StreetWise Drift’s Finale event took place at the gnarly VIR
Patriot Course. I haven’t been to this track in over 5 years and was really
excited to let loose on there with a proper car. Coming into the event 4th
in points, we were not guaranteed a FormulaD 2013 License, so we had to be on
our toes. As drivers arrived I noticed those ranked 5th/6th
in the series were not here. So we had the distant 7th/8th
place drivers who could mathematically
make it above us if things went poorly.
First track time was my group, at 8:30am. Unfotunately, it
poured most of the night and the track had no time to really dry up. To make it
worse, the track was dry in some places and soaked in others, making the feel
of the grip really spotty and low confidence. We struggled to throw together a
solid run, having one section always throw us a different feel. We even had a
stellar run that ended up tossing us in the grass; we were on a line no one else
had run and it was still extremely wet.
Nothing broken on the car, we watched the 2nd group go out and face the conditions. A far better track by now, there was some hope as some of the drivers were getting more smoke and grip through the course. We jumped back in and headed to the line for our last practice session. First run out we had more speed than before and I realized the line I was taking before was not ideal. The blind corner leading down the main straight made this course more difficult than I expected. Next run I made an adjustment to my line and it worked amazing. We laid down 4 back to back runs that we were pretty excited about.
As qualifying approached, I was pretty confident in our ability to rank high. We threw down some solid runs but trying to go big on angle too early cost me with a handbrake correction later on. Surprisingly, there was about 5 drivers that hadn’t connected a run all day who laid down really good runs late in qualifying.
Results put us back in 10th and set us up for a battle with Ron Ewerth who was one of the threats to our season points finish for the FD License. As we are on grid, the overcast sky opened up and started to pour. Soaking the track within minutes, all the tandem battles would be on un-practiced territory. Though it had been partially wet in spots earlier, this was much different…
Following in first, I initiated well before Ron did, and was doing great. He had a bobble and lost drift on the main straight and I had to straighten for it. We got it back sideways as we went down the hill and I started gunning for his door. We transitioned and I was so caught up in being aggressive, I 100% spaced on the fact that it was wet and I looped the car.
With only myself to blame, we pulled back to the line. I lead a pretty good run, having a similar, but less dramatic bobble on the straight, and put together a really strong finish. I saw his headlights in my mirror and knew I blew it.
We didn’t move on and my season goals were out of my hands. As Nate Hamilton spun twice on his lead run, he too was knocked out in the Top16. I would have passed him in points if I had moved on. I watched as Ron lost his next battle, keeping our license safe. However, Adam Seaman had a pretty lucky few battles with the weather, and took home the win and enough points to scoot by us for 4th. We took home 5th for the season, only 20 points (a tandem round) back from 3rd. With Doug Van Den Brink having a massive lead in 1st, and Rapper Dan Savage in 2nd, we all 5 grabbed a license.
Now I am campaigning J1N as a FormulaD Team and we have 6 months until Long Beach!!
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