DGFX West Series, Round 4 - Road America

Round four of the DGFX West Series was a cold, blustery day in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin at the famed Road America circuit where flat out speed dominates. Those who chose to run a low downforce setup would be fast in practice and qualifying, but this event was 6 hours long and on a very cold track. The race was broadcast live on GSRC and is available on YouTube.

vApex Racing Group had three teams entered: an Audi R8 GT3 driven by JC and Andy and two Corvette C7 DPs: our Yellow team with Chuck, Kevin Linden, and Russell and our Green team with Dave and Mikey Grems.

During qualifying, it was pretty obvious there were some teams running really low down force as the NKH C7 and two Black Adder C7s set faster qualifying times than Mikey who landed P4; Chuck qualified P7; and JC in the GT3 turned a lap 208.748. Thus, the 17 car field was set.

At the start is seemed some drivers were racing as if it were a sprint race and on the first lap one of the Black Adder C7s got (pushed?) off course and slipped back a few places leaving NKH and Black Adder #68 1-2, Mikey P3, Chuck P6, and JC P16.

The first full-course caution occurred on L13 and resulted in an interesting restart. The Yellow team decided to go for fuel only, not knowing that a C7 and GT3 wouldn’t pit. So, when they came out of the pits it was one of those “Ah oh” moments realizing that the former leaders were now right behind and there were slower cars were in front! At the start, the leading C7 jumped the green (and later got a Marshal’s warning for doing so), but the GT3 directly in front of Chuck was slow. Consequently, just about everyone behind Chuck got a better start and just when it was about to go 3 (or 4) wide, Chuck and the NKH car came together with Chuck receiving damage. The Marshals later ruled the contact a “racing incident”, but our Yellow Team got saddled with about 4 min of repairs and went 2 laps down. Mikey capitalized though and streaked into P2. JC moved up to P13 as was looking good.

On L24, Mikey took the lead going into T1, the other vApex positions stayed about the same, and Black Adder #68 was moving up quickly. Laps 39-40 were probably about the best racing I’ve ever seen! By this time, Black Adder #68 had caught Mikey and they ran side-by-side for nearly two full laps with the lead going back and forth several times and there was NO contact during this intense battle. The announcers were going crazy! Finally though, Mikey thought the better of the situation and backed off. During these laps, vApex Racing Group got lots of air time.

On L43, the aggressive NKH team misjudged their breaking point and slammed into Chuck at the entrance of T8. This time however, they got a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact. Meanwhile, Mikey and Black Adder #68 continued their battle for the lead. Two laps later, Dave took over for Mikey and wound up P4 (due to pit sequencing); Chuck was P7 and JC P13. Once Dave settled in, he began “driving like he stole it” and by lap 55 grabbed the lead under braking at T5.

For JC though, as he has headed toward Canada corner, the Audi engine erupted leaving he and Andy really disappointed. Despite excellent driving from JC, our GT Team ended their day too early in P15 with Andy never getting a chance to drive.

Just a few laps later, Dave had an interesting moment getting caught between the GT3 he was passing and another GT3 coming out of the pits! For a moment, it was 3-wide; Dave being the meat in a GT3 sandwich, but the drivers held their lines and everyone emerged without incident (except for the mess Dave made in his driving suit)! On L66, the aggressive driving from NKH continued as they grabbed P2 and were gaining on Dave; a lap later they took the lead going into T1; Chuck was holding P6.

The next full course caution came out on L72 with Dave P3 and Chuck P6. On the restart, Dave decided to start in 2nd gear and made it interesting… As he was a little slow coming up to speed, the field spreads out to about 4 wide, but the 2nd and 3rd place cars came together damaging both some. Meanwhile, the really aggressive NKH team had hardware problems in the pits and retired. Kevin replaced Chuck in Yellow and began setting consistent lap times over 2 full stints. Once everyone settled back into the race, the positions stayed pretty much status quo for hour 4 and 5.

Mikey (P1) got back into C7 Green for the last stint and Russell took over C7 Yellow. With 30 min left, Mikey was holding a 50 sec lead on P2 and Russell was running strong in P6. At this point, with little drama on-track, the announcers turned their attention on Russell. They were quite complementary about him and said they had raced with him many times in the past and he was an honorary member of Team 2 Motorsports where they called him “Cannonball”. They then proceeded to tell the story of how Russell came by the nickname!

On L163, the announcers rode around the track with Mikey to show there viewers “how it was done”. With 4 min left, Russell picked up a spot moving C7 Yellow to P5. Finally, after 169 laps, Mikey Grems takes the win for Team Green and Russell crosses in finish line in P5 for Team Yellow. Mikey celebrated with a few obligatory doughnuts!

Just in case you missed it, with the win, vApex Racing Group Green take an eleven point lead into the final round of the West Season. If you’re interested, check out the new DGFX webpage at http://dgfxracing.wixsite.com/dgfxhome.

Throughout the broadcast, vApex Racing Group got a lot of air time and the announcers were quite complementary of our drivers, i.e., they were tough racers, a good team, and had lots of fans. Really? Actually, of all the cars that had air time, our livery and the VAPEX logo (like below) were the most visible and clearly recognizable cars in the 17-car field.

Congrats to all the vApex guys taking on the tough DGFX challenge – you’re making us proud!