Waterford Hills Race #1 Recap (Press Release)

It was a great weekend to be racing. The TF American Racing ITB Ford Mustang performed beyond expectations. Even the driver is starting to figure out what he was doing.

Friday afternoon for practice started out a little slow. Tom had the wrong tires on when the track opened up so after a quick change from rains to slicks he got it on the track. Tom came up to speed slowly, but some unofficial stopwatches had him running decent lap times. A total of three practice sessions were run with the last one heat cycling a brand new set of Hoosiers.

Saturday brought the rain early. After qualifying a poor 22nd in the rain on old slick tires Tom was anxious to have the track dry up and get the 2010 racing season under way. It was an exciting start to the season, Tom passed three cars through the first three turns. Then the #90 ITC Plymouth Arrow of Steve Steeb and the #8 ITB Fiero of Dale Mudd spun about three cars ahead of Tom between turn 4 & 5. Dale’s car ended up quite wet in the swamp. Tom didn’t hit anything but was worried he might have flat spotted the tires, quickly hitting the brakes so hard.
Full course caution came out and then the red flag to clean up the mess.

On the restart Tom moved up a few positions due to the crash and a few penalties handed out (Do not pass under yellow). He got a good start leaving #73 Kimi in the dust, albeit temporarily. Tom quickly caught the #32 of Franz in his Fiero and followed him in passing the #1 (Joe) and #2 (rookie Liz) ITS Miatas. Tom then had a mirror full of Kimi and her Dad, #47 Dave. #90 Steve , coming through the pack and recovering from the crash quickly sprinted into the rearview mirror. Once Steve got pass Tom, Franz made contact with Steve missing him in the rear view mirror. After the slight contact, Tom took advantage and got by both. Steve then pass Tom back a few laps later and then Kimi was back in the rear view mirror as she and her Dad got by Franz.
After holding off Kimi and Dave for a few more laps, #77 Merritt showed up through the windshield. Tom made quick work in getting around Merritt’s Porsche. Then Kimi a lap later got the inside line coming out of eight and got by, with her Dad in tow. Going into turn one on the last lap, Tom made a slight…..kinda big…..ok major mistake by shifting into fifth and not third going into turn one. By the time Tom got the car in the correct gear, Franz was in the process of passing Tom and finished the pass going into turn five.
Tom finished 14th and seventh in class in this 11 lap race (Not sure how we got an extra lap in but we did). Not too bad for starting 22nd
Congrats to Kenny on his win in class and charge from 18th to 8th overall.

The Sunday class race was much less eventful. Starting the same way he finished on Saturday 14th overall and 7th in class. Tom couldn’t keep up with Franz in this 10 lap race. And finished 14th overall and 7th in class. Tom did make a slight tire pressure adjustment and a slight suspension adjustment for this race and went 0.2 seconds quicker in lap time.

The Sunday 12 lap feature was a little more exciting. Tom made a bigger suspension adjustment and started 17th overall and 8th in class. The start is based on the best lap time from the previous two races of the weekend. Tom got another excellent start and passed the #41 Prizm and Liz in the #2 Miata. Tom quickly caught Franz and passed him too…and started to pull away. Tom then was trailing a pack of cars that included Kimi, Dave, Kenny and #88 Bob. Tom kept up with them for a few laps but they began to slowly pull away. The tires on the car began to fall off late in the race with the #41 starting to reel the #00 Moonbeam Massage ITB Ford Mustang back in but it wasn’t enough. Tom ran a personal best lap time 1:24.4 in the feature race. He finished 12th overall and 6th in class.

Thanks to all the crew and support Tom had this weekend. Thanks to Moonbeam Massage and Tom’s check book for sponsoring the car this weekend…and for the 2010 season. Tom picked up two trophies (well he is holding them for Kenny when he returns in two weeks) and is looking forward to racing June 5th & 6th.