The NASA Northeast season ended at New Jersey Motorsports Park’s Thunderbolt Raceway Halloween weekend.  I went into the weekend as the Super Unlimited class points leader and the overall drivers points leader, but we had to perform well in both races to take home the drivers championship.

The final weekend of the season was a typical 3 day format, with practice all day on Friday and qualifying and racing on Saturday and Sunday.  Weather was a factor with Friday dry, Saturday semi-dry, and Sunday almost a total washout.

Friday went well and the car was handling great from the beginning of practice.  After a few minor adjustments, we were running 1:24’s without pushing too hard.  We skipped most of the afternoon practice sessions to keep time off of the motor and to keep the car safe.

I qualified on pole for Saturday’s race.  The race started well, but I made a mistake and drove off of the track after a few laps.  I re-entered and started driving back through the field.  Unfortunately, the race went full course caution soon after my mistake and never restarted due to the extended clean-up efforts in turn 1 plus rain.  My fast lap in the race was a 1:24.444 and I finished 2nd in class, 5th overall.  Click here for full results and the first few laps of video is here.

Heavy rain moved in Saturday night and continued throughout the day Sunday.  We’ve rarely run the car in the rain but we brought rain tires because we had to run both races to secure the championship.  In the morning, we bolted on Hoosier rain tires, unhooked the sway bars, and took the compression out of the shocks.  In addition, we mounted 2 brake blowers on the roll cage to blow on the windshield to keep fog down and Rain-X’d the hell out of the windshield.  We qualified 14th overall, but raced well in the rain and set the 5th fastest time of the entire field and finished 1st in class, 10th overall.  The car was a real handful with a locked rearend, no traction control, no ABS, no windshield wipers, and rain flying around the cockpit since it isn’t sealed for rain.  Check out the video here.

The season ended with me leading the overall drivers points as well as the Super Unlimited class points.

We’ll see everyone next season!!