Good morning, Race Fans!!
We are at the 60th Anniversary of the SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI. Morgan is in the Apple Motorsports SRF3 under the excellent care of Mike Amy and Dog Gone Racing. The Runoffs is a really long event, 14 days for some, including travel. For us, it was only 9 days in Wisconsin and we got to spend more time with family. It’s always a nice bonus to have a real home away from home at a long event. Thanks, Ron and Kathy!
There was a long lead up to the race we came for with several days of testing and qualifying first. With so many people to see and catch up with and lots of evening activity to enjoy, there was always lots to do every day.
TESTING NOTES:
The main event was preceded with 3 days of testing Saturday through Monday (we only did the 3rd day). John and I got to spend a fun day working with old friends on the Start bridge Monday. This is a really good crew and we had a great time. It was a little less like the typical Start job during the test and qualifying days because the official timing line was placed at 11B to allow for faster track clearing at the end of sessions. We had a good time anyway of course!
QUALIFYING NOTES:
Over the one test and three qualifying days, we finally got the set up dialed in, but it’s really the draft that’s the biggest factor at a track with such long straights. Dedicated partners together on the radio can be 2-2.5 seconds faster than even a real hot shoe running alone. In the end, Morgan qualified 20th in a field of nearly 60 cars, a mere 1.2 seconds off the pole. He had a long way to go to move toward the front on race day. It would take smart choices and a lot of luck to advance.
RACE DAY NOTES:
The Start: SRF3 had 57 entrants, the biggest field of the 26 classes participating in the event. 55 of them started the race, with Morgan gridded 20th. While they did get the green flag, there were problems deep in the field even before it flew. The accordion coming up the hill out of T14 caught four cars, all bent enough to be out of the race. The full course yellow came out quickly to allow clean up.
The Restart: With a good start and an even better restart, Morgan managed to move up 7 spots! He has an uncanny knack for being able to see the future and find where the holes will be so he can slip through cleanly. Over the next few laps he made up 3 more places, putting him in 10th.
Another Restart: There was another full course yellow on laps 9 & 10 for a car off in the kink. Once again on the restart, Morgan anticipated well and scooted past two cars at T5 who tangled and slid off to the right. Unfortunately, the full course yellow was back out again before the end of the lap because more cars had crashed in T14 at the restart. The race ended early under yellow with Morgan all the way up to 8th!!
In-Car Video: Morgan posted his in-car video from this race to YouTube. It genuinely is worth the watch. It will make you hold your breath and cheer with delight!
Final Results: After post-race tech was done, 2 cars were disqualified, putting Morgan 6th. Morgan benefited from both his good choices and some good luck. Both setting a pole time and winning this class at the Runoffs is extremely difficult. There is so much experience and the cars are so equal that it is a real achievement to even crack the top 10. As many as 20 drivers had a real shot to win here so this is a darn good result in a seriously stacked field!
Morgan truly loves driving the SRF3. It’s difficult to be consistently fast. The class has a huge number of high quality and high respect drivers in it. The SRF3 helps Morgan keep both his driving and his race craft skills sharp. And of course all seat time is good! So… Shall we try again next year?
WHAT’S NEXT?
Right now, we go straight from here to one more IMSA race. You’ll see that one on Friday October 11 at 12:45 Eastern on Peacock. It’s the last IMSA race of the season and we are at Road Atlanta.