Bad News

I know that there is a risk to being on the race track and that crashes are inevitable but I was really hoping not to experience one so soon with this car.  I entered the regional race at Summit Point this past weekend.  It was a small group of cars but there were a couple of cars that should have been much faster than my car but the drivers didn't drive them fast enough.  One of them was a Formula Atlantic (the fastest open wheel car that we race with).  At the beggining of the race, he was taking the corners way too slow and I was right behind him.  Him being slow in the corners was bunching up the cars behind me and going into Turn 1 a Club Ford launched over another Club Ford and into the right side of my car.  Here is the video and a couple of screen shots.

I haven't taken a real close look at the car but I can see that the frame rails on the right hand side are bent in about 4 inches and the welds are broken at the rear bulk head.  The right side pod is toast along with the radiator, an A-Arm, and a steering tie rod.  I think I can fix the side panel but I'm sure I will find more stuff once I strip it down.  The good news is that the car did its job and protected me.  I have a bruised arm and a couple of other bruises but I'm fine otherwise.  Just dissapointed.  I always said that racing teaches you perseverence and I will persevere after this and will get the car fixed.  Unfortunately I think this ruins my racing plans for this year and the pro races that I was planning to enter are probably out.

Before this happened, I was run off the road by a C Sports Racer on Friday during the test day.  The driver didn't think he did anything wrong.  You make the call.

The only good news from the weekend was that I made good progress with the car on the test day and got down to a 1:17.8.  I was at least heading in the right direction.