Road Atlanta Weekend Notebook
Video, Video
AcceleRace produced more great video, available here.
Check out Jonathan Scarallo’s in-car from race one here, and race two here.
Special thanks to AcceleRace Motorsports and "JS" for making their video available to the F2000 Series website.
Wing of the Month Club
The aero-development crowd was back in action at Road Atlanta with new low-downforce upper rear-wing elements appearing on most of the GTP cars by Friday morning. The slightly-curved but flat wing piece is supposed to flex at high-speed and promised a 2mph gain, according to sources familiar with the aero package.
Stock Van Diemen Card-Carrying Club
As one engineer put it “there is a lot of over-engineering going on in this paddock”. Chris Livengood finished seventh in a stock aero-package, Pinto-powered, 10-year old chassis on Saturday.
The all-star blogger is rumored to be mulling a Zetec conversion, but some are hoping he waits until after Road America, where the Pinto may be able to show its hand.
Working Late Crowd
Friday was a long day for a couple teams. R-Sport pulled the graveyard shift to change engines in the #22 of Jonathan Scarallo. Their hard word was rewarded as Scarallo brought home the hardware with a second place effort during Saturday’s race. Teammate Keith McCrone rounded out the top five.
Don’t forget about SMR either. The sprint car crew looked at home putting Tim Paul’s #06 back together following a huge shunt during Friday’s race. Tim Paul, sore elbow included, recovered to drive from 28th to 17th during Saturday’s race.
Teammate Blake Teeter finished 13th after starting 26th, to tie Dan Denison for the CellMark Paper Hard Charger.
F2000 Hospitality
Special thanks go out to Primus Racing (Jon and Brad Baytos) for providing a top-notch hospitality suite for the F2000 Series at Road Atlanta. For those wondering, expect it at the remaining five events!
With such short gaps between the sessions at Road Atlanta, most, if not the entire paddock took advantage of pizza, salad, pasta and more.
F2000 Charter
Rumors are swirling of Series participants putting together charter flights to some of the “further away” events. With the F2000 circus dominating the last flight out of Atlanta to New York, the idea was brought up mid flight and unanimously agreed upon. Just like racing, finances pending.
According to sources on the plane, the approach into NYC with 70mph cross-winds on a smaller regional jet was “awesome”.
Grapevine
The Radons are coming, but when? … A hot European driver in a car for the rest of the season, starting at Mosport with an established team…We haven’t seen the last of JDC for 2010…
Rand a Victim?
Series boss Mike Rand was a victim of a practical joke on Friday night. It seems that once every season, Mr. Rand accidentally leaves the doors to his Tahoe unlocked. A rare leaked picture, shows a variety of adult-drink beverage boxes and an interior full of toilet paper. Not pictured is the rather-large hotel-exterior-sized garbage can in the trunk.
Series percipients can reflect in past practical jokes that resulted from Rand’s unlocked doors: including lawn-chairs in 2008, and thousands of Ohio destination brochures in 2009.
Mygale Parts
GTP raced to find Mygale parts to get Paul Farmer on track Friday following a testing crash on Thursday. Not only were parts flown in from California, this picture was leaked to the F2000 communications staff which clearly shows a rental car being used to straighten a suspension arm.
Next Up: Huge Crowds
There was energy in the Road Atlanta paddock on the heels of a huge crowd on hand for Formula Drift. The F2000 Series is starting its high-profile event tour of 2010. Mosport with the Canadian Tire Series is next, IndyCars at Watkins Glen follow and then ALMS weekend at Lime Rock.