teamziptie.com

Well, maybe when the rear wheels trip the lights first.  More on that later.

Since you guys have gone and made your own thread, I’ll go ahead and post my draft.  I’ll fill in the rest after I have results.

The season opener saw no ice, rather the liquid form, in both tears and rain (sadly, neither of which purple).  A lightweight team of heavyweights, consisting of Rich, Mustang Boy, me, and our new pledges, Doug and Kate met up with the rest of Cumberland’s usual suspects to once again show what airports are really for.

Unfortunately for this weekend, several of our members could not join us.  Bill was out of town in a pectoral muscle flexing contest, Patrick was away at a Capri owners meet, and Thomas is still married.

Despite gloom and doom weather reports, Saturday proved to be a great opening day in Cumberland.  The weather managed to say cool and dry for the entirety of the day, making for some really solid racing.  Mustang Boy, too busy from fighting off droves of sexy young women all winter to change his tires, showed up with his car wearing last years shoes.  Kate and I, much like U.S. automakers, consolidated vehicles due to the economy and both arrived in the 318ti (with a fresh – read 300 miles on it – clutch).  Rich was back in his Z-car… I think he washed it.  Doug Macy brought about 16 cars to the race, in addition to the ones he pretty much just leaves up at the airport.  Variety is the true spice of life, but he decided to go with the trusty white Audi.

Saturday’s course was a great combination of really fast sections that immediately sucked you in to challenging tight sections.  Decreasing radius turns penalized you for not looking ahead, and kept you very busy behind the wheel.  Offsets and other transitional elements left you dancing from side to side hoping you could get a moment before pitching the car through the tight finish.

Since Ben always does a better job of it than I do, here’s his take on Saturday’s course:

Mark Boggs laid out something of a devious but a little different course to clear out winter’s cobwebs.  A sharp left hander out of the start crossed the taxiway and gave way to the featured long straight, this time running down toward the MSP chopper hanger on the far side of the tarmac.  Instead of the usual constant radius turnaround, Boggs served up a tricky descending radius turn, which opened onto a fast slalom with increasingly tighter gates, followed by a short right hand jog into a funnel.  This fed into a S turn crossover, in the usual location of the “kink” which led to another slalom down to the terminal end turnaround, which was shorter and tighter than usual.  Back through the slalom, through another quick S turn, into a brutal speed killing right angle left hand Chicago box right at the end.  The weather eventually turned into a near perfect slightly cool but sunny day.
http://www.capitalareacobraclub.com/index.php/topic,8003.0.html

Our luck with weather ran out on Sunday, as Kate and I (awaking at the Super? 8), along with our other competitors, awoke to a cold, rainy morning.  Entrants at the event quickly diminished, and after some talking and voting at the drivers’ meeting, the decision was made to reduce the event from four heats down to two.  This proved to be a great decision which helped the event move quickly, and provided great racing.

From the mouth of Ben:

Boggs deferred to the difficult weather and laid out a mercifully simple, straightforward, but slightly less open course.  It began an even sharper left hander out of the start, a couple of offset gates opening to a straightaway close by the hanger side, down to a 180 at the hanger end, back down a slalom on the far side of the taxiway, to an S turn crossover, through a chute opening onto another slalom, around the horn on the terminal end, through the slalom again, an S turn in front of the spectator area, ending with a little left hand hook (nastier than it looked) into the finish.
http://www.capitalareacobraclub.com/index.php/topic,8007.0.html

Despite the rain, grip levels on the course were very good (especially if you were on street tires).  Mustang Boy chickened out on the R-comps and mounted up his rock-hard Falkens.  Rich stayed on his Hoosiers, as they were his only option.  Doug took everything to the next level and switched cars all together – some weird German thing with AWD – go figure.

A special nod has to go to Larry Casey, the Cobra driver who almost got FTD in the wet.  It was, in all honesty, amazing to watch.  The credit should probably go to me, as I told him during the course walk that I had the Cobras covered.  You’re welcome Larry, you’re welcome.

Team Zip-Tie Cup Standings

Following the new rules posted earlier, here are the point standings for the weekend. As a refresher, we are now using a 10pt scale (10 points for first, 9 for second, etc).  If you are the winner of the “Cone Award” for the day, you will get two bonus points, as long as you are not first on the day.

Saturday (84 Entrants)
10 – Gimp (24th in PAX)
9 – Mustang Boy (26th in PAX)
8 – Doug (50th in PAX)
7 – Kate (53rd in PAX)
6 + 2 – Rich (58th in PAX  - Cone Award winner with 7 cones)

Sunday (54 Wet Entrants)
10 – Gimp (12th in PAX)
9 – Doug (35th in PAX)
8 – Mustang Boy (39th in PAX)
7 – Rich (40th in PAX)
6 + 2 – Kate (44th in PAX  - Cone Award winner with 4 cones)

Current Team Standings
1. Gimp (20 points)
2. Doug and Mustang Boy (tied at 17 points)
3. Kate and Rich (tied at 15 points)
4. Bill, Patrick, and Thomas (tied at 0 points)

Remember, these totals still contain the lowest four scores.  The lowest four will only be dropped at the ver end.

You can now track the team standings, using the new rule set on Google. View the spreadsheet here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rwr3T8ikb1HSYvAwc0ltrJw

Oh yeah, Hubbell and I are doubbell troubbell (get it) in June.