This past Saturday was the final BRR event of the 2010 season. It was a non-points event and was labeled the Zoom-Zoom Challenge as there would be a separate PAX challenge between Mazda drivers and all other makes.
Gary asked me to co-drive his M3 to assist him in fine tuning his set-up and as this was a non-points event, I was happy to oblige. His set-up was similar to what we ran in Richmond, VA except that he lowered the front of the car another 1/2".
The course was tight & technical in a few areas and fast & flowing in others. All in all it was a good balance for the big horsepower and the light and nimble cars. Gary had three drivers in his car, and Jeff Glass ran the car in the 3rd heat while Gary and I drove it in the 4th. Jeff turned a 70.4 on his final run which was the top PAX for the event at the end of the 3rd heat. But then the 4th heat began...
I was the 1st driver in Gary's car and due to leaving the event to attend my son's soccer game earlier, I hadn't had the chance to do a course walk. My first run was therefore cautious and I turned a 71.8 +1. Gary went out next for his 1st run and turned a scorching 70.1 clean to move into the top PAX spot! I turned a 70.7 +1 followed by a 70.4 +1 on my next two runs. By this time, Gary was down to a 69.505 clean and had a commanding lead in the class. Another top driver Justin Matthews turned a 69.7 clean in an STi to move into 2nd. I had my 4th and final run to get it done...
On my 4th and final run, I decided to attack the course throughout and not try to play it safe to run "clean". The first section was near perfect, 2nd section had a slight mistake when exiting a tight hairpin but I used the mis-step to carry some extra speed into the next element. It paid off and I went into the back slalom with more speed than ever before. I stayed clean through there, went through a lane-change element cleanly, ran a tight line around a sweeper, and then had just 2 more turns to navigate before the finish. I ran tight line by a critical cone and saw a course worker running... I kept my composure and brought her into the finish faster than ever before. A 69.2 came up on the board...but was it clean? I looked back and the course worker signaled that the cone was still in the box!
So lady-luck smiled on me this time! I took top PAX and ended up being 2ndFTD (2nd fastest time behind a F125 cart, but the fastest car with fenders).
Summary:
1st out of 8 in class
1st out of 73 in PAX
STU - Street Touring U Pax: 0.844
1t CHIKE DELLIMORE 1997 BMW M3 69.274 FTP 58.467 0.000
2t GARY KRICHBAUM 1997 BMW M3 69.505 0.231 58.662 0.195
3t JUSTIN MATHEWS STI 69.717 0.443 58.841 0.374
4 JEFFREY GLASS 1997 BMW M3 70.483 1.209 59.488 1.021
5 PETER TYSON 2005 SUBARU STI 71.219 1.945 60.109 1.642
6 KYLE COOKMEYER 1996 BMW M3 72.561 3.287 61.242 2.775
7 DAVID LONNQUEST 2005 SUBARU WRX STI 73.042 3.768 61.647 3.180
8 TOM HARRIS 1997 BMW M3 75.814 6.540 63.987 5.52
