Performance Autosport's 2012 Season – Round 3: Summit Point Spring Rumble
Source: kevin / www.performanceautosport.com

Coming off our test day last week at Summit Point, Chris Matthews of PAS and driver of the PAS Mustang RTR, Chris Cobetto, had a better feeling on how the car was going to react with the new suspension pieces from Kenny Brown and new coilovers from Moton.  Even with this test day at a new track, there was still plenty of work to be done before returning for a weekend full of racing.

The week away from the track was used to make some minor suspension changes and repair a few damaged parts from Cobetto’s slight off after running through fluid on the test day off Turn 9.  Mostly cosmetic…or so we thought.

The car arrived at the track Friday and it was a lazy day of just bedding in brakes and seeing if the suspension changes made a difference for the better.  Got some driver feedback and the PAS crew made some more changes for Saturday mornings practice session at 9am.





Practice went well, but more changes needed to be made.  Summit Point is known for being slick when your car crosses over the sealer in the asphalt, making a car that pushes, push even worse.  Even still, since we use Summit Point as a test bed for Mid-Ohio, both tracks share the same characteristics.  Nailing the setup for Summit Point helps us a ton for Mid-Ohio so slick sealer or not, we have to adapt and make it handle.





Qualifying meant more changes and trying to make Cobetto a little more comfortable to push the car to go faster.  He was getting there and qualified first with Ed Hunter qualifying closely behind him.

Saturday’s race was a great one, with a very tough battle between Ed Hunter and Cobetto for 1st for several laps.  There was slight contact between Cobetto and Hunter going into Turn 1 under braking when Cobetto was thinking to jump to Ed’s outside and Ed braked early leaving Cobetto with just not enough room to slow the car down before Ed turned in.  The contact was very light and the damage is mostly cosmetic, but soon after the contact an unrelated problem arose in our car making Cobetto pull in to talk to the PAS crew to make sure everything was ok.  The car was acting as if it was starving for fuel  in left hand turns yet it still had half a tank.  To be safe Cobetto pulled the car in, we looked the car over quickly, snapped the front bumper back in place from the contact, and he took back off to finish the race and still get points.  We finished 5th on Saturday because of this issue.



After some brainstorming later we think we came to the conclusion that during Cobetto’s off last Friday during our test day something must of come up and hit the fuel tank, damaging either a baffle or the pick up, therefore when the tanks are half empty it can’t reach the bottom.  The tank will be removed and inspected once it gets back to the shop, but for now we’re going to have to top it off a few extra times and hope its enough to make it through the Sunday race.

The weather on Sunday was way more pleasant.  Sunny skies and a little bit warmer.  The track was still slippery, but we made shock changes throughout the day to see if we could dial it in a little bit more…and we did.  Qualified 1st once again with Ed Hunter nipping at our back bumper in 2nd.  Hungry off a win Saturday Ed was racing hard and right behind Cobetto from the start, lap after lap.  When Cobetto got a little caught up by a disabled Evo coming out of T3, Ed pounced at the chance to get a run on him into Turn 5, diving to the outside.  Unfortunately for Ed he ran out of track and spun right behind us, leaving Cobetto to finish the race out front and in 1st.  The fuel starvation problem did start showing up as the fuel level got low, but it was only in a few corners and still allowed Cobetto to keep his lead.











Even though we ended up winning on Sunday, we certainly did not want to see the race end the way it did.  About 10mins from the end of the race, Ed Hunter was charging back from going off behind Cobetto and went off in Turn 10.  While trying to recover in the grass at around 90mph the car ended up bouncing its way across the track and smacking the driver’s side HARD into the concrete pit wall, spewing debris all over the front straight and blocking most of the racing surface.  Instant red flag.  Even though Ed’s car was completely destroyed he popped out under his own power and hugged his family and was unharmed.  In the words of Chris Cobetto a few hours after the race “I love winning, but I would of much rather come in 2nd than see that happen to Ed.”  We all hope to see Ed back at the track sooner than later as his flat black, fire-belching, foxbody was a fan favorite to many and it seemed he was really starting to find his groove and picking up speed event by event.

As always we’d like to thank all our sponsors for all their support this season.

- Mustang RTR – Moss Muscle – HRE Performance Wheels – Ford Racing

- Kenny Brown Performance Suspension – Moton Suspension – Hawk – Baer

- OG Racing – Exedy Clutches – Sparco – C&R Radiators – Grassroots Motorsports

http://www.performanceautosport.com/2012/05/01/2012-season-round-3-summit-point-spring-rumble/