In his first full season of racing (he was licensed in 2008 and raced one NASA weekend and one SCCA weekend) my middle son Justin finished third in Spec Miata in the NASA mid-Atlantic region 2009 race season. This past weekend, he had his final races at NASA's "Oktoberfast" weekend at Virginia International Raceway. On Saturday, he qualifed third (of 19) in Spec Miata.
On lap 1 of race 1, he had passed the leader to take the lead, when the driver he had passed dove across the track in turn five and crashed both Justin and himself out of the race. Justin's left inner and outer tie rods were bent, the left front fender was crushed into the tire, the hood was bowed, and the top radiator hose was torn loose, venting all the coolant. His first (and only) DNF of the entire season. The car was towed back to the pits, and we had about three hours to try to get it ready for race 2. Another competitor had spare tie rod ends, we hammered out the fender and massaged the hood, refilled the cooling system and reattached the radiator hose, and Justin found a set of toe boards and reset the toe on the front end.
In race 2, Justin finished second (his highest finish of the season) and the guy who had crashed him out in race 1 crashed himself and another top runner out of THAT race. In both cases, enough racers posted incident reports that the offending racer (#033) ended up being DQed.
The second place finish was enough to solidify Justin's final season finish of third; not bad for a kid who built his own car out of his
160,000 mile street Miata (the cylinder head has never been off the car), had it dynoed midway through the season at 103.5 rwhp, and ran the entire season on other racer's discarded "take-off" tires.On Sunday, they ended the season with a one-hour "fun race" in which Justin finished 6th after setting fastest lap for the day for Spec Miata (a 2:24.420) before his worn-out tires went off, slowing him to finish some 20 seconds adrift of the winner (the friend who had been crashed out of race #2 on Saturday) and 2 seconds out of fifth place.
A good week-end for the young man! Hopefully he and his new business venture (Undisputed Autosport of Sterling, VA) will have some sponsorship support for next year's race season!