September 2004 - Formula Renault 2000 race - Birmingham AL

BARBER FORMULA RENAULT 2000 RACE

Race Team Promotions

10-7-2004 to 10-10-2004

Colin was invited by Bob Gelles to drive his Formula Renault 2000 in the Race Teams Promotions race at Barber Motorsports Park.

This is the car he drove.  The series was kind of going down hill and only 11 cars showed up for the race.  The competition was good as the serious teams and drivers were still in the series fighting for the championship. 

Colin found out that he was not going to be the team leader as Martin Ponte was now in the team.  He is the points leader and was given the teams primary car.  Colin was switched to the test car.

Colin got his Grand Am license and was ready for the promoters test day on Thursday.

In the first practice Colin learned the track.  It is a great place, beautiful and so well laid out.  The track is kind of small with no long straight, but it is very challenging.

After the first session we knew there was something wrong.  Colin was down by 7 MPH to Ponte on the straights.

We spent the rest of the day changing sensors, engine parts, wires, and everything we could to fix the problem. 

Nothing worked.  The other teams could hear the low revs as Colin went past.

So at the end of the day Bob Gelles decided to install a new engine in the car.  The team got the engine in and we were ready for qualifying Friday.

Well no help in the qualifying, still slow in a straight line.  The car was still not right and we were lost as to what to do.  By this time Colin, Travis and Jeff were on our own with little help from the team.  They had 3 other cars to take care of and did not have much time to help us.

Next was qualifying for Sundays race and the car was no better so we were about to pack it in as there was no point to keep going with a car that was so slow in a straight line. 

So Dave Hosie (here on the left, center talking to Colin and Travis) from GTI loaned us his spare car to use.  He just wanted Colin to race and has been a friend of Colin's for the past 2 years.

Travis, Colin and I got the car ready with one Gelles crew guy and after converting to our brakes and seat and other parts we were ready to go for the second qualifying to set Sundays grid.

This was Saturday morning and it rained and Colin got to drive a car in the rain for the first time.  He did well and learned a bunch.  The problem was the car was still very slow in a straight line.

Now what.  It had to be the brakes.  That was the only thing the same on each car.

So we talked to our friend Derrik Dong at Performance Friction.  He looked over the brake system and figured it out right away.

Here at the right Derrik sorts it out with us.  The problem was the brake pads were not fitting the calipers and the pads would not retract when released and the brake drag was very high slowing the car on the straights.

He told us what to do and we made the changes for Race #1.

Well it dried out for the race and Colin started 8th and ended up 6th.  The balance of the car was not good as this was the first time he had to drive the car with out the big brake drag.

He had big understeer and we made some changes for Sundays warm up.

We made some progress on the car in the warm up Sunday and were getting close to a good set up.

Still had some push but some rake and spring changes helped.

For the race Sunday it rained.  Colin got a great start and went from 9th to 6th only to get hit in the back on the first lap and go to last when we was forced off the track.

A full track yellow helped and on the restart Colin went to 3rd place.

The next lap the same guy as before hit Colin and bent the rear suspension ending his race.

All in all it was good experience driving in the wet.

The weekend did not go as well as we would have liked and we wish we would have done it with the Speed Secrets car we had used all year.

We packed up the motorhome and headed to Laguna.  Colin would be driving the Pro Mazda on Thursday and we had 2,200 miles to make in 2.5 days.