NASA Summer Night at West September 2015
Night racing returned to NASA-AZ on September 5th at Wild Horse Pass West track. It was a beautiful late summer evening with nice early cloud cover, a few light sprinkles and bunch of great cars and drivers out to test the lighting and get some track experience. As usual at our local events we were treated with a delicious food vendor serving burgers, tacos, burritos and cold sodas.
I had never been to a night event but was very surprised at how fun it was. Turning on headlights was definitely an unusual sensation in a race-car. And more than one driver got to grid with their headlights completely taped over prior to realizing that a change was necessary!
This was a non-points event for the Race Groups so many of the bigger (non-lighted) cars didn’t show up. But many others did and it was a great chance to practice night and lighted operations for those planning longer enduros in the future where a long overnight drive will be required.
HPDE:
Big Crowd! I was totally surprised to see so many HPDE-1 drivers. We had 15 paid entrants for DE1 and this is awesome to see so many first-timers come out for their future addiction.
Big round of thanks to the DE1 contingent: Nicole Booye, Ernesto Bustamante, Christian Caldron, Clayton Creekmore, Albert Dupre, Craig Foss, Mark Gonchar, Robert Johnson, Bryan Korte, Johannes Laraway, Heinrich Schultz, Avtar Singh, T. Philip Thomas, Keith Wong and Jason Zucco. Hope to see everyone moving up to HPDE2 soon.
And speaking of HPDE2, there was a good crowd here too with 18 signed up. It’s great to come back and see the same drivers you remember from your previous HPDE1 event and track your progress together. Many of the drivers from my DE1 were with me at Comp School and are now beside me racing for the finish line in wheel to wheel action. Great fun ahead!
Between DE3 and DE4 were over 30 more drivers. At this point it’s a good idea to start getting focused on driver safety equipment and start to consider when the next Competition School you might be eligible to attend is. It’s the most fun you will have on track!
Time Trial:
This was a non-points Time Trial event but the event was still be eligible for track records and contingency. With 20 drivers signed up and limited track time it proved to be an exciting few sessions. The 3 sessions were not only full but combined with all classes on a dark track. It makes for exciting driving and everyone kept their heads on a swivel!
Time Attack:
This was also a busy and short session for the UMS Tuning sponsored Time Attack which started at 11:00pm. We had 15 drivers signed up heading into the event for this relatively short 10 minute session.
Next event is Inde back in Wilcox, AZ: http://forums.nasaaz.com/showthread.php?t=7123
Remember this is a Comp School event and everyone looking to advance to racing and points events should be considering getting their Comp School out of the way. See your class leader or mentor for more details.
NASA-AZ Info
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Edits and comments: [email protected] PS… Always glad to get input from other classes and drivers that want to help expand the information in the recap. Pictures, notes, assistance, editing are always appreciated!