In years passed we’ve been at Gateway for Mothers day and Mid-Ohio for fathers. This year its Mother’s day at Mid-Ohio in the #59 SRF3. Happy Mothers Day an thank you for supporting Jason and his racing all these years.
The weekend would be a test of Jason’s skills against some of the top drivers in the country including 2 multi-year SCCA SRF 3 Champions, Bobby Sak and Sandy Satullo. While he has performed well at Blackhawk the field this weekend was be stronger.
Saturday’s qualifying was wet which was good for Jason. His car is a 5 speed h-pattern manual transmission and the really fast guys have 6 speed sequential transmission, the sequential allows the drivers to shift just a little faster. The rain is a bit of an equalizer as Jason has great rain control and the all manual transmission will allow him to manage his car just a little easier. He found the rain line very quickly and stayed out of trouble, mostly to qualify 4th.
The race was great, Jason started in 4th and kept a good eye out for wet and drying spots for the first few laps. He avoided them but was able to contrive to have other drivers to hit them and slow them for a pass. He worked his way up to 3rd and battled hard, when a front car fell back moving him up to 3nd. He and 3rd place battled nicely until Jason found a his own puddle and dropped to third. Jason even used some of his kart road racing skills and was drafting and pushing the car in front just like he used to. Race highlights are below or watch the full race. He did set the fastest last of the race, which was good setup for Sunday’s qualifying and race.
Sunday Qualifying was great, the track was dry. Everyone was fast but so was Jason. He again qualified 4th, not quite as fast as he was on Saturday but still an excellent result.
Sunday race went a bit sideways. A missed shift on the start dropped him back and then some banging with another car in the esses caused the body work to be wonky. From then on, Jason, had to then manage his engine temperatures and drive back from 15th to up 7th. Not the greatest result in the end but Jason showed a lot of grit and was very conscientious of his car and needing to get it to the finish with out hurting it and still move it forward.
All in all Jason was pleased with the weekends results. “I was eager to see how I would stack up against some of the bigger names in SRF3. While the weekend didn’t pan out how I would have wanted it to, it’s safe to say I’m satisfied with the bigger picture”. He’s made an impression with the other drivers.
Next up is the Famous June Sprints at Road America. This is the track where Jason’s grandpa came in the mid-sixites and eventually brought Steve, his dad, who then brought Jason to his first race at 6.