Kakashi Racing #34 Saturn Sweeps NHIS Weekend!

Kakashi Racing's Jeff Lawton brings it home for the team!

09/09/07

With a full crew of Jake Lawton (Jeff's son) and Jeremy Billiel [Jeff's surrogate son - Ed.] on hand to help, the #34 had high hopes for the weekend. The forecast was for 90s on Saturday and possible rain for Sunday.

Jeff managed to be first on the grid for Saturday morning's qualifying, using the South Chicane configuration. This proved key to getting a good qualifying time because of the lack of traffic. It paid off with Jeff snagging the pole by 2/10s of a second!! However, with Geoff Branscome in his Integra lined up directly behind and a bunch of Prod cars dominating the first three rows, the hoped-for win wasn’t going to be easy!

At the start, Jeff led the the pack through turns 1, 2 and 3 as qualified. However, one of the Prod cars was having a difficult time warming up his tires and balked Jeff enough to almost lose position to Geoff coming out of T3. He did everything he could to keep Branscome in check during the race; over-driving during the course of the next 2/3 of the race caused the front tires to start to go away. Jeff's handling got worse and worse with Geoff making several runs and getting up to the door handle, but not being able to make it stick. Jeff's Saturn had a little more torque than Branscome's Integra [hah! The words "torque" and "Honda" in the same sentence! - Ed.] , so Jeff was using the strategy of going real slow into the corner and powering away at the exit. Although he was getting very frustrated, Geoff kept it clean for the whole race. Jeff was never so relieved to see the checkered flag come out; that relief quickly turned to jubilation as he realized his first win ever!! Due to a tight time schedule, he couldn't take a victory lap, but the celebration in impound with Jeremy and Jake quickly erased the disappointment. A dozen people tell them that the ITA battle was the best of the weekend!

Jake proceeded to walk around with the checkered flag until the next morning...

The next morning the team woke to a forecast of possible showers in the morning and rain in the afternoon. Since qualifying was scheduled for late morning, they had plenty of time to stew about what tires to use. With a ½ hour before the session, the rain stopped, but with a blob of rain coming on the RADAR; they figured it would hit some time early in their session. They decided to go with the dry tires and hope to get a couple of fast laps in before it became too slippery; since the line hadn’t dried completely, most of the competition decided to go out on rain tires. Jeff was either going to kick ass...or suck.

At the three minute mark the sprinkles started. Jeremy recommended going back to the garage and putting rain tires on but Jeff still thought that he could get in a faster lap with the dries before the track got too wet. As soon as the pack was release Jeff went out full-bore: no scrubbing or warming up the brakes and tires. Suddenly, the skies opened up Jeff got in his "fast lap"; on the third lap, after coming out of T10 sideways and the steering wheel at full opposite lock, he decided to call it quits. That first lap was good enough to hold up for third on the grid for the afternoon’s race, behind two Miata.

Back at the garage, the team recalled that the Saturn is normally above the sound limit when it rains. So off came the good exhaust and on went the “quiet” exhaust. By this time the rain had stopped. But a phone call to Greg “The Weatherman” Amy indicated it was going to start raining again right before the ITA race, and probably last for the rest of the day. So the rain tires went on, sway bar was disconnected, all shocks were set on full soft and a degree of camber taken out of the front wheels.

Now just to wait for the race.

At the start Jeff went around a 914 Prod car and left the second-place Miata way behind going into T1. But the Miata was not to be deined: he went high on the banking and came out of T2 in formation ot the right. Jeff pulled ahead into T3 and glued himself to the pole Miata's rear bumper. Jeff stayed behind him for the next lap and made a run on him coming out of T3, and managed to get beside but couldn’t make it stick. The next lap he did it again, both spinning their drive wheels all the way up the hill but this time Jeff nosed ahead; the Miata tucked in behind. He stayed there for a lap or two but soon fell back. When Jeff finally had trouble seeing him in the rear view mirror he relaxed and put it in “Don’t Be Stupid” mode. At around the half way mark he radioed in to Jeremy to tell him the video camera wasn’t running. His comment back: “What’s the matter, not enough to do out there but worry about the video camera??”.

Although the ex-pole-sitting Miata closed the gap on the last lap, he never threatened; plus, the third place car of Rob Breault was over one minute behind!! Jeff noted that "never have I had the car so hooked up in the rain or been in such a zone."

This time they let him take his victory lap...

Jake was just as excited with the second win as the first...and, as Jeff said, "It doesn’t get any better than that!"

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Jeff Lawton