Clyde drove Lupa to Lincoln from NJ and arrived on Labor Day. We had some Test and Tune time scheduled the following day and I also invited James to codrive with Clyde for Nationals. James would fly in with his dad on Tuesday. It was the first ever trip to Nationals for all three.
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Clyde and James at the Practice Course
Lincoln, NE - 9/6/2016 |
We went straight to work tweaking the car for concrete. From my experience doing the practice course and what I felt during the ProSolo, the car would have to be set up with some slight push in order to work effectively on the competition surface. They did 3 hours of testing on Tuesday and on Wednesday, it started off with quite a bit of rain that ended up in drying conditions so they were able to get a feel for the car in all conditions. They did 2 more hours on of practice on Wednesday for a total of 5 hours.
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| More practice - 9/7/2016 |
Next day was day 1 of competition. STR would be competing on the West course. James coned his first run but was subsequently able to find more time on his next two runs. Clyde coned his first run, set a time on his second but lost it on his 3rd run for a DNF.
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SCCA Solo Nationals
Photo by: Perry Bennett |
On day 2 they ran on the East course where James put out the same performance as the day before with a cone on his first run and finding more time with each subsequent run finishing up in mid-pack in the very large and competitive STR class. Clyde went for broke, spun his first run getting a DNF, coned twice on his second run and then finally setting a clean run on his last run. Luckily for STR, they all managed to get their runs in before the intense rain that would wreak all kinds of havoc with Nationals this year.
Overall, we really didn't have any expectations for Nats. Both Clyde and James were new to the car and she hadn't undergone nearly the same kind of development as the rest of STR. That being said, Lupa finishing mid-pack out of 64 drivers was beyond what I could've asked for. More importantly the guys had fun at their first nationals and I expect both will be back again next year.
