Finally the time has come to really get the Stohr on track for the first time this year. After a little bit of a false start two weekends ago when unfortunately work kept me from the track its time to get rolling and head down the Milwaukee Region SCCA National race at Blackhawk farms. Depending on weather I’ll be running the test day on Friday as I have never been to the track before and then heading out for quali at 8:45am on Saturday for the first of my two sessions. It’s been a long winter getting a lot of things sorted back out on the car after a crappy weekend at Autobahn last year but we’re ready to roll and I am looking forward to this weekend like no other. Got the new wing mounted, various body parts upgraded and ready to roll and hopefully have a lot better camera mount than last year so you don’t just see my melon wobbling around through the whole video. Videos, pictures and results to follow next Monday.
Cars, F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr
Blackhawk Farms, F1000, Stohr
Here is my video from what ended up being a very short race last year at Autobahn Country Club as I struggled around the track with what ended up being a broken a-arm. You know its never good when you show up and set your best time by over a second in the very first practice session and then have things go to hell in a hand basket and are never able to get back within a second of that time. In any regard this race capped off the season as I just got to busy at work to make anything after Autobahn. It was a fun track that I am going to miss going back to since the whole central division SCCA schedule revolves around Road America.
F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr
Autobahn Country Club, F1000, SCCA, Stohr
Finally got all the schedule figured out for this year and REALLY looking forward to getting the car back on track! Now that February is here its time to get the car ready (hope that gas that has been in there since August didn’t gum crap up) and need to get the new front wing and a-arm on the car. More as that unfolds here. I am going to be committed to updating this page at least twice a week from here until the season ends folks so keep checking back. 
2009 Trackpedia Racing F1000 Schedule
3/28/2009 - St. Louis Gateway National - With Billy
5/2/2009 - HPT Double National
5/16/2009 - Blackhawk Farms National
5/31/2009 - Mid-America America National - With Billy
6/19/2009 - June Sprints Road America
7/24/2009 - Cat National
8/16/2009 - Mid-America National - With Billy
8/29/2009 - Kettle Moraine National
Should be a hell of busy year. As always I am sure I won’t make all the races with my travels for work and other junk but one can only hope.
Cars, F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr
F1000, Gateway, Heartland Park, Mid America, Road America, SCCA, Stohr
Here are some of the videos from last summer posted on Youtube (I plan on using vimeo in the future just because its a little clearer for all the videos that I have seen) so you can check out what my first year of learning was like in the F1000. These are videos from the June Sprints and from the Cat National at Road America in June/July 2008. I’ll add an Autobahn video when I get a chance here to get it uploaded over the next few days.
Cat National
June Sprints
Cars, F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr
F1000, in car video, June Sprints, Road America, Stohr
So the short summer unfortunately here in the midwest is over way to quickly and I apologize greatly for not even updating my blog here once. I promise in the future (yes I knew I swore before) that I will make sure I keep this page dealing with my racing more updated. I also have a job related blog coming so I’ll have double the work to keep articles flowing up here. I wish I could just think it and the page would update…maybe someone should invent that.
I have spent a busy summer racing F1000 and working as well as spending time with my lovely family. What is F1000 you may ask? Well its basically the same car I burned up before except in open wheel flavor. Net is in the SCCA its called Formula B or FB and is an open wheel single seat race car powered by a motor cycle engine. If any of you out there have ridden a late model liter bike you know the power these babies put down and let me tell you its not that much slower in a 1000lb car.
Here’s some pictures of the new girl with more details about the races this summer that I ran in complete with videos coming over the next few days here.
F1000 in Turn 8 at Autobahn. John Stecher Rochester Minnesota driver.
Cars, F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr
Autobahn, F1000, SCCA, Stohr
God what have I been doing since I last posted. Well my time can be broken down into three main areas. One is work…this summer has probably been the most intensive year I have spent working at IBM. I have enjoyed it all, as always however still playing the lottery, but it was a lot of work! My second main area of time spent was figuring out what the hell car to buy and race next. Let’s just say this area will be touched upon in my next post. My last area of time spent was on the track baby!!
First we started off at Road America for the PCA HPDE event where my buddy Rob and I shared driving his brand new 1987 Porsche 924. While she had been prepped with a cage and stripped interior that was about all she had. We liked to call her the leaning tower of Rochester as we pushed her around one of the greatest tracks in North America. Overall the 2-day event was a blast and it was great to get back in the car.
A little picture of the 924 leaning tower.
Rob Wisniewski's Porsche 924 SP1 chasing Billy Newports SP1 at Road America
Next up was a combined Skip Barber lapping day at Road America followed by a one day PCA HPDE event at Blackhawk Farms once again in the now newly race ready 924 of Rob complete with a full suspension setup, corner balance and real 7 inch wide phone dial wheels instead of the 6 inch ones she was rolling on before. First up was the Skippy Lapping day. Personally the lapping day to me was a bust…yeah it was fun to get the instruction but jesus we only probably got max an hour of track time for nearly 1k. Hindsight being 20/20 I would have just held off and done the 2-day school (which I plan to do this spring if the cash tree in my back yard grows). The PCA event at Blackhawk was a lot of fun as well but the weather sucked. We met up with Mark Repka in the morning after driving down from Milwaukee and that’s when the clouds opened up. It rained pretty much the whole day and learning a new track in the wet was a royal pain. It sucked even worse to not get to test out the new suspension that we invested so much time (not to mention eBay profits from our dead Porsche 914 project) in. But at least I have some knowledge of the track for racing down there next year.
With these days out of the way it was on to Road America for the SCCA Chicago Regions Kettle Moraine Double Regional Race which was going to let me keep my racing license. Once again I was behind the wheel of Rob’s 924 SP1 completely outmatched in ITS with my 135 rear wheel horse power versus the 200+ in some other ITS cars. More to come in my next update…
Cars, Porsche SP1, Racing, Racing School, SCCA Club Racing
Blackhawk Farms, Porsche SP1, Road America, SCCA, Skip Barber
Well just typed up a nice big long entry and what happened…of course it disappeared when I tried to post it. Mother F*cking software.
Anyway now a much shorter entry on my race schedule this year
May 19/20 - Mid America Motorplex - Midwest Division Regional/National
July 7/8 - Blackhawk Farms - Central Division Double Regional
Aug 24/25 - Road America - Central Division Double Regional
Sept 8/9 - Brainerd International Raceway - Central Division Double Regional
Sept 29/30 - Milwaukee Mile - Central Division Double Regional
I am going to do a Skippy lead/follow as well during June I believe so hopefully that will get me a little more comfortable at Road America as I really would love to get more seat time there and what better way than with a instructor following your ass.
Update on the car is that its at home and will hopefully be running by this coming weekend. I have fuel lines and wiring yet to do but I can’t see it taking much more than a few nights to get that done. Then its time to hit the starter button and crank it over for the first time…man oh man if she starts the first time I will crap myself!
Racing, Racing School, SCCA Club Racing
Blackhawk Farms, Brainerd, Mid America, Racing Schedule, Road America, Skip Barber