Web Performance Race Car Takes Third at the Charlotte Motor Speedway
The Charlotte Motor Speedway is perhaps better known for NASCAR, but recently it was host to the Web Performance car in the Spec E30 NASA Firecracker Run on July 2, 2010 where our where our rookie driver Jason Tower finished third for his first podium finish!
The two heat series started off on the right foot with Jason qualifying for second place, putting him on the front row for pacing before the green flag is thrown. The whole point of a spec class in the cars are as identical as possible, so this course is particularly interesting because of the very long banked straight. Normally on a road course the straights are short, and the race is one and lost on the turns, but the two miles long straight brings another dimension to the race. In the following video you can see how three cars touching each other using bump drafting are able to trap Jason on the apron and pass him even though all of the cars have the same speed and power.
Here’s the in-car video from our car. Its an exciting race, with lots of cars on track, an initial setback, trading positions back and forth, flying dirt, dramatic spin-outs, and a third place finish for Jason. I recommend watching it full screen for the best effect; those cars are going way faster than it looks like in the video. And to complicate things the races actually had two classes of cars, thunder roadsters sharing the course with the E30s, so the track gets pretty crowded.