The green #38 and #37 continue to impress, AUDI is a little closer to being great
Saturday Qualifying
ST4
For this weekend we were running the #38 E46 (Anthony Zwain) and #37 E36 (Kevin Moore) BMWs. Thankfully the field was well behaved for the first two laps and both cars were able to set near identical times in the first clear lap. Kevin (#37) then let Anthony by to set a fast time but he was off pace and had to settle for the first lap’s time. We were fortunate to end up in P1 for #38 and P2 for #37 with only 0.4s between the two EDGE cars and less than a second separating the top three qualifiers.
The #38 was very fast and with a new motor we were not unexpectedly called to dyno. We ended up being about 15 average horsepower under spec. at 230. We decided not to take any weight out of the car to play it safe.
ST3
The AUDI had some traffic to deal with but Shaun Webster was able to set a best time of 1:44.392 on lap 3. After qualifying in P2 Shaun said “The car felt good but #$%^! there’s a lot more in it”. We still have a ways to go to match Tony Colicchio who grabbed P1.
Saturday ST4 Race
After qualifying, we decided to put some different sticker tires on #38. Some 245/45R17 Hoosiers S7s were mounted on 10X17” APEX ARC 8 wheels. The idea wasn't ours and it came from one of our ST4 competitors, Scott Smith in the bimmerworld-sponsored #44 E46. Thank you Scott!!
With a near-perfect start #38 and #37 gapped the ST4 field almost immediately, but got hung up on a slower ST3 car. Anthony had no problem getting around him in the first lap, but Kevin struggled with the ST3 car’s extra straight line speed for a few more laps. This helped Anthony gain a healthy lead and from there it was a reasonably easy race for the win and maybe proof that the new tire selection works.
The new tire setup felt great with a fast race lap of 1:45.986 compared to a slower 1:46.024 in qualifying. The faster-than-qualifying race lap has us wondering if this can work on all of the chassis we run.
Kevin in #37 didn’t have the same luck with traffic as Anthony, allowing Scott Smith to work his way to the Kevin’s bumper with 2 laps to go. Kevin made the #37 as wide as he could and took advantage of some battling Spec E46 cars to hold Scott off and take P2.
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Saturday ST3 Race
After a good start, we were next to P1, Tony Colicchio, in turn 2 but had to back off. Tony is still faster than us so even if we somehow got the lead, barring his car breaking, he would get by us. Throughout the race we lost time on every lap and 2nd place was the best we were ever going to do, and that’s where we ended up.
Our biggest challenge with the AUDI is the tire degradation and maintaining fast lap times. The AUDI is fast but we just can’t maintain the pace in the first few laps throughout a race. There’s still lots of work to do, but we’ll do it.
Saturday TT
We ran the #38 in TT3 and the #37 in TT4 and won both classes.
Sunday Qualifying
ST4
Shaun Webster moved from the AUDI to the #38 on Sunday. Shaun was fast, had clear track, and qualified 1st.
Anthony was driving #37, which he loves driving, but he unfortunately broke the throttle pedal in the middle of his first hot lap. This made the car extremely difficult to drive and consequently, qualified near last due to the pedal and traffic. Somehow we think he likes the challenge of being at the back.
ST3
With Kevin Moore not returning on Sunday we had to shuffle seats. Matt Powers seemed like the obvious choice for the AUDI. With Matt being in the car we would gather more data and hopefully we’ll all learn how to drive the car better/faster/more consistently ;).
Qualifying was a bit of a mess so Matt couldn’t stick to his plan to do a warm up lap then 2 hot laps. With one clean lap (his 1st lap) Matt got the AUDI down to a 1:43.344, although he was hoping to get into the low 1:42s. Unfortunately, his 2nd lap was spent dodging STU cars that had gridded in front of us. With one last chance to get a clean lap Matt created a large gap on lap 2 so he could start lap 3 with warm tires and plenty of room. More traffic in turn 10 put the kibosh on that idea but luckily our first lap got pole position.
Sunday ST4 Race
There was some excitement for Shaun in the #38 when after an only OK start, Justin S. got by him before turn 2 on the 1st lap. Having to deal with some ST3 cars that started in front of him, Shaun battled Justin for a few laps and with a little better pace in the slow speed corners the EDGE #37 kept Justin close.
By midway through Shaun saw that Justin’s tires were wearing and on lap 6 was able to get by in turn 11. Shaun's speed in slow speed corners allowed him to take the inside line into 11 and from there he was able to gap 2nd place and win by 12 seconds.
With the #37 at the back of the ST4 field, Anthony got a great start and quickly made up a couple of places. Unfortunately, he fell victim to traffic and ill-timed yellow flags. He ended up in 4th place.
Congratulations to Scott S. for 2nd place and Justin S. for a great 3rd place.
Sunday ST3 Race
Matt had a great start and was able to get into turn 1 and through 2 comfortably. Unfortunately, by turn 3 we were already into some STU cars that started in front of us. This created some unwanted challenges but the car felt good and the race was unfolding nicely. With Tony Colicchio close behind, Matt gave it everything but traffic and the AUDI falling off pace made it difficult to stay in front.
After some great racing with Tony, he got by us on the inside in turn 11 and that was the race. It felt inevitable that he would get by us. We finished in 2nd with almost a 6 second gap to 1st at the end.
Sunday TT
We ran the #38 in TT3 and the #37 in TT4 and won both classes.
Wrapping Up
Racing is expensive, very time consuming, and sometimes extremely frustrating, but what we gain from our time at the track far outweighs the difficult parts of it. The friendships within and outside of the EDGE Family that develop at the race track are really why we do this.
Just so nobody is mistaken, we love to win and we work hard at it. When 1st place doesn’t happen, the family makes it not feel not so bad and there is always lemonade from a loss. Invariably, we come away from a less than optimal performance with the motivation to understand why we lost and what is necessary to win, because winning feels great ;).
The number of good friends and close ties that have been created for all of us at the track are too many to count. Everything we do together from helping each other without question and racing hard, to toasting successes are what make great memories.
#camaraderie #edgefamily #forevergrateful
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