. Usually this is where I would resign myself to finishing behind those guys who had passed me but this time I decided that wasn't going to happen. I chased down 2 of them, including my friend the volvo again and blew by them. I had reeled in the next 3 and was chasing them when we got the 1 lap to go signal. I was tight on them through the kink and knew I could get at least one of them in Canada corner. So the story should be I got not one but all three of them. Unfortunately, I'd been asking a lot more out of my car than before and learned going into CC that my brakes weren't up to the task. When it started looking a bit questionable I decided to check up instead. As the pedal went all the way to the floor 4 times in a row, I discovered the stopping power of pea gravel traps.

Getting towed in is not a great finish. After going through impound I went to check my times. Fastest lap was 2:56.35 - 3.3.seconds faster than my personal best time. I have to give the SB instructors a lot of credit for getting me there. I'm a believer. Thanks guys!
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Old 08-14-2012
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PFS PFS is offline
Skippy Instructor
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Re: Road America

Great write up and congrats, Tim! We can't make up that kind of evangelism! It takes a person who really enjoys the sport to understand that driver improvement is more important than car improvement. If you just spend money on your car to go faster, you're just going faster when you crash. Who enjoys that? Much of the real pleasure and sense of satisfaction comes from personal improvement. Now we just have to keep you out of that pesky pea gravel...

John Dickmann, a good buddy and longtime SBRS instructor, was also there running a Formula Continental. He won the overall in both of his races which, by the way, included several Formula Atlantic cars.

Nice work and let us know when your new car will be ready.
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"Nothing good has ever been reported about the full rotation of a race car about either its pitch or roll axis." ~ Carroll Smith
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Old 08-14-2012
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dalyduo dalyduo is offline
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Re: Road America

Thanks for sharing this great report Tim and thanks to Peter and all the Skippy instructors who gave their usual best.
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