Pictures from the 1999 Grattan SCCA Memorial Day weekend double regional
Took the Spec Rx7 up to Grattan, MI over the Memorial Day weekend. The course layout was created by a very saddistic track designer. Lot's of off camber, down hill turns, a jump right before a turn, etc. It was GREAT!! It really is a fun course to drive. Tough on brakes, kind of hard on tires and my 110k mile old clutch died 4 laps from the end of Sundays race. I didn't have any other Spec's to play with, and for some reason they put ITC in with the ITS/SS guys but there were a few ITA/ITB cars I could hang with. I raced a lot with the ITA Rx7 of Phil Green, a fellow newbie who was at my IRP school. He'd kill me on the straights but I would catch him under braking and in the turns. I actually outqualified him both days (1:41.3 best) but once he got ahead, I couldn't get by (lot's of fun trying though). I dogged him pretty hard and he made a few mistakes but he'd always recover quickly. We were the last group of the day and there were lots of marbles offline. The track doesn't have curbing and everyone likes to use the grass on the insides of the turns, (hey, your're blind going over the hills into the corners) and this kicks up debris. Great people, great weather, & great food (the ribs were falling off the bone). Had a few beers with some corner workers Sat. night and learned all sorts of hand signals. How many other tracks actually have an in ground swimming pool? I hope to go back again next year. Click here and herefor more info on Grattan.
Jeff's just about to go over the jump before T5.
T7 is the bowl turn
Click me for a 1.2 meg .mpg movie going over the hill through T3
Heading down the hill toward the jump before T5
A scary moment coming out of T6
Click me for a 700k .mpg movie of the close call
I saw a lot of this all weekend. Phils rear bumper, here coming out of T8
Group 1 heads toward the start
T7, the bowl turn and down toward the swamp turn, T8
Jason Fitzpatrick's Olds Calais was the top ITS qualifier both days but broke both days in T8
Dave Savage's beautiful EP Europa broke during the first qualifying session.
Hey, it's a Lotus, what'd you expect?
Erich Heuschele's not-yet-fully-prepared Neon won ITS again on Saturday. Some folks say it should be in ITA but he seems to keep winning ITS with it. I have trouble believing 100hp 12a Rx7's can keep up with ITA Honda CRX's, (much less 130hp Neon's with modern suspensions) although Tony Duncan was impressive in his green #66 this weekend. I've heard the same debates with the Solo crowd, there are thousands of cars but only so many classes to put them in.
Here's something you don't see every day
Richard Reynolds Volvo 544 ran in SP
Greg Gauper get's the RR up in his ITC Honda
Heading into T7, the 'bowl' turn
W.J.Campbell's FP Sprite get's loose out of T6
Lance Loughman won ITS on Sunday
Greg Harbin's SSC Honda Civic
Don Taylor's Citation won at least one of the weekends FV races
Guy Pipitone's Lazer was fast
Some of the Formula cars were getting all 4 wheels off the ground over the jump turn
Then the landing would really compress their suspensions
That's Dave Harmison's Reynard getting loose in the S's
Dave in T3 during his FC victory lap
Now that's a drop off
The T2 - T3 complex
Pete Hylton get's steering help from his daughter
Don't see your car? E-mail me, I probably have it on tape. That's the nice thing about Spec Rx7's. You can only check the oil, gas and air pressure so often. Then you sit back and watch everyone else work on their cars. Gave me plenty of time to take video. My make work project during lunch time was to rotate the tires and bleed the brakes.
Spec Rx7 Racing Info on inexpensive wheel to wheel racing.
Guide to how the Pictures & Video get put up on the web
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