Sonoma Trans-Am Double Header

[crash]

The PDG FFR GTM ran a double header race weekend this weekend at Sonoma and brought home the gold both days. But that isn't the fun part of the story...

Due to some technical difficulties, the car was not able to make it to the track on Friday for qualifying, so Carl started from the back of the pack. He tells me that as soon as they left the paddock on the roll out for the race on Saturday it started raining! The green flag dropped anyway and a number of teams decided to come in and change to rain tires. While others didn't the consequences were quickly evident as a car managed to crash on lap 3 and once the yellow was out pretty much every car went to rains.

While the team had rains in the trailer, they were not mounted and so the choice to stay out on slicks was made for Carl. He said once the green flag dropped again, it was all he could do to keep the car on the track, using other car's tracks to try and keep some grip on the rather complex and changing surface that is Sonoma.

The day before this race the team had made some changes that happened to be towards more of a rain setup, even though no rain was called for. This helped Carl tremendously as the car ended up being pretty good in the rain and he started moving up the field. Incredibly, when the checkered fell Carl was 3rd overall! An overall podium for the team, Carl, and the PDG FFR GTM!!!

One of the biggest problems with running in the rain is that the windshield tends to fog up. Not so much on the GTM due to car configuration, but especially on front engined cars, this is a problem. I asked Carl after the race if he had any issues with this and his reply was that he didn't have any fogging issues, but the lack of a windshield wiper did make things a bit more challenging!

I have been called the "Rain Man" because I have always been very good in the rain. I ran 10+ hours of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill a couple years back in the PDG FFR GTM without dropping one tire off the pavement in heavy rain, but I think this performance qualifies Carl as our new, official, RAIN MAN! Truly an amazing performance.

Sunday was uneventful as Carl easily won the race for the SGT class even though the officials gave the team a 100 lbs weight increase and a 70mm restrictor plate(stock LS3 throttle body size is 92mm) to try and equalize the performance of the GTM to the other cars in the SGT class. Wonder what the rule change will be for the next race? Anyway, Carl drove around all the adversities that came his way this weekend and may have locked up another Trans-Am West Coast Championship in the SGT class. Congratulations to Carl and the entire PDG team.

Read more here... https://gotransam.com/news/Merrill-M...oast-Win/70868

[beeman]

Congrats Team PDG!

[Shoeless]

Fantastic performance in adverse conditions!!!