Iowa Region SCCA had an event on Sunday the 24th, it was awesome. A little hot, but awesome.
Over the past few months we have been investigating how to “fix” the runway. IC airport is a great venue, it had some very obvious issues though. We had to navigate around massive craters or cracks, it created a struggle for course designers. We essentially had a gravel trap after the finish that was “super fun” for cars with Hoosiers or race rubber. Gravel traps are bad for Mod cars with exposed tires and no windshields.
With a half pallet (1600lbs) of traffic patch that is used by the Nebraska region at the national site we were ready to start fixing. One week prior to the event we did a test patch and learned some very valuable lessons about mixing concrete.
1.) Have a proper drill, corded, if it doesn’t tax your generator it’s too small. haha.
2.) put the correct amount of water in the bucket first, then the concrete while mixing. LOADS faster this way.
3.) don’t let the bucket spin away from you, hold on!
4.) hurry up and pour!
During our test run we used 15 bags of patch for two big spots off the course (shut down gravel trap) and to fill some holes as well. The test patching went awesome and everything was properly cured for the next morning.
Fast forward to the setup day on July 23rd, hottest day of ’22 so far, we assembled a team of ambitious unskilled concrete guys and got to work. Started at 9am and had the course setup and the necessary holes/cracks patched by 3pm. 16 bottles of Gatorade, 17 bags of concrete, 20ish gallons of water, multiple brushing apparatuses and numerous sunburns was all it took.
On race day, we confirmed the concrete held up as expected and Emery (our course designer) did a couple confirmation laps and we setup some extra pointers to help with the crossover.
Iowa City Airport is capped at 50 entrants due to it’s space constraints, we had 50 registered and 42 show up to race. We maybe able to open up registration to 55 or 60 next event, we shall see if the demand is there.
On to the action! Check out the results here
First runs were started around 10am, first heat was most of the Street Classes and the PRO class. 14 drivers in PRO battling it out to get their top time in only 3 chances. I knew this was going to be a fun fight. Of the first runs in Pro class only the Miatas were clean. 19 cones and 4 DNFs on first runs tells you how technical this course was. 10 cones and 3 DNFs for 2nd runs as people tried to clean up and improve. 3 People set their fastest pro class time in their 2nd runs. 3rd runs is where everyone (almost) knuckled down and got clean fast runs. Jeremy (31.163 Raw 27.984 Pax) was able to pull off the win, Emery (35.156 Raw 28.687 Pax) couldn’t pull of a clean 34.5 he needed to inch into 1st. Mike Bronson (36.446 Raw 28.938 Pax), Brent Seaton (35.804 Raw 29.216 Pax) and Jeff Ellerby (33.197 Raw 29.810 Pax) rounded out the 5 trophy spots in Pro. 5 People managed to be dirty all 3 runs, myself included haha. *Insert random excuse here*.
Pro class results are only first three runs of the day, but the remaining runs for pro class drivers still count towards Pax and Raw times, which is good for Alex. Alex had a rough morning in pro class, but pulled off a wild flying lap to set top pax with a 34.979 GStreet Raw time which is good for a 27.773 in Pax!
There were a lot of cones hit this event and I want to formally thank all the course workers for picking up and calling in all the cones! Our Cone Killer from 2021 Max Long somehow only hit 3 cones all event. I should get him his trophy so he can hang it on his wall for the rest of the season.
Here are a couple videos from the event and if we get some photos I can add them as well.
Thanks again for everyone who came out to the event and all the extra help with concrete setup before!!
Drew
RE Iowa Region SCCA