Driver's Note: VIR 2022

June 17-19, 2022 | VIRginia International Raceway | SRO America TCX

Thursday 6/16

There’s a lot of things to say about what happened this weekend, so I’ll try my best to categorize it all. The weekend started Thursday night when we flew in. Due to my school schedule, I wasn’t able to test the prior 2 days, unlike my competitors, so I was showing up Friday morning unaware how my pace would compare. I had practiced on the simulator prior to showing up, but hadn’t been on the track itself since the SRO weekend the prior year. I also prepped for the weekend by watching my old video from last year, just to familiarize myself with how this specific car handled the track. I felt like I had a pretty good handle on things going into the weekend, but only time would tell.

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Friday 6/17

I started the day by weighing in at the tech trailer, down ~1kg since the last race. Still aiming to drop ~15kg as our car is constantly overweight. The first practice session was on tires left over from the prior race weekend at NOLA Motorsports Park. This set had about 10 minutes on them. For some reason, the track felt more foreign to me than it should’ve given that I’d driven there a year ago in the same car. Even by the end of the session, we were 1.3 seconds off the lead pace. A vehicle dynamics strategy switch was necessary between the two sessions. Mostly to get the car to stop plowing straight mid-corner while coasting. I also took a long look at my video/data from the year prior to find any places that I might be losing time, attended the series’ drivers meeting and the North America unveiling of the new G82 M4 GT4.

Practice session 2 was a step in the right direction. After losing out on pole at Sonoma because practice 2 times were taken, we decided to do a “mock qualifying” run at the end of practice 2 in case that happened again. The car felt much better after making the changes we did and a bit more courage from me. I ended up ~1 second clear of the field by the time the checkered flag dropped. It was a good stint to end on going into Saturday morning’s qualifying session.

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Saturday 6/18

I woke up early Saturday morning to get to the track in time for the 8:30 am qualifying session. After a brief review of Friday’s in-car footage, I was confident that I could put the car on pole for the race later that day. At the beginning of the session, my teammates and I waited to release our cars to establish a large enough gap from the slower TCA class cars whose pitboxes were further down than ours. Unfortunately, a crash right in front of me deleted my fast lap, which would have put me on pole by .2 seconds. No big deal. I knew we had the pace to win from 3rd place (my eventual starting position). 

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Jumping forward to race time, I found myself more nervous than I usually am before the start of a race. Even as I'm writing this, I’m not sure why that was, but I did my best to clear my head as we headed out for the recon laps. The start of the race went picture perfect. I made the pass for P2 into Turn 1 and was right behind the leader before Turn 3. Let it be known that I started this race on brand new “sticker” tires, where my competitors started on used rubber. This being a fact, I knew I was going to have a good pace relative to P1 for the first ~4 laps of the race, so I tried to capitalize on that as much as I could. As a result of this, I put two wheels off the track on the outside of Turn 10 (the downhill left after the esses). This shook my confidence in the mechanical ability of the car as heat was beginning to play a factor as well. About 5 minutes later, I heard a call over the radio from my crew chief that I interpreted as “box for oil.” After coming into the pits thinking my car was leaking oil, my Crew Chief confusingly sent me back out as apparently the car was fine. Turns out, the call was “watch for oil” as another car was leaking oil all over the track. This mistake cost me a second place finish, possibly a win had I been able to make a move stick. I got out of the car after that race feeling absolutely pissed. In hindsight, I don’t know why I brought the car in when it was still running fine to me, but I guess something subconsciously didn’t want to challenge for the win that day. I still ended up getting the fastest lap of the race, so I was starting on pole the next day. I did my best to move on that night, but it was a hard pill to swallow and sleep was hard to come by. Regardless, I knew we had the car to win that weekend and there was nothing I could do about that race any more.

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Sunday 6/19

I woke up with fading memories of the previous day's events, but was ready to tackle the challenge presented to me. This race was important for two reasons. 1: I wanted redemption for the results yesterday, 2: I wanted to win in front of my dad on Father’s Day. I grew up watching him race, so to win with him there on Father’s Day would be extra special for me. I was almost too relaxed, however, and we almost missed the pregrid with my helmet and gear being left at the trailer. After rushing to get suited up and buckled in the car, I had to refocus quickly on pit lane before we were sent out for the recon laps. The race start was ideal again. I got a good jump and had the two guys fighting behind me by Turn 3. This allowed me to establish a ~1 second gap as they were fighting for second. This trend continued through 2 yellow flags and 1 red flag. I would lead on the restart and the three guys behind me would fight for position as I drove away. By the end of the race, I was out ahead by 3 seconds. Making a statement that I could in fact bounce back after pretty much anything and am a force to be reckoned with in the M2CS. This was as much a statement to myself as it was to my competitors. After all was said and done, I would be down to a 25-point lead in the championship at the end of the weekend. Not an insignificant amount, but I knew I would need to keep challenging for wins as the season progresses.