[Fot] Kas Kup 2011 report

[tony at tonydrews.com]

Kas Kup 2011 report

Drove from Illinois to Buttonwillow CA, made it ahead of time.
 Beautiful drive!  Track was open Friday for test day so got set up in
plenty of time.  Had the privilege of attending the VARA rookie
meeting (2 hours) and wearing rookie stripes on my car for that event.
 Much fun was had by all.  In the Sunday race, all of the white
Triumphs were parked by the side of the track.  Jerry Barker killed a
tranny, Paul Smock broke a (billet crower) crank, and John Frymark ran
out of gas.  John's was the preferable failure.  I was the 2nd TR in
the finishing order, I think.  Ok track, but I wouldn't go a great
distance to drive it again.

Stayed overnight in Buttonwillow, drove up to Laguna Seca on Monday.
 Gorgeous drive.  Got to Laguna Seca around 3 pm, and found Jerry
changing trannys and they had just finished pulling Paul's engine -
lashed to two boards with people lifting (!).  I missed the pull by 3
minutes.  Darn.  :)

We were let in and were given primo front row paddock positions.
 Paul's car was started with new motor with an hour to spare for the
morning practice.  THAT's not being beaten by equipment!  Very
impressive.  Went out for practice Tuesday morning, and those couple
of hundred laps of Laguna on the various game consoles paid off.  I
knew the layout, just needed to figure out the speeds.  WHAT  A
TRACK!!!!  Wow.

Had a couple of races later Tuesday.  I did pretty well, top 5ish.
 The 250K, Mordy's bionic TR-4, Greg Solow's bionic Morgan, Jerry
Barker's bionic Herald and eventually Bill Hart and his very nice TR
Devin were my main competition.  All were very well driven.  Greg
broke a clutch and took the car home for repair.  Jerry put in another
tranny or two.

Wednesday, the first race had me gridded 3rd, but numbers 1 and 2 were
no-shows putting me on the pole.  I had a great dice with Bill Hart,
going side by side through turns 2 and 3 and pulled out a bit of a
gap.  After several laps, we got a full course caution with pace car
due to a car stopped in an impact zone.  Bill Hart and Greg Solow were
the two cars behind me and I knew I was sunk.  Thankfully, we ended
under caution and I won.  Yeah!

The 2nd race was the Kastner Cup race and everyone was there in full
force.  I was gridded on the pole (!).  John gave a nice writeup of
the race.  It was a great battle.  I held off Bill Hart until nearly
the end - missed a shift on the last run to the checkered flag.  Only
shift I missed all weekend.  It let him by me by half a car length at
the finish.  It was a great drive by Bill.  I think that put me in
6th.  We had a fantastic time playing with each other all weekend.

The 3rd race was the "trophy" race.  Again, I started on the pole.  I
was passed by Greg Solow immediately, but he was having grip issues
and I passed him back in turn 3.  I pulled out a bit of a gap, but he
eventually found grip in his tires and drove back by me.  Bill Hart
finally became one with the track and blew by me, and had a great dice
with Greg.  Eventually I saw a red car looming in my mirror and
assumed it was Mordy.  Upon further inspection it was Charlie
Mitchell.  I held him off for a while, but he eventually got by me.
 That's the way we finished: Greg, Bill, Charlie and me.

The hospitality was great, I'm sore but happy (almost too much track
time), and I need a new left rear tire, because I wore it out.  The
weather for both events was fantastic.  The Triumph racers group is
the best, I felt very welcome.  John Nikas did a fantastic job pulling
this together.  We had very nice posters and shirts.  Laguna Seca
rocks.  It is one of the top drivers tracks - right up there with
Mosport and VIR.  I still had things to learn about it, and look
forward to trying to learn those another day.

Tony Drews