We hope you have been checking our website on a regular basis. www.kryderacing.com is updated weekly with the latest in race results and happenings with Kryderacing and our clients. And a lot has been happening during the first half of the 2006 racing season. To date five drivers running with Kryderacing assistance have won eleven races. These same five drivers have at least that many additional podium finishes. Several other drivers have yet to post a win but do have podium results.
Bill Pintaric has led all five SCCA National races he has entered. He won at New Hampshire the first time he ever saw the track, bested everyone at Nelson Ledges, and lapped the second place car at BeaveRun. Everyone at the Mid-Ohio race started on dry tires but the track was soaked shortly after the race started. Bill stayed on his dry tires and had actually lapped most of the field when contact with another competitor put him into the gravel trap. He had set a new lap record before a mechanical problem put him out of the running at Summit Point. His Kryderacing maintained Nissan 200SX has a hefty point lead in GT-Lite in the Northeast Division. Next race is the Nelson Ledges National on July 29.
David Pintaric has two SCCA National wins, two seconds, and a third along with at least one lap record in the T-1 class. His first win (and the lap record) was at Nashville driving his red Corvette. The next win was in a borrowed Corvette at the Nelson Ledges National on Memorial Day weekend. At that race he qualified on the pole and led every lap against some stiff competition. The reason for the borrowed car was he had sold the red Corvette and was waiting for his new Viper to be completed. The new Viper first ran at a tire test at Heartland Park on Monday, June 19. Early in the day something broke in the suspension and the car crashed. At this point in time the car had never visited our shop and only employee Matt Carson had seen it. The damaged car was transported from Topeka, Kansas to Michigan where Reed and Sandi picked it up early Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile Matt Miller was on the phone ordering parts (based on communications with crew people who were at Heartland Park). Kryderacing’s two Matt’s (Carson and Miller) worked some very long hours over the next few days and the Viper was transported to BeaveRun on Friday for its first race. David qualified third and finished second in his first race with the Viper. He also turned laps significantly quicker than his previous best with the Red Corvette.
Rob Piekarczyk raced a Mazda Protege in SCCA’s Showroom Stock C class last year. This year we helped him build a brand new Mazda RX-8 for competition in the new T-3 class. He is two for two in his two National races to date. He his still getting used to the car and since T-3 is a new class no one knows which make of car might be the best bet for a National Championship. Rob is hoping it’s the RX-8.
Mike Olivier is still running his Honda in the Showroom Stock C class and hasn’t decided whether to try to go to the National Championships again or not. He already has enough points to qualify for an invitation, but the car is not competitive with the latest vehicles. Meanwhile, he decided to run a Regional race at Mid-Ohio on July 1 and recorded his first win. He qualified third, took second on the start and the lead early in lap two. At the finish all three cars were within a couple seconds of each other. It was a great way to win.
Mike Solley is not a normal client of Kryderacing’s. But he wanted to run two widely separated (geographically) races on the same weekend. His normal group of mechanics handled his T-1 Ferrari at Road America’s June Sprints. Meanwhile Kryderacing was hired to prep and maintain his T-1 Corvette for an all-Corvette support event to the Cleveland Grand Prix. Mike’s yellow Corvette with its big Kryderacing logo on the hood won the T-1 category and was third overall.
Mark Hopkins doesn’t come to Kryderacing for maintenance on his SCCA ITA class Honda Civic. He does a very good job of prepping it all by himself (his sons might take exception to that comment). But Kryderacing built this car for its original owner and Mark keeps our logo on the car. The car was fast last year and Mark has not been idle over the winter. The Mid-Ohio Double Regional on the July 1-2 weekend was its first outing of the year. On Saturday Mark qualified second. In the race he took the win when the pole sitter went off-course late in the race. On Sunday Mark didn’t wait. He took the pole and led every lap for his second win of the weekend.
Gary Martz usually has a win (or several) in E-Production by this time of the year but this year he has a new car. He sold his first-gen Mazda RX-7 at the end of last year and bought a second-gen RX-7 convertible. Gary is the third owner of this car. This is no doubt the new car is better than the old one. But it is also more complicated and hadn’t seriously been campaigned for a couple of years. Kryderacing transported the car to Elkhart Lake for the June Sprints. Although Gary was faster than his previous visit to the track things didn’t go smoothly in the race. He lost fifth gear and the engine ECU was indicating other problems so he parked the car a couple of laps from the finish. A win can’t be too far in the future.
Brett Mars has had his Showroom Stock C Mazda3 into the Kryderacing shop for several reasons this year. The most serious occurred during the same time frame the two Matt’s were thrashing with David Pintaric’s crashed Viper. What should have been a routine transmission swap (it had broken at Mid-Ohio and Brett had a new one shipped to the shop) turned into a nightmare. The replacement transmission was installed but had its own problems. A third transmission was ordered and Brett came to the shop to help. But after installing trans #3 the ECU became a problem. It turns out trans #3 was for an ABS equipped vehicle and the ECU in Brett’s car was configured to read non-ABS signals. One example of this is the non-ABS car gets its speedometer data from a gear in the transmission. The ABS equipped car gets it from the brake sensors on the hubs. There is no gear in the transmission. A late night drive with this transmission was the first indication all was not well. But, like the Viper, the Mazda3 was completed in time to make the BeaveRun National. With three transmissions enough parts were assembled to make one (correctly) working example. Brett finished a very strong third in the National held during the weekend.
Bruce Keillor bought Rob Piekarczyk’s old Mazda Protege SSC car and has been running his first full season of National races. He is improving with each race and has enough points to qualify for the Run-Offs if he elects to go.
Matt Miller and Matt Carson both competed for the first time in 2006 during the July 1-2 weekend at Mid-Ohio. Miller had spent a lot of time attending to several body dings acquired over the past few years and giving his ITS class Mazda RX-7 a new paint job. It really looked great in its orange and blue paint scheme and he recorded a third place finish against some stiff competition on Saturday. Carson had made his debut with his ITS class Datsun 240Z last year. The car had needed a lot of work when he bought it. Like most racers, he slowly worked on the car over the winter and then started putting in all-nighters the week of the race. He missed Saturday’s activities but during the few laps he was on the track during Sunday morning qualifying it was obvious the car was much quicker than in 2005. Unfortunately a brake problem reared its head at the end of the long straight and Matt Carson ended up in the gravel trap with severe suspension damage after solidly t-boning another car which was just turning into the right-hander. And Matt Miller wasn‘t very happy with the damage done to his new paint job. Matt Miller did run the race but didn‘t make the podium as he had done on Saturday. Both Matt’s are still talking to each other.
Reed has gotten in a couple of races with the Kryderacing ITS Nissan 240SX. On June 10-11 he competed in the Double Regional at Nelson Ledges Road Course. On Saturday he qualified on the outside pole for the best qualifying position ever for this car. He also set personal best lap times driving the car. But the car didn’t seem right and he decided to start at the back of the grid. He worked his way up to sixth by the end of the race but it was obvious the front shocks were no longer working in rebound. On Sunday he again qualified on the outside pole. This time he kept the grid position and took the lead at the start. For four laps he held off the fastest qualifier before giving up the position. At the finish he was a close second. Both the fact the car led some laps and finished second are firsts in the long history of this car.
The above are only the highlights of Kryderacing’s 2006 racing accomplishments. We don’t exactly know what is different this year from past years but our results show improvements in not only wins, but lap records, lap times, and other areas of measurement. There is no single big change, just lots of small things. It’s a great feeling for all concerned and everyone is working hard to keep it happening.
UPDATE: A large group of the drivers associated with Kryderacing participated in the Annual Brat Bash Double Regional at Mid-Ohio. Just about everyone had good races and results but three drivers who normally run Nationals won their classes on both days. Gary Martz (EP Mazda RX-7), Rob Piekarczyk (T3 class Mazda RX-8), and Brett Mars (SSC class Mazda3) were all at the track testing their cars. The testing helped find and solve some problems. Along the way they each picked up two wins. That raises Kryderacing win total for 2006 to seventeen.
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