I'll be leaving Wednesday morning for my first trip to the NASA Nationals at Mid Ohio Sports car Course. Thanks to the support of all of my sponsors - Jay Racing, PIC Suspension, Pure Tuning, State Farm, Tracksource LLC, and of course Visa, Mastercard, and my wife - I'm in a great position to make my mark. The 'top secret' plan is complete; the net effect of which is more horsepower, more torque, and most importantly more tire. I'll be running 275/35-18 Hoosier R6's in an effort to run down those terrible Corvettes. There are some National level drivers in my class, so I will still have quite a battle on my hands. With the new setup on the car being un-tested, I have no idea what to expect but a top 5 finish would be a complete success. I think a top 3 is not out of the realm of possibilities....

Below is a link to track my progress live during the event. I am running in TTA, which is run group I, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (3 sessions per day). Anyone local is encouraged to stop by the track to watch the competition and cheer me on. I will be posting a complete post-Nationals write up after the event.

Please help me out by supporting my sponsors; without them I would be sitting home this weekend.


www.jayracing.com
www.pure-tuning.com
www.picperformance.com
www.tracksourcellc.com
State Farm - Northern KY
Rob Black - rob.black.caf5@statefarm.com

http://drivenasa.com/liveresults

Good luck Greg, sounds like fun times

good luck greg.

get out there and kick some ass, Greg.

do work son...

cheers n good luck

Awesome, Dr. Greg!!!

I wish you the best! Kick some ass :)

Good luck sir, hope the new setup works out well.

Nice! Good luck, man. Don't you just love running a big event on an untested set-up? It's kinda like gambling, but your odds are a lot better. You can run and get a surprise, great time or you can run and she can blow up. THAT there is fun :thumbsup (but then again, masochism runs in my family).

Keep'er on the Track Greg :thumbsup

Respek now!

Dominate, Greg. :thumbsup

Well first the good news. I went faster, the car is mostly in one piece, and I'm only sore. The bad news is that I had two personal goals that I failed to meet, was not really competitive, and I found out the car flies fairly well. Back straight, 145+, no brakes. At all. Zero scrub. The eyewitness accounts include dirt trailing off the tires as I left the track (just like in the movies!), at least 10 feet of 'air', and a long jump distance of 30-40 feet. The launch was HARD, first hit in the gravel was hard, then it just bounced across the top of the gravel, and finally dug in HARD with the right front - rotating the car and finally digging in less than 20 feet from the tire wall. I thought for a split second it might roll, but it didn't. All the safety equipment did it's job. Oh, and I missed t-boning the car in front of me by less than 10 feet...

Damage report:
Both front fenders bent
undertray gone
front lip gone
RF fender liner gone
front bumper ripped away from RF fender
rear bumper ripped away from LR fender
exhaust pulled out of the rear hanger
LF Hoosier cut down to the cords by the fender
And the cause of all the damage, LR brake line cut by the rear knuckle

BIG, BIG thanks to Steve for spending his weekend at the track helping me out, without his and Neal's help on friday I would have been home friday night. Thanks to Dieter-Heinz Kojira for letting me have his runner pick up new brake lines at Buschurs for me, Keith and Aaron at Pure Tuning for advice and always having time to help out.

In the end I came up a bit short of my goals, but it was a great event and I'm now looking towards the last regional event in 3 weeks. Winning the region is probably not possible, but I'm hoping to wrap up 2nd place. Not a bad season.

OUCH man. That really sucks to hear. Do you have any pics of the current condition?

ouch sorry to hear, glad you're ok though and glad the car performed well aside from the loss of brakes

Now Greg....didn't you listen to my advise? :P

Glad to hear you and your car are not to worse for wear.

Originally posted by 992gnt
General badassery

:-o

Pics are up!

The damage doesn't look too bad, but everything on an Evo is expensive, so I'm figuring on a $4-5k repair bill. <sigh>

Originally posted by 992gnt
Pics are up! The damage doesn't look too bad, but everything on an Evo is expensive, so I'm figuring on a $4-5k repair bill. <sigh>

That makes me cry a little. :(

Saw those last night, Greg. You're right. It doesn't look that bad, but it's going to add up on you with a quickness. I say fix the functionality and let the cosmetics go. Battle scars add character.

Eeek! But I agree ^^^ Battle scars are sexy (just not in my case) :)

Originally posted by 992gnt
Pics are up! The damage doesn't look too bad, but everything on an Evo is expensive, so I'm figuring on a $4-5k repair bill. <sigh>

The rocks embedded in the splash guard tell the tale...

wow.

I will be leaving it as is for the next couple of weeks (2 more events upcoming), but I have got to get it fixed. I lose too much value by leaving it battle-scarred, sexy or not. ;) It did clean up pretty good over the weekend, but I've got to get her fixed up this winter; it makes me sad. :(