I raced in the SCCA National Championship Runoffs, hundreds of pictures

[Vitamin J]

I've spent the last 2 weeks in Topeka, Kansas at Heartland Park Topeka. HPT is where the SCCA will hold the National Championship Runoffs for the next few years.

I was 2nd in Division points in SM after this season of National races. I was invited to the Runoffs, and it had been my plan all year.

I paid for three full days of track time the week before the SCCA took over and qualifying started. I found the fast line and concentrated on hitting my marks every single lap. Slowly my times started falling. Qualifying turned out to be frustrating. Only 20 mins a day, at different times with different weather. The session would be over before you knew it and sometimes there was traffic.

I qualified 31st out of 37 with a time 3 seconds off the leader. The first 20 cars were all within 2 seconds. The race started great, but 4 laps in I followed another car off track in one of the fastest parts of the track and broke a motor mount. This caused my throttle to stick coming out of turn 3 and I was forced to go off track. Fortunately it happened while a double yellow was out so I didn't lose much ground. The double yellow was caused by the car following me off track. He must have lifted in the mud which caused him to spin when he hit the pavement, he collected another car and they took eachother out and into the wall.

Before I went off track I had made my way all the way to 20th position. I made my way back up to 22nd after the restart. The throttle stuck again on the second to last lap in the last corner and I lost 2 positions. I finished 24th.

It was the best fucking race of my life. All the other drivers respected me and we gave eachother a Miata-width plus an inch. I was only bumped by one person, slightly, but they took themselves out and I passed them back. I would have most likely gotten the Sunoco Hard Charger Award, which is for the driver who finishes the most spots ahead of where he started, if I hadn't broken my motor mount and went off track.

Regardless I'll be back next year and will do better!

I have in-car video which is AWESOME and I will be posting it tomorrow. Also, the Speed Channel will be airing the Runoffs in November, I am not sure when exactly. I will try to find out.


On to the pictures! As always 2560x1920 versions of all the pictures are available and feel free to ask any questions.













































The course was way too dangerous after the changes. The walls were just too close and the speeds were too fast. The worst part is that the walls don't even have to be so close on most of the track!












































Here is where I'm pulling the pictures from. Sit back and relax because there's going to be a shitload more. I also got video of some of the other races.

[teletubby-warrior]

Congrats; the new car looks great! You still need a new suit though.

[Elmo187]

what happened to the infamous black beast Miata?

too bad that u finished way back in the field though.

[Viper007Bond]

[Vitamin J]

[Vitamin J]

In-Car Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...24330253761394

[jayhawk]

Awesome! Glad you made it.

My pics from the June Sprints at Road America:
http://www.pbase.com/jayhawk1013/june_sprints_07

[Vitamin J]

These two had an awesome race until the finish with passing every lap. Be sure to catch the FP race on Speed Vision.

[Vitamin J]

This P1 car showed up. They weren't racing, they were getting it ready for the next weekend. The team ran a GT1 car there too.




Judd V10
























Now this is a Miata!




























I rented this car!

[Vitamin J]

A cool 150mph

[tigger]

Quality post sir. I wanted to get out there so bad, thanks for all the pi