NASRS Season 16 Race 4 (COTA)

The NASRS season 16 race 4 was at COTA for the season’s wet race and it was, well, not great (at least for me). I was on the back foot from the get-go since I really didn’t know COTA that well and was having a hard time getting a setup that worked for the Lambo in the wet. I was also focused on some other projects, etc. so didn’t put in as much practice time as I should have. And the results for the race reflected all of that.

I won’t go through a detailed play-by-play for the race because 1) not all that much happened and 2) it’s too painful to recall my mistakes (ha!). But, here’s a quick summary.

I did the best I could in qualifying, but ended up P9, which isn’t great. Qualifying was especially tricky because the track was “greasy” instead of wet so we all ended up having to run dry tires. I didn’t really have a good setup for these conditions so the car was sketchy AF.

I lost a couple places at the start of the race (I was being really cautious in the wet), but settled in and did my best to just keep pace. I made a huge mistake 1/3 into the race and caused an accident (and got a 10 sec penalty as a result). I was battling someone for quite a few laps before we passed two cars that had spun. The car in front had to slow a lot more than I did so I thought I had more speed and was going to easily pass him in the corner. But, that didn’t happen and as I went wide out of the turn I nailed him. I ended up spinning out and thankfully he was able to continue without any issue. I thought I was off the track after the spin and continued rolling backwards so I could get turned around. However, in doing that I hit someone who was trying to skirt around me. It’s a big no-no to not hold your brakes after an incident so I was penalized for that. In my defense, I felt like I was off-track enough, but that’s the way it played out so no complaints from me. I shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place so my stupid error definitely deserved some kind of penalty.

I had 12+ seconds of damage and just did my best to finish the race with the pace I had. I ended up in P10, which wasn’t a very good result given the numbers in the field (only 17). But, I was off-pace here for sure so in reality that’s the result I deserved. Plus, the top-end of the split is so quick and competitive that it just illustrates if you aren’t on your game, you’re gonna quickly be down in the results.

I’m looking forward to Misano next week for the season’s night race. I know that track better so will hopefully have a more fun and less destructive race than this one.

Week 4 final results (COTA)

• Qualifying: P9/17
• Race: P10/17

Here are a few highlights from the race