Kakashi Racing Goes 1-2 at Pocono!

DiMinno finally grabs a pair...with Lawton right behind...

 

Kakashi Racing's Joe DiMinno continues in fine form, with a pair of wins at Pocono, strengthening his grip on the ITA NARRC points lead...

Joe DiMinno

Pocono. My home track. Yes, I was hoping for a good weekend and it couldn’t end up any better than it did.

Saturday started off cool but somewhat sunny. Qualifying was very uneventful. I was the first car to grid and when we got out I just checked out and never looked back. When the results came in I qualified 2nd in class and to my surprise my buddy Jeff Lawton had gotten pole by .2 secs.

Saturdays race; what a blast! After a very fast and awkward start (everyone started before the green dropped) it took about 2 laps to catch up to Jeff and the fight was on from there. For the next eight or so laps it seemed like we swapped position every lap, it was a great fight. On the next to the last lap Jeff tried a very bold three-wide pass into turn one. He ended up taking out all of the cones on the inside of One and locking the tires up and almost sliding off the track. In the meantime I just avoided him and continued on my way and cruised to the first win of the weekend!

So Sunday rolled around and I had pole because of the finish order from the previous day. My plan get a good start , get a gap back to Jeff , and try and hang with a faster ITS car and run away. Well the plan sorta worked. I got a good start and opened up a gap for a lap or so until a faster ITS car got by and I saw a red car in the rear view mirror. Oh crap here comes Jeff , but wait it wasn’t Jeff  it was Tim Klvana in his red Integra with Jeff on his rear bumper. Here they come. Timmy ended up getting by me with a sweet outside pass into one after drafting me down the front straight. I stayed behind timmy for a few laps with Jeff just out of the draft. Until braking into the chicane ihad drafted Timmy down the back straight and was going to pop out just to get some air on the front of the car to help slow it down at that point Timmy had hit his brakes earlier than I had been so I just drove by on the inside and made the pass. Sweet I was back in the lead. That is how it stayed for the rest of the race I had gotten close enough to Brian Bagnall in his ITS RX7 just enough to catch some of his draft and keep Timmy and Jeff just far enough back to where they couldn’t use my draft. Win #2 for the weekend FANTASTIC! Jeff ended up passing Timmy and finished 2nd in race 2.

So it was a great weekend for Kakashi Racing, 2 firsts and 2 seconds in ITA. Like I said earlier: couldn’t end up any better than it did.

Also our fearless leader had a pretty good weekend himself in his and Jeremy’s ITS Integra with a 5th in the Pro IT race and two 2nds in the sprints. And after three years of trying Greg has finally broken the ITA track record; oh, but wait he is driving an ITS car now. ;)

Oh damn, I really didn’t want to go to NHMS Memorial Day weekend...

Jeff Lawton

I had been a little anxious about this weekend since Pocono was where I had my big crash last year. Friday we realized that my front brakes were trashed and we would end up having to do them at the track that night...in the rain...and in the dark...Fortunately Kessler Engineering trackside support stepped in to take care of that.

Saturday morning didn’t start much better when a late arriving tractor trailer -- whose driver had his head up is a** -- ran over one of my mounted tires, squishing it flat. Despite [poorly - Ed.] driving a $250K rig, the driver was very unsympathetic to the situation...Fortunately none of the “discussions” turned violent despite he and I bumping chests and despite several chats from other team members...[Ed.'s note: when you move from pulling an open trailer behind a Chevy 1500 to pulling a 53' trailer behind a semi, a little driver training is in order. Checkbook value does not equal skill level...]

My one goal for qualifying Saturday morning was to shake out the nerves, remember where the braking points were, and get in a clean session; no illusions of fast times. Bur, looking at the DL-1 data after the session, I had knocked off 9/10ths seconds from last year's fastest time -- Cool!!! Then we went to look at the results. To my shock, I had the pole!! The downside was that Crazy Joe was lined up RIGHT behind me on the grid. His favorite position to power past me on the starts.. Klavana and Hawthorn followed.

I fully expected to lose P1 to Joe on the start but somehow got a good jump and at the same time Joe got pinched by an ITS car. I made it all the way to Greg’s rear bumper on the Integra going into Turn One with Joe close behind. Joe and I proceeded to run nose-to-tail for the next eight laps. Each lap we were going deeper and deeper into the braking zones, going side by side through most of the corners at some point. We swapped positions seven times, both of us putting our inside wheels in the dirt at every apex. Whoever came out of the chicane onto the main straight in second, was able to draft by the other.

On the second to last lap I was following Joe down the main straight and I could see we were about to catch some slower cars going into Turn One. Thinking Joe would get balked up behind them, I dove inside only to find I had no where to go but over the cones they had set up keeping us wide into One. The front left locked up, getting me sideways, sliding across the nose of several cars and into the dirt and mud on the outside of the turn. My next thought was trying to salvage 2nd place!! While the car was still sliding through the dirt, I was jamming it into first gear and turning the key to re-fire the engine. I managed to lose sight of Joe, but got going before Tim. And the finish was Joe, me, then Tim.

Sunday’s race was gridded based on Saturday’s results. I was right behind Joe on the inside and Tim was beside me on the outside. Two of the best starters in the Northeast and I was stuck right between them... Unfortunately I blew it all on my own by missing third gear on the start. I made some frantic moves through the infield portion of the course to stay in contact with Tim and Joe. When I finally tucked in behind Tim, I realized my water and oil temps were very high. I turned on the fan and the heater but still struggled to stay in the draft. I then resorted to short shifting which put more distance in between us. But once I got into clean air, the temps dropped a little and I reeled them back in. Joe did a great job of using an ITS car to draft behind but the three of us were never far off each others' bumpers...

Unfortunately for Tim, the lower part of his window net disconnected and he spent much of the time holding it to avoid being black-flagged. On the second-to-last lap I got a good run on him coming out of the infield. I didn’t have enough to get inside under braking for the chicane, but I ducked down low hoping Tim would think I was trying to out-brake him and would make a mistake. Tim ended up blowing the exit to the chicane allowing me to get inside him on the banking and pull ahead. I then rolled up on Joe going into the infield portion and I glued myself to his bumper all the way until the entrance of the chicane where Joe proceed to miss the entrance and go into the dirt on drivers left! I had a quick choice of either keeping my foot on it and hoping I didn’t hit him too hard or lift to avoid the contact...I lifted (you owe me, Joe!), lost the momentum and Joe rolled onto a well-deserved win number two for the weekend.

Those are the last two gifts I will give Joe this season...

Not a bad weekend. All cars came back in one piece, two firsts for Joe, two seconds for Greg in ITS and two seconds for me. Plus, I had improved my best time from last year by 1.4 seconds...

Jeremy Billiel

Wow what a weekend! Where do I start?

Saturday morning came very quickly with many loose ends on the car to finish up. Matt, Chris Rallo, and I were hard at work making sure everything was complete and I was praying that the dreaded VTEC problem was fixed by installing a new Moroso baffled race oil pan (along with many other new items). I was also curious as to how the car would respond to many new horsepower-generating tools.

Qualifying for the first regional came and the VTEC problem was still present. Dammit! What else could it be? We had checked, bypassed, and logged every input into the ECU and everything worked well. Before Saturday's Regional race, Mike Sabatello suggested to Greg to "power shift" to see if minimizing teh TPs values helped...and it did ! As long as Greg power-shifted the problem went away. So, we were reasonably convinced it had something to do with the ECU logic. So, as a last resort, for the Pro IT race I put the stock ECU program back in (even though I knew we would loose some HP). Lo and behold the car ran great, no VTEC problems! It was certainly down on power, but it was definitely better than not having VTEC!

After qualifying 3rd for the first ITS race, tGA was able to make up one position to finish a very respectable 2nd place in a car that has given us a lot of grief over the last 2 events (Matt’s new nickname for the car is Evil B*tch). The other good news is as Greg continues to get more seat time, the faster he goes and the lap times were falling quickly.

After a good dinner )and a good night's sleep) Saturday night, we were back at the track in the morning for final preparations and anxious to see if the "underpowered" GSR had anything for the ITS front runner Jeff Harding. Much to our surprise, Greg was able to stay close for many laps, but after an unfortunate mis-shift he lost the draft and was stuck looking for a drafting partner. That partner was nowhere to be found and another 2nd place trophy was placed on the mantel...

Next up? We are looking forward to getting back on the dyno to get the HP back and bring the car back to NHMS for a good fight.

Congratulations to Kakashi teammates Jeff and Joe on two awesome races Saturday and Sunday!

Overall the weekend was very successful for Kakashi racing with 2 first places, 4 second places and 1 fifth place [and a s**tload of stuff learned...Ed.].

Greg Amy

Hey, what can I say? I had as much fun watching these guys duke it out as I did lapping the track. These guys kick butt! On to the next learning opportunity!

Results

Pro-IT: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=805839

ITS/ITS Race 1: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=805800&perclass=1

ITS/ITS Race 2: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=805834&perclass=1

Video

Joe DiMinno’s in-car: Race 1 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3222384660419528878

                             Race 2 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-973826765205624722

Jeff Lawton's in-car: Race 1 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5388591380767931957&hl=en

                             Race 2 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4558233972503043549&hl=en

Greg Amy, Sunday Race: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7656226072758197430&hl=en

Photos