Dean Kearney’s Recap of Road Atlanta – FD Round 2:
Where do i start… Hotlanla that’s right for sure but the event started long before the Thursday in Georgia for me and team boss Lawrence. Myself and Lawrence set off from the IntecRacing workshop in the Northwest Seattle to be exact on the Sunday before the event giving us 4 full days to get there before set up on the Wednesday. I was thinking handy drive right (been from Ireland and all that) sure ive driven around Europe competing in the prodrift European series….ha ha oh boy did I eat my words when we got about halfway threw the journey I was thinking to myself (moaning) that I would be at almost any track in Europe now from my workshop back home and we still had 2600kms to go.
Anyways after 36 hours driving without stopping only for gas we spent a night in Kansas city to recharge our batteries and get a good rest before we battled on the rest of the journey to the Famous Road Atlanta Circuit. Losing a wheel off the trailer 1000kms before our final destination was putting doughts in my head was this gonna be another weekend like Long Beach..(drama filled) but we limped on to the track at 50mph for the last 1000kms finally making it there i was never so relieved to see a race track in all my life ha ha.. Anyways with set up over with, it was time for Thursday practice which i was looking forward to after watching this event for the last 5 years and always long to drive this Circuit i was gonna try figure out a set up for the 240 that would work and just enjoy this practice session
I was enjoying this first session and was making a mental list in my head of changes i was looking to make to the car before the next session but was surprised at how difficult this track was to drive with camber elevation and grip changes with the 85+ heat
The second session i was still finding it a little tricky but my trusty spotter in the tower Kyle was pointing me in all the right directions on what way to put together a respectable qualifying line and my crew chief and tech Lawrence and Jun where making all the right adjustments to the car after every lap to get me comfortable in it bearing in mind i know its a s body but this car is relatively new to me only been my second Competitive outing in it
As you can see i was starting to get the line right and getting the power down earlier after watching some of the front runners like Dmac,Gittin and Tanner so i could generate some good smoke
Friday morning before our last Practice session Jun did some more small changes and tweeks and we are all pretty confident and in high spirits.
Plan is go out in this session and nail the Qualifying line because Thursday was good but still a little scrappy so run 1 all is going well great entry 86mph good angle good transition and just coming outta the horse shoe where i up shift 4th BIG BANG…… i radio back to the pits ”bosco axel just broke” not nervous up until this point but now i was watching my last chance at practicing nailing this line counting down on the timer and I still didn’t have my full plan of attack mapped out in my brain….
With moments to spare my amazing team got this recurring problem sorted in time for me to do just one more pass of the course in which i strung together a pretty descent lap now back to the pits for final check over a bit to eat and my 4th change of Tshirt of the day from sweating like a………………well you know what lol
As we went to the Autograph session at the nos energy stand i sat beside good friend Eric O Sullivan who was giving me some tips about this track from his experience last year here..when your new all info is well soaked up that’s for sure
Practicing with Taka
The came before the storm..its got that impressive stance this car VIP but some how aggressive.
Qualifying; after a pretty good but safe first run entering at 86mph again good angle but a little early on the upshift 3rd the and little late with the 4th it was good enough to put me in 14th place after a full pass of the grid.. I was now happy knowing this wasn’t my best lap and the fact knowing we where defo in the main Top32 show I could push hard for my second run right??
Sitting on the line pretty pumped this time i was gonna go for it full steam ahead my spotter Kyle comes over the radio all he says is “110% commitment” so i launched off the line and left my entry about 0.5 of a second later for that touch more speed which i had at a 88mph and as you can see slightly over shout turn 1 but nailed the rest the run the the dirt drop was heavily penalised 50.8 my score and what do you know most the field put in great second laps pushing me back to 23rd.Far from ideal placing but we where in nun the less and Joon Mange was our pairing
Missing night time practice due to some issues we had to address i was still pretty confident in our ability to progress to Top16 at least
Joon was to lead the first pass and i stuck pretty close to his rear quarter and new i could move pretty close to him on the horse shoe if i transitioned a second earlier then him which i did….
I made my move and im thinking to myself nice I timed that perfect im right on his drivers door…balancing the throttle and sayin in my mind 3rd 3rd 3rd 3rd NOW just on the clip Upshift 4th for the downhill…………………BANG…………shaft broken i couldn’t believe it this was to end my weekend here a sad way to go out of any event but i couldnt of lost of to a nicer guy…
All in All a good weekend with its ups and downs but I reallly feel that me and the team are really making massive progress as a team since I first tested with them in Irwindale last year.. Looking forward to Jersey in a few weeks
Thanks to all my sponsors and to all the people that are making this possible I leave you with this last picture i really like it gives you some idea of how big Road Atlanta really is.
Kearney
