Road America, Wisconsin – Lawrence Loshak wins SCCA DSR National Championship at the Runoff’s! be sure to watch the video of his onboard camera. The speed these little 1000cc beasts produce is incredible.
Censport driver Lawrence Loshak captured his second SCCA national championship and first DSR championship at the 2010 SCCA Runoff’s. Here are some words from the driver expressing his exciting weekend!
The week for us was a dream week. After countless hours of preparation and hours on the dyno (including at the track) the car and team performed flawlessly.
The track was ultra fast, quickest its ever been with perfect horsepower temps on Monday. I had recieved a text as we were still thrashing on the car trying to get everything loaded, that Garret and Skully were running 2:02’s in testing. I’ll be honest, I was worried. Afterall our goal was to run consistant 4’s and hopefully crank out a high 3 in qualifying. But we pressed on. Of course we were relieved when we ran a low 2:03 testing during the weekend.
So we prepped the car for qualifying for Monday morning. Prime conditions, cool but sunny enough to heat up the track surface. The car felt great but the A/F ratio was a bit rich compared to Moon’s dyno room. But when we came off the track at the end of the session we had P1, but Farrel stole the pole on his closing laps.
So we went to the dyno to retune for current conditions and got ready for Tuesday qualifying. Although the A/F was right, the weather was not ideal for any pole times, but we were P1 for the session again. We were more than happy.
On Wed, it seemed this is it. Very close to Mondays conditions, it was time to go for it! I didnt leave anything on the table, including a spin in 14 that would have set the pole per my forcasted lap on my dash. I broke at the right time, turned in, ran over the apex curbing and…. Mashed the gas. Too greedy, but the spin was done in a glorious and smokey fashion as I kept my foot into it making sure I didnt break the starter or go shooting into anything solid. I went back out with only 5 min to go and wasnt able to better my time of that session of 2:02.9. I knew it was close, P1 again, but I wasnt sure if it was enough. Later we found out Chris had the pole by .029 of a second!!! Congrats Chris for the Gumout Pole award!!!
So although not on the pole, our hopes were high. P1 the last 2 qual sessions and everything was working as planned. The car was stuck, the motor was singing and the driver was more than relieved after a season of struggles. But then the day off. It drove me nuts, but gave us time to go through the car after my Wed thrashing.
I couldnt sleep thurs night which is normal for me before race day. So as the crew slept, I looked at data, looked at speeds and figured out specifically which gear I needed to be in, in every corner. I also noticed spikes in the A/F ratio on every upshift and decided I was going to run with out the flatshifter on upshifts.
On the pace lap, things felt real good and I couldnt have been prouder to be surrounded by the fastest DSR drivers in the country. And beside the insane winds, we were actually going to have a dry race. I love racing in the rain, but I wanted to race in the dry. So green flag and rev limiter, damit, lift when you shift! And I did it again, rev limiter! And then I hit 3rd and the Moon Super Cylcle GSXR 1000 put me into the lead. I knew Chris is an awesome driver and very good on the brakes and he’d be on the inside, but I knew corner 1 was one of our strong points and left just enough room for Chris so we could go through 2 wide. But I got to 3 first and never looked back and just didnt allow myself to make any mistakes. Once I saw a 2:03 and my crew showing me the gap to P2, I decided it was more important to finish the race than to press on for a lap record. Running in P1 is what we worked our asses off for but man, running by yourself is nerve racking!!! Throw the checker, throw the checker! Is what I though every lap. Once I got the 1 lap to go, I made sure not to do anything stupid and took the checker and our 1st DSR title!
Now on to the victory lap! Well I/we couldnt have been happier. Getting slapped in the face, trying to hold on to the flag is something I’ll never forget. I got to 5 and I knew thats were all my friends and family were watching, so I bounced off the rev limiter. Then I though what the hell, why not and released the clutch and was able to lay down a wonderfull burnout celebration all the way up the hill, one hand on the wheel, one hand holding the flag, grin cheek to cheek. Went around the carosel, through the kink and neutral. Shoot, I thought, I broke the chain. The corner workers found it quite humorous I managed to break the car during the victory lap. Im sure Chris and Mike didn’t as they were waiting patiently for me at the podium (sorry guys!!!).
I would like to dedicate this win to my friend Tom Thrash and John Metzger. May you guys win every race on gods race track.
