March 2004 - Formula TR 2000 race - Fontana, CA

FONTANA FORMULA TR RACE

March 6,7-2003

Saturday - Being the only car in the 2 liter class was not so exciting, but it did give us a chance to try some things with the new Yokohama tire and gave Colin a chance to learn a new track. 

Here in practice, Colin passes an old karting friend and competitor, Marco Andretti, son of Michael.  These 2 guys have been racing each other from age 11.

Marco won the 1600 race for Knudson Racing, with John Knudson in 2nd and Ace Cario 3rd in our car from last year.

This track has a very long front straight, so we tried some very low wing settings to try to gain some top speed.

We did get the car to run 146 MPH top speed but we did not get the wing balance right and the car had a push.

For the race we reset the wings and started at the front of the 10 car 1600 grid.  Colin lapped all but the top 3 1600's in the 30 min race and ran a fast lap 5 seconds faster than the fastest 1600.  This should be a good gap based off the times from last year. 

We think these times would put us in the top group of 2 liter cars, but you never really know.

Here Steve Henry gives Colin the trophy for his win.  Colin scored the 32 points for first and the 2 for fast lap and 2 for pole.

This is something we need in the quest for the championship.  Talk is that the next race in one month could have as many as 4 or 5 two liter cars.

We are making some changes for Sunday and are just keeping our heads down and pretending that the best 2 liter teams in the US are here and we have to improve every run.

Our goal is to better our times from Saturday and lap the entire 1600 field in the race......................well you have to have something to shoot for.

Sunday - Today we worked on learning the new Yokohama tire, playing with tire pressures and cambers.  We started the weekend on a set of tires that we got from another team that had a testing session on them.

We never changed tires all weekend, running these for all 6 sessions.  We were still able to set a qualifying time 1 second faster than Saturday.

The wind was very high today hurting the top speed on the long straight by 6 MPH.  The data showed that this was costing us .7 seconds, so we think that we improved the car by something like 1.5 seconds.

The gap to the fastest 1600 car was stretched out to a full 6 seconds.

In the race Colin was able to run times consistently 1 second faster than on Saturday.  We will be testing Monday at Buttonwillow for 2 days and have a good list of things to try.

Here Colin waits for the start.  You can see the Rand Racing logo on his helmet.  Colin was announced as the Rand Racing test driver for the ALMS 675/LMP2 car just 1 week ago.  Bill Rand has really helped Colin a bunch lately in many ways.

 There may not have been any competition but Colin looks like this part of the weekend was fun!  It was nice to bring a good result to Silkolene Oils in their first race with the team.  The engine was at full throttle for over 30 seconds per lap and the oil did its job.

It was to bad that George Latus could not make it this weekend, but he helped make this weekend possible in many ways.  George will be racing his Formula TR 1600 in the next event at Buttonwillow.

Stand 21 provided Colin with a new drivers suit in a new material for this year.  You can see it here with the Speed Secrets logo.

Speed Secrets is the team's major sponsor and what a great company.  Colin will be working at the Speed Secrets Camp this weekend at Buttonwillow. 

Coello Racing now has been with the team for wins in 100cc karts, shifter karts, Fran Am 1600, and now Formula TR 2000. 

We want to say a special thanks to the guys at DND Fab in Washington.  Ken, Tracy, and Stu have really helped us with shipping parts and getting us things we needed to prepare the car for the season.