The pre-registration list for the spec miata (SM) class showed a large 48 car field, with many of the usual suspects and a couple surprises as well. Given the class size, SCCA quickly and professionally decided to give SM its own run group which was well received by the sm drivers, as well as the IT drivers who were I am sure tired of us from sears! Barry Hartzel, often credited as the founder of the SM class and always quick (previous series winner, 2nd at 2002 Champ Car weekend in 70+ car field, etc.) and Andrew Fernandez (multiple victories, known as quickest SM driver in SoCal) were among the names on the preregistration list. With 48 entries, we knew we had our hands full and our impressive representation at sears might be tough to replicate.....but we were confident and prepared!

Practice was interesting, with all three Off Camber drivers experiencing some sort of excitement. Justin was having trouble figuring out the entry to the corkscrew including line and braking. Most of his experience at Laguna is in a formula car, and the line from 7-8 is a bit different in a sedan. One lap in particular, Justin found himself off line and past the braking point, with tires smoking, so a lift was in order to help rotate the car, but he couldn't get it around far enough and had to give up and take the famous Zanardi off track excursion..however, there is now a concrete ditch at the bottom and the impact was somewhat violent. Safely underway on track, the car felt fine, and will fellow Off Camber driver Dave McAnaney now a fixture in the rear view mirror he decided to stay on track and have some fun. A quick string box in the pit and visual on the suspension after the session revealed no damage other than a scuffed wheel. Practice times for the Off Camber crew were in the 1:51:xx's, placing us all in the top 12 with Peter Hsu on top with 5th place time in practice. We knew :50's or :49's were on the table in qual.

Or so we thought...the wind picked up for qualifying and all of us honestly thought that track conditions were ideal, sunny for adhesion yet only about 62 degrees which makes for nice hp. Qualifying was uneventful from a traffic perspective. Justin literally had the track to himself for at least ¾ of the session before catching lap traffic. Yet, as he went out the hot lap timer was showing 1:52:xx. Almost alone on the track, knowing he is usually faster when chasing someone, Justin knew it was time to start ticking off some laps or suffer a mid pack starting position and all the associated carnage. So he really started to drive the wheels off the car and for 3 laps the timer showed 1:51:xx. He was even tapping the top of the timer down the straight thinking something was wrong with it, these laps had to be at least 1:50's!!! We quickly realized in the pits that most of the field was off their practice times even though conditions felt better, still not sure why but Justin's low of 1:51:122 was good for 7th on the grid. McAnaney with 1:51:526 was 10th and Peter with 1:51:762 was 11th. Courtney and Hartzel had pole with blistering 1:49's. Justin's time was 0:0:15ths off third fast, showing how close qualifying was from 3-7.

The race wasn't till 12:30 on Sunday, yet for some unknown reason Justin arrived at the track around 7:30, which caused him to be anxious all morning - good lesson there! The green flag finally drops and Justin has a nice run, thinks to the inside but there is nothing but Tommy O or k-wall, so he thinks the better of it, and goes outside and enters turn 2 well outside but probably in 4th position or so. Review of the tape shows Justin should have been a bit more patient with the inside line as the kwall to the left at turn 1 ends about when Justin decided outside..but back to turn 2. Justin was hung out to dry in 2 and exited the turn in 8th position, McAnaney hot on his tail. He quickly regained 7th position passing Eric Hernandez for good between 2-3 - at least being outside in 2 allowed for a nice run at exit! Justin assumed his position behind Gary Buccellato and Andrew Fernandez who were hotly contesting 5th position. Justin decided to back off a bit thinking the 2 of them would collect each other, as they made contact at least 3 times in the span of 3 corners. After 2 laps of being 5 cars back, Justin decided to get back into the game. Gary and Andrew were easy to catch since they were scrubbing speed fighting eachother. Justin was able to get a nice run out of 11 and overtake Gary going into 2 and now in 6th position and all over Andrew. It took a couple laps of studying Fernandez's tendencies, which was a good learning as Andrew is an excellent driver. However, he was really late braking into 2 to protect his position as Justin continued to get nice exit speed out of 11 then leverage the draft to pull along side. Ultimately Andrew went a bit deep into 2 allowing Justin to overtake and secure 5th position. Literally 3 turns later, at the exit of 5, a full course yellow appeared and we quickly saw the 82 car of David Kirsch totaled after significant kwall contact, but the cage did its job and driver walked away unscathed! This major incident allowed for 2 ½ laps under yellow behind the pace car which is exactly what Justin needed as he was really using up his tires and brakes to pass Gary and Andrew. The caution laps significantly cooled the tires, and first lap after caution was very much like first lap of the race from adhesion perspective. Justin found himself behind the 4th position car of Jack Arluck, who was fighting no adhesion also. Justin was able to move into 4th position taking advantage of an off by Jack in 6. Andrew was also able to slip by Arluck as he experienced another off in the always dangerous 9, and was quickly back on Justin's tail. Now unfortunately Justin was fighting a car that was going away, and 2 laps later Andrew was able to take advantage of that with a nice late braking move into 2, regaining 4th position. Justin was upset, and determined to take the position back, driving as close as ever to Andrew with literally no daylight between the cars. However, Andrew drove flawlessly and we were quickly upon the white flag lap...and it didn't seem possible to drive any more aggressively with Andrew but Justin did literally sticking a nose down to the outside in 2, inside in 3, 4, 5, 6 (costing a bit of speed up the hill) trying to pressure Andrew into a mistake. Justin was resigning himself to a last ditch drag race out off 11 when opportunity knocked – Andrew got just a touch loose out of 10! A dive bomb into 11 was in order – Andrew knew it was coming, driving mid track into 11 forcing Justin as far inside as he had ever been but got along side nonetheless. However, this caused fairly low exit speed, and Gary Buccellato, behind Andrew the whole time, took advantage and made a nice outside in move on Andrew and was able to almost pull along side Justin. The 3 cars were basically 3 abreast heading toward start/finish, with Justin able to capture 4th, a hood ahead of Gary in 5th, who was about a hood ahead of Andrew in 6th. Dave McAnaney moved up 2 positions to finish 8th, and Peter an impressive 13th only losing 1 position while fighting a loose car spinning 2x. Hard charger goes to perennial front runner Ed Railton who blew a motor in practice, missed qual, but was back for the main starting last but finishing 12th – the caution really helped Ed. Notable absentee from this event was Dave Vodden, who after the race purchased the very car that Justin battled with from Andrew, so we expect to see Mr. Vodden back front pack for our next Thunderhill race in May.

Post race activities ended up being interesting, as Justin, Andrew, Gary, and a host of other drivers were impounded for body contact. Justin was (supposedly) hit from behind by Gary, but had no recollection and was later released. Event steward did want to interview Justin as witness to the contact between Andrew and Gary. SCCA is really trying to crack down on contact in this class (rightfully so) and heavily scrutinizing all incidents. It was later learned that Gary was reprimanded by steward of the meet for contact.

Written By: Justin Hall