2016 ST2 NASA Champion! John George in FFR#48


NASA Championships East Coast at the famed Watkins Glen sets the scene for a weekend full of hopes for all competitors, hoping to be the winner in their class, hoping for a fun and enjoyable weekend, hoping for good weather, hoping to break track records, hoping…

Arrived at the racetrack without incident, waited in line to let us into the paddock area, setup and unloaded FFR#48 ready to race.



Thursday was a scheduled test day, with me taking full advantage testing new bits and pieces installed. The class which I race in, ST2, is regulated by the power to weight ratio of 8.0:1, taking the weight of my car, then dividing it by how much horsepower the car makes. For compliance NASA brings a dyno to the racetrack. I line up first Thursday morning to roll onto the dyno, checking the power that I make on the official NASA dyno, and then can determine how heavy I must run.




After de-tuning as the dyno compared to the one in NH read high, the final numbers were 351hp putting me at 2668lb (after deductions for running skinny 245 DOT tires.) I decided to detune some more to make 100% certain I am legal as weather predicted to be cold for Sunday’s race, possibly adding power.

On track testing was uneventful although a ton of traffic foreshadowed the rest of the weekend’s races. Who ever manages traffic better will be victorious. My run group is mixed with all different classes, some much faster and some much slower than I.



NASA Nationals weekend consists of two qualifying races, setting the grid for the main Champions Race. Qualifying race #1 Friday had me starting p2 in ST2, Adrian Wlostowski in the black #619 Corvette beat my qualifying time by .344 sec. Doug Winston 3rd, Alan Cohen 4th, and John Gatzemeyer 5th.

I got a great jump at the start of qualifying race #1 able to put traffic between Adrian and I, and was setting decent lap times.