This past week was a bit of a whirlwind, traveling from a test at Virginia International Raceway straight to Circuit of the Americas for the next SRO World Challenge weekend.
We were greeted with true Texas weather: 90-degree temperatures and hot, sunny track conditions. I was working with two teams, each in a different SRO series, who were both coming off great success in their previous event.
We were looking to carry that momentum into this week, and it started off on a great note with a strong pace through the practice days. The GT4 team I work with had personal best lap times and a really happy car that was all set for the upcoming races.
Race one for GT4 got off to a terrific start. Anthony was able to avoid the infamous turn one melee that COTA usually has, and he advanced several positions. He was running inside the top five in class, and the race was really going our way.
Unfortunately, an avoidable contact call from race control had us serving a drive-through penalty, so we lost valuable ground. With focus and perseverance, the team kept pushing forward and had a clean pit stop. Jaden was able to make passes to bring the car back into the top 10 before a broken suspension sidelined the car on the final lap of the race.
Race two was time for redemption, and once again, the team got a clean, solid start to the race. After a timely pit stop, a full-course yellow put us in a perfect position to fight to the end. On the restart, though, another turn one melee took out a handful of cars, and the race was forced to end under caution. Anthony never got to show what he and the car were truly capable of, and the team didn’t get the finish they so deserved.
The RVA Graphics team got a top-10 finish at Circuit of the Americas.
In similar fashion, the week started out very promising for the other team I was coaching. As fate would have it, though, RVA Graphics Racing just didn’t have luck on their side in qualifying. Still, the team did a solid job of persevering throughout the weekend to come away with a top-10 finish.
Sometimes, it seems like things just don’t go your way, no matter how good you might be feeling about how well prepared you are or the performance in practice. What is important to take away from a weekend like this are the positives. The cars and drivers are showing up every weekend well prepared, the drivers have outstanding pace, and we made a lot of progress that will give us great momentum as we move forward in the season. The next event will be in just a couple short weeks at both teams’ home track (and mine, too!) of Virginia International Raceway.