RX7Club.com - Mazda RX7 Forum - NASA Road Atlanta March 11-13

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NASA Road Atlanta March 11-13

We took the RX8 down to Road Atlanta for the NASA event this weekend with Chip Herr and Greg Shaffer doing the driving. This was the first real gathering of the Grid 1 World Challenge Touring Car team, and in my opinion it was a huge success.

A tire issue -they didnt show up!- caused us a stressful Thursday evening and Friday morning. We finally got tires (thanks to Tom Neal of The Parts Group!)and were able to run part of the enduro Friday afternoon but we were able to run the TT sessions and the Lightning group Saturday.

Chip got a bad break during qualifying drawing a black flag for scrubbing tires at pit out and could not get a good clear lap in in the shortened session which gave us 15min to qualify. He really on got 3 laps in, none of them clear. Qualified P2 in the 3rd group for the Saturday Lightning race, which put him starting in 28th position overall. On grid I gave him the green light to hold nothing back, run the car on a race pace. Despite a bad start which was completely my fault, he ran the car hard and made up the 28 positions for the overall win.

Since we were using the event as a test weekend, the decision was made to decline the win and allow it to pass on. We called it a day, loaded up and drove on back to Nashville, the cars temporary home, with me headed back to Denver this morning. More to come including a few pics possibly later today.

Nicely done, I've known Chip for years and he's a solid driver. I expected him to adapt to the rotary quickly.

Chip and Greg were both awesome guys to work with over the weekend. Literally the least stressful weekend, other than the tires, I have had in years. Very casual, very get-to-know-you mentality on all parts, which made it great for everyone.

Chip was instantly fast and comfortable in the car, and greg steadily improved over the weekend.

Between now and ST Pete we will be replacing the engine with a fresh one, going through the transmission, and of course double checking everything and anything.

Pics will be up later, although we werent really able to get many.

Good stuff! I used to love watching Chip drive the STaSIS Audi A4 a few year back.

Congrats on the excellent result. I have watched Chip on TV and he does indeed seem like a great driver.

Look forward to seeing and hearing more of your team and races.

Thanks guys! Looking to be a great season already. If you happen to live near where we are racing and might want to be volunteer crew guys for a weekend, reach out and I will see what we can work out.

Funny enough, my team bought the other Parts Group car, Tom was great. You might just see us door-to-door this season...

You guys bought the Speedsource car? That chassis wasnt hit that bad, heard it is already back together and moving forward.

Our shop's bodywork partner literally had it fixed in a day. I'll post some shots soon. On the laser bench it was straight, just have to get the RR Koni fixed.