[William Miller]

It was a great day with the family.
I got to do some of the things I wanted, but mostly tailgated at the bottom of the hill.

Do they sell programs there? It was a little hard to figure out who was racing who (Whom?). Can anyone give a breif explanation of the classes and the different groups.

I was amazed at a lot of things I saw:
A lot of cars with their front inside tires lifted.
The breaking ability and cornering of the few 914's (They must be so light!)
The turbos juts plain hauling ass up the hill.

You could tell a lot from the sounds. My favorite was the yellow car #80 in the last few races. That engine sounded like it was just screamin!
I've been to a lot of races but this was just plain fun!
It was a great day!

I NEED MORE, I'LL BE BACK!

[type954]

yep. they had free programs in the registration room/classroom.

there were 4 run groups somewhat basically divided by speed. several classes within each run group. Group 1 should have raced last and consisted of the "big dawgs". cup cars, prototypes. group 4 should have raced 1st, consisted of the "big dawgs" (so as not to offend anyone) that were pretty much stock/street cars.

maybe go to pcapotomac.org when they post the info/race results.

careful, it gets under your skin and the next thing you know, you're shopping for a race car then a trailer then a tow vehicle just ask DougE!

only thing i missed was the "devils car" #666

[Karl S]

Originally Posted by William Miller

Do they sell programs there? It was a little hard to figure out who was racing who (Whom?). Can anyone give a breif explanation of the classes and the different groups.

Bill,

Thanks for coming out. As a racer, it's always nice to come down through the carousel and see a bunch of people in the stands.

There were offical programs printed up and I believe they were available for free in the paddock. They also sold Laps for Charity which permitted anyone who wanted to take their car (and family) for a lap of the track behind a pace car.

They are a lot of different classes in PCA to accomodate all the different types of cars Porsche has sold through its history. But basically they break into two major categories, Stock and GT. Within each of these categories the cars are separated by model and engine displacement, so that all the cars in a class have a similar power to weight ratio and similar performance.

In the Stock category, the classes run B - K, with further differentiation for Stock and Prepared. The Stock rules allow minor modifications such as racing brake pads and stiffer springs but it's fairy limited. If you do more than what's permitted, you move up 1 class and are considered a "Prepared" or "P" car. All stock classes run on DOT approved street tires, such as Hoosiers or Kumhos.

In the GT category, the classes are GT1 - GT6, plus GTP for prototype cars and GTC classes for the factory Cup cars. In the GT classes you will also see cars with an R or S suffix. The R cars run racing slicks and the S cars run Hoosiers or some other DOT tire. The GT classes are for heavily modified cars that exceed what's permitted in the stock/prepared classes. The GTC cars must run as they were delivered from the factory, so no mods allowed. GTP is wide open, so this is where you see cars like the #8 914 with a 600 HP twin turbo engine that was blowing everyone away.

For each race, the cars are organized into race groups depending on the number of class of cars registered. The goal is to have cars with similar performance on the track together, but given the number and variety of classes, you can still have a pretty wide performance spread. For the Summit race, Group 1, which I ran in, consisted of classes GT1-3, GTP, and GTC3 cars. I think there were a total of 32 cars in the race group. I don't remember for sure, but I think Group 2 was the GT4-5 and the stock B-D classes. Group 3 and Group 4 were all stock classes, I believe.

Glad you enjoyed the event and hope to see you back again next year. The paddock is open to visitors, so feel free to drive in and walk around. You see a lot of familar faces if you've done a DE with Potomac and you can pick up a program. There are also vendors set up with lots of goodies for your car and your bod.

Karl

[William Miller]

Thanks Karl, I'll go to PCA to see more on the classes.
We did go up to the Paddock for a while diring the last 2 qulifying classes.
We found a good spot on the hill near the starting line building.
I had my wife, 4 kids (Not all ours.) and our puppy with us so it was a little hard to spend too much time in the paddock and keep everyone out of the way.

So, what car were you driving and how'd you do?

Are there more races like this nearby in the near future?

[Karl S]

Bill,

I was in the #18 TPC GT3 Cup car (see my avatar). I qualified 3rd in GTC3 and 12th overall in Group 1 with a 1:18.5. It was my first race, so I was pretty tentative at the start and got jumped by a couple of GT1 turbos down the straight. But I held my own after that. I was running 3rd or 4th in class and chasing the #19 Cup car when we went into turn 10 with a brown 911 Turbo #103 on the inside of the corner. Just as we were about to turn in, the #103 car moved over right in front of the #19 car I was chasing. The 19 locked up and spun into the gravel trap. I locked up and spun to the inside over the curb. The corner workers later said that I had all 4 off for a ways. I didn't hit anything but it was a pretty heavy crash on the suspension and I wasn't sure if anything under the car was broken. So I came in and called it a day. The 103 car got away clean and finished the race.

So it was a disappointing end to a very promising race. I was hoping to finish in the top half of my class coming into the weekend and was in position to do at least that well. Oh well, the CMP race is coming up in a month, so I'll have a chance to redeem myself there, although it is a new track for me.

There are no more PCA races at Summit Point (there's only 1 per year) but there are a number of additional races scheduled between now and December. SCCA has a regional there next weekend. NASA has a race scheduled the first weekend in November and there is a race called the Turkey Bowl also scheduled in November. You can check out a full schedule here http://www.summitpoint-raceway.com/SCHEDSP.HTM

Karl

[Vicegrip]

Karl thanks for the update. I was going to send you an note to see what happened. I watched you two spin off but could not see what started it. When you did not come back out I was thinking 13/13. Sorry that you got spun out but am glad that that 13s were not invloved.

Are you going to tour the PCA club race circuit next year?

[rs911t]

Bill,

It was a great weekend! I spent both days working turn #3. Obviously, I didn't get a chance to look around, but it was a awesome place to sit and view the activities. Particularly on Saturday afternoon when ....

.... Karl,

You guys in Group 1 put on an amazing show Saturday afternoon in the Fun Race. ON A WET TRACK! The two GT3's up ahead of you made standing in the cold rain very much worth it. They were nose-to-tail the entire race and didn't seemed much slowed for the conditions.

[Doug E]

My son and I made it out for the afternoon on Sunday and all I can say is that the Porsche gods delivered once again! The weather was absolutely perfect, the on-track activity was amazing and best of all, I was able to drive the P-car back to SP after my last track experience

As far as lap times go, I was timing the lead 2 cars in Group 1 and they were consistently running 1:15.6's to 1:15.8's. A couple of our Potomac friends in Group 2 were running in the mid 1:20's. Each of the 4 groups seemed to have at least 25 cars so there was plenty to look at!

BTW, the view from atop the control tower is nice but since they aren't letting spectators down into T1 anymore they really need to trim the trees so you can see all the way down there.

Hey Charlie, can you make a gallery for the Club Race? I'll have my two rolls of film back Wednesday and will post some of the pics.

Bill - small world but now that you mention 4 kids and a dog, we were actually sitting there right next to one another for a while. My son and I were in the blue SC that was parked alongside the bleachers.

[Charlie Stylianos]

Doug et' all,

New Gallery Album for the club race this past weekend. Post away....

http://www.dorkiphus.com/porsche/mod...view_album.php

[William Miller]

Doug, good to meet you! (sort of)
That was us playing football between the races!

So what turn were we on?