NOLA Motorsports Weekend: Battling Elements and Competition for a 2nd Place Finish

This was a difficult weekend. My back hurts. I’m getting old lol. The weather was the biggest issue.

We loaded up and left on Thursday from MSR Houston race track and drove to NOLA motorsports- Arriving late in the day, we unloaded and set up in the rain. It wasn’t too fun with the INTENSE amount of mosquitoes there.

The next morning we were greeted by more rain. While I thought I packed correctly, I quickly found my shoes were not up to the task. Wet, cold, and wrinkled toes were the standard for the entire day as we set our Formula Atlantic and Honda F3 car up for rain.

Cold. Wet. Windy.

Testing showed we had issues with the shift system on the Atlantic. The system is a paddle shift off the steering wheel, using high pressure bottles to run a pneumatic actuator. The high pressure air compressor we used to fill the bottles broke. The bottles usually are filled to 4,000 PSI in a carbon fiber paintball bottle. Frantically, we searched around looking for a company near New Orleans that could fill our bottles while we waited. The F3 decided to be reliable like a Honda Civic, and gave us no issues.

Let me preface by saying that Google searching sucks for this. No, The Home Depot , Lowe’s Companies, Inc. Academy Sports + Outdoors DICK’S Sporting Goods and 15 other random sporting goods, gun shops, SCUBA supply, diving stores and other random paintball stores didn’t fill bottles on Friday. Our saving grace was a place called “Icehouse” where they were super nice and filled while we waited.

Saturday qualifying we still were fighting shifting issues on the Atlantic. We believe the compressor that broke had sent metal or trash into the shift solenoids, so we took it apart and cleaned/lubricated everything. But now we were also fighting a bigger issue.

Rain and 20–30 mile sustained winds, along with the temperature going from “mosquitoes to beanies” as it dropped into the 40’s. Cold, wet, windy, and the pop up tents having to be tied down to everything led to a long frustrating day. We qualified in 7th, and went to the hotel to warm up. The F3 landed on pole for Sunday’s race!

Sunday THANKFULLY the sun came out and dried the place out a bit. We still dealt with 30’s and 40’s in the morning plus brutal wind- but the car was shifting well and doing what it needed to do. Again, the F3 just hummed along without complaints.

The race started and the F3 fought with another car for physical 1st (different class) and put up a great fight until that car retired mechanically. Multiple yellow flags allowed the Atlantic to creep up from 7th to 4th. On the restart it started gaining positions.

Then, trouble. A car hit the wall, and a tow truck came out on course to get it. The corner workers did not have a white or yellow flag out, so the F3 was on full race pace, when it saw the tow truck ahead. He hit the brakes to avoid the tow truck. The car chasing him down rear ended him, spinning him off the track.

Sitting in the Formula Atlantic holding the brakes so the wheels could be torqued.

This was (in my opinion) not the fault of the F3 driver, nor the driver who hit him. This was a slow corner worker not appropriately putting the white or yellow flag out because a tow truck was on course. Because of this mistake, the F3 suffered about 8,000 dollars worth of damage to the rear, and the loss of what looked to be 1st place for the weekend.

The Atlantic fought a great fight with 1st place for about 8 laps, and both drivers commended each other for a very fun, spirited and professional fight between them after the race.

We ended up with a 2nd place podium for FA class with SCCA for the weekend. Windburn, wet feet, cold hands and multiple jackets was the weekend for me. We packed up and drove back Sunday night pulling in around midnight back at MSR. I’m exhausted and sore.