Craig and I had a great weekend at Summit Point with NASA Midatlantic on June 20th and 21st. It was Hyperfest weekend which meant Saturday had extra activities for spectators. Craig and I didn’t check out the drifting, rollover competition, or “Daisy Dukes” contest this time around, but I heard that they were really cool. It was also neat to come around the carousel complex and see spectators watching the on-track action. I am more accustomed to driving around a track with empty grandstands.
Saturday was rough. Hit and miss rain made all 3 sessions on track difficult. The first session was wet with hard rain coming down the whole time. The second session saw no rain and a drying line. Offline was still damp. Session three was crazy. We started dry, then the rain came. The track changed with every lap and every turn. Through all of this, some drivers found the limits of traction. I was surprised at the number of cars that made contact with tire walls or beached themselves in the gravel traps. The flaggers were great and kept us apprised of what was around the next turn. The most interesting flag of the weekend was a debris flag for a groundhog in turn 4. The little guy made it safely off the track and hung out just on the edge of the track for the remainder of our session.
Sunday was much better. Though skies looked threatening, we were able to have a dry track all day long. Both Mazdas ran great. Your only trophy for these track weekends is to take your car home in one piece–so in that regard, Craig and I both brought home a trophy.
As always, we met some great folks at the track. What always amazes me are the different types of car people. Craig and I are both Mazda guys and we will often interact with other Mazda people at the track. But even within the Mazda camp, there are the Miata drivers who love their Miatas and the Rotary drivers (RX7’s of 3 generations and RX8’s.)
It is always fun to find someone else who is as passionate about these old RX7’s as I am. It helps me believe that maybe I am not completely crazy—or possibly that there are other people just as completely crazy as I am. I don’t know what the allure of this car is for me. They are not the fastest or the prettiest ones out there, but I absolutely adore old RX7’s. The greatest compliment that we rotorheads get is someone remarking about the flames coming out of our tailpipes or the backfires going into the corners. Thanks to the flagger who stopped by my pit to say how much he liked the sound of my car coming into his turn.
I will post some pictures shortly of our cars at Summit Point. I also carried a video camera in the car all weekend. If I have some good video, I will post that here too.
“On any given weekend, more Mazdas are road raced than any other car.”
