BTM - T for Thunder

There comes a time in each racer's career when they've looked at, sat in, raced, and smelled a car for some period of time. You know each curve, crease, scrape and could tell the tire pressures or lug nut torque just by looking at them. Then a moment of revelation. "Oh, you idiot!" Then a few minutes later on the track, you're going a second and a half a lap faster.

That was my day at Thunderhill yesterday. Brad masterfully kicked the weekend off with a win in GTS2 and a strong 2nd place in Spec e30. Usually there's someone on Saturday night at Casa Ramos who's collecting more than their fair share of slaps on the back, and that night it was Brad. The BTM car has done okay this year, but the rising Norcal Se30 talent has kept it off the podium so far. Brad had done some very good Saturday driving. And perhaps those few subtle tweaks at the shop since round 2 really helped.

With Brad heading back to Campbell Sunday to build a customer motor, I got the 91 car up and running, warmed up and qualified. Aside from running out of gas early in the GTS Challenge qualifying session, the car felt fine, but not great. There was just something not jelling - my times were close to Brad (three-tenths can easily cover the top 10 Se30 qualifiers) I still felt that I was fighting the car instead of melding with it. And qualifying 7th in GTS and 6th in Se30, nearly 2 seconds back.

Then the moment. 20 minutes before I needed to be on grid for the GTS Challenge race, I knew what was wrong. 19 minutes later I was ready to go.

The flying start for NASA's Sunday GTS Challenge race ended up being a little ragged - the faster GTS cars and se30s not exactly all taking off at the same time, but I was able to take good advantage, and by the time I was setting up for the T5 bypass I'd moved from 6th in GTS2 to 2nd and looking for 1st. Greg Petersen's Green Machine was working well too and we had a great battle to the end of the race, picking off American Muscle-Buggy traffic left from the group ahead of us, each gaining and losing inches each lap.

20 minutes after finishing, the Se30 field took off and this time, a near picture-perfect start made me really work for the passes. A few good moves on the first lap, and I found myself at the tail of a Petersen - Zwain - Clough - Neville train practically glued together at the bumpers.

Under pressure from Scott N, Scott C did some high-speed lawn-mowing on the outside of Turn 1 about 5 laps in, and we motored by him. After a short yellow to clear another car, Scott N also went wide in T6, and I caught up to Tony Z. While I was able to get a nose around in a few places, and finish with my tail lights even with his doors at the end of Thunderhill's long front straight, I had to settle for 3rd, and 2nd podium of the day.

Thanks to Brad for building a great little car. Looking forward to going really fast once I get to know it better...



Andy Chittum