Kakashi Racing's Joe DiMinno Dominates ITA!
Tim Rogers is back On Track!
Kakashi Racing's Joe DiMinno opened the SCCA season "just right" with ITA pole and win. Tim Rogers qualified right next to him in second and finished on a "high" note!
Joe DiMinno
Well I finally went and did it.
As you can see in the pics, over the off season we put together a new race chassis. The reason I say "we" is if it weren’t for Matt Kessler for helping/doing the roll cage (ya know just a few bits of metal and a welder) with Famous Phil Parlato and Mike Sabatello helping/doing the body work and paint there is no way I could have gotten this done. Note that the chassis was picked up in the middle of January (and this race was in early April), so a hell of a lot of work was done in a short time. Thanks guys I owe you big time.
Anyhow the weekend started off with the test day. Nothing really exciting just needed to get the car out on the track and shake it down and the driver needed to get the cobwebs out after the long winter break. By the way, nothing fell off of the car all weekend. I must be getting good at this stuff.
The next 2 days were nothing but hanging around for the school. I ended up being crew bitch helping Kessler maintain the three cars for the school. Props to Matt for sure it’s hard to have to deal with whiney ass drivers all the time. Not much going except for changing tires, checking oil, etc. Until Timmah hit an iceberg. I’ll let him elaborate on that...
OK, it’s Sunday and I’m ready to go after sitting around for 2 days. I was pretty confident the car was ready and would do well. Of course, as usual, we lined the cars up early to get some clean track; the order was Jeff Lawton, me, then Shane H., and Timmah. We all agreed to take the first lap somewhat slow to let all the cars on the track so we wouldn't hit slower traffic to soon. All was good until we came around to start finish. We were all lined up in a train, then as we got up to speed just before going into Turn One right in front of me Jeff’s hood blew up over the windshield! Aw crap. Jeff did a great job slowing it down and parking it on the inside just at the end of pit wall. After that nothing too exciting happened, I just put my head down and tried to click off a few quick laps. To my surprise I had gotten the pole with a 1:16.7xx, with Timmah to my side with outside pole just a tenth slower. Great qualifying for Kakashi racing!
Time for the race. I don’t think I could have gotten a better start. The pace car pulled of and I noticed in the rearview that the two Miatas were laying back so I slowed the pace slightly just to keep them close so they couldn't get any kind run on me at the green. The green dropped and I took off like a rocket leaving Timmah and the others waaaay behind (I later told Timmah I would have given him a pillow so he would have been more comfortable while sleeping at the start, Sorry Timmah....) We come into Turn Three and like most of the weekend the back end of the car came out as turned...once again poor Timmah was right there and had to brake check and got swarmed by the pack. Sorry again Timmah.
For the next 4 or 5 laps I built a small cushion to the next car as the guys behind were battling for position. After he got free, Steve Gorriaran (Miata) caught up to me and was on my ass. For the next 12 laps it must have been a great show for the spectators at turn 3 because every lap I would brake and defend to the inside as Steve would stay outside. We would go up the hill side-by-side with the Nissan torque pulling away from the Miata, making it a "who gets to Turn Six first?" At one point I got a bad run out of Three and Steve was able to stay alongside into turn 6. Of course, I am not going to out brake a Miata so I used Jeff’s favorite move, the old criss-cross maneuver. I braked early let him go by and turned in under him and shot up the hill past him. That would be the only time during the race I wasn’t in the lead. I took the "1" to go with the largest lead I had all race, but as I came into Three I locked up and slid wide. Steve tried to sneak under me but I had just enough to keep him behind and that is how we finished.
This was a great race. Pole-to-Checker for the first race of the season in a new chassis is a fantastic result. I ran a 1:16.4xx -- my fasted time yet at NHIS and only 8 tenths off of Greg’s track record. Of course, it was mentioned that if I wasn't such a cheap bastard I would have run new tires instead of last years ARRC tires, and I would have had a really good shot at the record. Oh well ya live and ya learn.
Oh yeah and the steak dinner afterwards was great, Greg (I’ll let you elaborate on that one). Something about an ITS Integra GSR running .5 seconds slower than an ITA Nissan Sentra.
Tim Rogers
I used to race in ITC in a Datsun 510 back in '90 & 91 and I've been trying to get myself back into a position to race an IT car again for the last 17 years. Since 2001, I've been working towards building my own ITA NX2000.
Fast forward to 2007 and Greg asked me if I'd like to buy the NX from him. Since he was offering me a car I was basically trying to build myself in a fully set up state and for probably less than I would have ended up spending myself, I said “Yes!”
For me, this weekend started with the first thing a racer has to do, and that's getting my SCCA competition license again via the NER's Spring Training event on Friday and Saturday. I locked up the brakes going into turn 3 on Friday in the wet and instead of plowing into the tire barrier, I ended up on top of it. This was due to the progressively stacked tires being filled with ice at the bottom (there was still snow all around the track) and acting as a launch ramp. The only damage to the car was the airdam getting torn up a bit but it made it back on the car in time for Sunday. Big thanks go out to Andy Bettencourt who loaned a set of mounted rain tires so that I would not miss the next session while my own rains were getting mounted. Matt Kessler got the alignment reset with some help from Joe DiMinno so I didn't miss any track time. Saturday went a bit smoother and I passed the school and was cleared to race on Sunday.
For Sunday's qualifying session, Jeff Lawton (who was a great help to me during the school), Joe DiMinno, Shane Hawthorne and I set out to qualify together. I thought I might be able to use this to my advantage as I was still working on some of the finer points of getting around the track. After warming our tires on the out lap, we got on it coming down the front straight and I noticed Jeff turning down hard towards the apron going into Turn 1. I was starting to wonder why he had chosen this strange line when I saw that his hood had flown up and into the windshield. That same lap, Shane spun in front of me coming out of Turn 10, so now Joe was way out in front and I was left to hammer around on my own. I felt I was getting faster and faster but none of the laps felt “great”. When I started to feel that I was overdriving the car, I pulled into the garage. 15 minutes after the session was over, Joe comes back to the garage beaming about being on pole. I was shocked to learn that I had qualified second; a front row start for my first race in 17 years!
I went into the race knowing my situation:
The top six were all qualified closely together
They all had more recent racing experience than I did.
I didn't need any metal to metal moments while on my Novice Permit.
So, I wasn't about to roll over and play dead at the start but I wasn't about to get in a game of ITA pinball either...
Joe got a great jump on me at the start but I was on his tail going into turn 3. Then Joe got the car really sideways at mid-turn and I cautiously slowed up to make sure I wasn't about to drive over him. This allowed the first Miata to get past me going up the hill. A few bobbles by me over the next few laps had me back to 5th place after a few laps, where I stayed until the last lap.
Then, on that last lap going into Turn 3, I carried a bit too much speed and pushed wide at the exit. I was now straddling the curbing as I went up the hill and not wanting to cut back over the curbing as I worried about damaging the car on it. So, as the track continued to move right, I was still going straight into the berm at driver's left. The left wheels caught in the dirt so that even though the berm tilted at a 45 deg. angle, the car was temporarily horizontal, giving the crowd at Turn 3 a nice view of the underside of the car. So, I got passed for 5th and limped the car around with a bad vibration from what turned out to be a load of dirt on the inside of the front wheels to take 6th.
Results
http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=293512
Video
Joe DiMinno’s in-car: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1540689826430799349
Tim Rogers' in-car: TBA
Jeff Lawton's unfortunate qualifying incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5vtz6sxhTA
Photos
Following photos courtesy WizardRacing:
