Race Recap: Fresh From Florida 200
The weekend started with a brake issue: no ABS. The ABS system in our car controls the power braking, and without it, we have far too much braking, resulting in easy lock-up. The problem was quickly fixed, and we were up to speed immediately.
With only one practice session left before qualifying, Jameson set out for his first time driving at Daytona International Speedway’s infield course, trying to learn the track and find setup changes that would need to be made for qualifying later that afternoon. AJ got some seat time as well at the end of the second practice session.
We’ve been hard at work during the off-season with our Mazda RX-8. The car has been lightened and several systems upgraded.
With the announcement from Grand-Am that Continental Tires is the new title sponsor of our series, we will be running Continental Tires for the 2010 season, which should pose an interesting challenge to all teams, as we understand and work with the new tire.
DRIVEN Clothing Company will be featured more prominently on the car and team apparel in 2010; look for the Official Riley Racing Team Crewshirt available soon from DCC.
Due to budget restrictions in this tough economy, we didn’t do much racing this year. In fact, the only race in which we competed was the season finale at Virginia International Raceway with our Castrol SYNTEC Mazda RX-8 in the KONI Sports Car Challenge ST class.
We were able to go over 3 seconds faster than in 2008 at the same event, and were only half a second from the fastest car of the weekend. Although we were the fastest and highest placed Mazda RX-8 in the field, the Mazda RX-8 still needs some help from the Grand-Am officials to be more competitive.
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