Nelson Ledges and Mosport SCCA races

A victory at Nelson.

Theo and I travelled to Nelson Ledges Ohio in May for the SCCA National, setting up in the paddock with my Mini racing friends, Ted Phenix and Chris Kopley. It was just like old times.

Over the winter we prepped a new head and cam to move the engine closer to full Production car specs and I was very eager to see how it would perform. With more power and torque, the Scirocco was much more fun to drive. After feeling out the car and track in the first session, we were able to edge out Debbie Lafond's Honda Civic for the pole position in HP in the afternoon qualifying.

The weekend's only problem surfaced in the Sunday morning warm up. The transmission was stuck in first and would not budge. After disassembling the shift linkage and with encouragement from Ted and Chris, we got it out of gear and fueled up in time to make the grid.

I planned to start off in second avoiding first gear, but on the start I was in fourth instead of second and had a very slow launch when the green flag came out. Ray Santomo's VW Golf got by me and Debbie was on my bumper. I quickly sorted things out and set chase on the Golf. It took over half the race to catch him and I slipped by on the inside going into turn one. The Golf and Honda were always in my mirrors, but we hung on for a very satisfying first win.

A few weeks later at Mosport, things did not work out as well. The two Midgets of Ron Bartel and Dan Collishaw were way out front in a class of themselves. One of my Scirocco mentors, Johannes Krause, was third and I was a slim 15/1000 of a second behind him with Dave Hammer's Rabbit another second back. With some fresher rubber on the car, it looked like I would be in the middle of a fun 3-way VW battle.

Race day dawned sunny , but soon after the warm up black clouds rolled in and the rain started. We put our "rain" tires on, which are really an old set of hand cut intermediates. The track was very wet and the rain constant, this was a day for full rains.

I moved ahead of Johannes on the start and held it to Moss Corner. As soon as we got through 5C, Johannes pulled out and powered by me up the straight on his fresh Hoosier rains. A few laps later and Dave went by, there was nothing I could do as the rain was heavy. After a full course yellow and restart, it was clear that I had nothing to gain and drove to make the finish without bending the car.

Congratulations to Johannes and Dave who had close battle for the whole race and turned faster laps in the rain than the two Midgets!

July 11 we are off to Watkins Glen were there is an 8 car HP field entered including a rematch between the three VWs.