OversteerS2K

**Edited for decency**
Aaron's a great driver. I'm happy you're sticking up for him. There's a possibility that his extra three looks at the course were attempts to "pay for" his co-drive by giving James some good course notes and a driving critique. Whatever his reasons, however, he shouldn't have had those opportunities prior to completing all his runs. And although his raw times were more than two seconds faster, what counted was just 0.109 sec. faster. Do you think three extra looks at a course, in the same car, are worth a tenth? Now keep in mind that even though I was not able to give him a co-drive - I did want him there in BS and without my help he wouldn't have been. This isn't sour grapes or a personal grudge. He outdrove me (dirty) and he's a friend. As for excuses all I can say is that the tires I was on, which were alot better than my own, were heat-cycled out and had 70+ runs. The tires on James' car were quite a bit fresher. The tires were a small part of the time difference though. The big difference was an OE front sway bar on James' car vs. my Comptech on full stiff. If the surface was dry I'd have had an enormous advantage. As the conditions were James & Aaron had the advantage. While Terry & I had to either brake very early and pussyfoot it through tighter sections or deal with massive understeer, James & Aaron could still trun in sharply and at speed. Their only negative was that they were still lifting the inside rear enough to produce a bit of wheel spin. It's my fault for not having the forsight to loosen the bar and have tools in grid but that 1/10th is what matters. Had he been clean there's no way I'd have been close with the car as it was. So, illegal? I don't know but it was in poor taste. And FYI, John, Aaron & I have run more than 600 seconds of the same courses this season and I'm still a few seconds up.

Onward to Tom Austin. Preface this all with the fact that he wouldn't have been there either if it wasn't for me. O.K., he did nothing wrong. Should he have taken his last run immediately after mine? If it were a Divisional or National event than yes. CFR didn't break any rules since the event isn't of the calibur requiring rules like that to be in place. But when the times are falling on every run due to the course drying quickly a few minutes between cars in a single class can really be an advantage for the later driver. Tom's run was 0.5 faster, I don't know if the extra time allowed conditions to be a half second faster but we shouldn't need to guess. All the cars in class should have been run as close together as reasonably possible.

While most of you look at this as bitching about something insignifigant all I can say is that I'd feel the same sitting in 1st, last, or (as is) somewhere in between. BS wasn't the only class that'd have a clearer result. When the rain started falling BEFORE 4th heat cars were entirely grided maybe I should have made a point of going to timing and making sure grid was changed to a "National" style. The cars were all numbered wrong for that anyhow. I guess maybe I should have bent the rules and grided last.

The guy missing when it was his trun to go should've been given a couple minutes and then that run should have been marked as a DSQ. Intentional or not it isn't fair to anyone else in his class.

It's a pisser to wait an entire weekend to run and have it all come down to differing conditions for your competitors.

Congrats to those of you who can quickly accept defeat and let it "roll off of your back", so to speak. And to those that rarely have to deal with it at all... I don't recover so quickly especially when people pick at open wounds - so John if you saw the unedited post before than sorry, I AM an asshole.