NASA-SE Spring Brake at Roebling Road, April 7-8 2018: Having a race car means learning to deal with a broken heart

April 17, 2018April 16, 2018 / Ann Morey

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Qualifying before the car died. “What’s a girl gotta do to get a clean lap in around here?!”

Sometimes, bad days make for exciting YouTube videos, like last time I raced at Robeling. This time, bad days made for no video at all. After running about 30 events in two different Miatas, I had a mechanical failure end my weekend for the first time. This is my second “bad day” event at Roebling in a row. Intellectually I’m not superstitious, but emotionally I feel like Roebling is my unlucky race track.

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NASA-SE Winter Meltdown at Carolina Motorsports Park, February 10-11, 2018: My first time racing in the rain

March 6, 2018February 18, 2019 / Ann Morey

What’s the rain line? Stay out of the puddles.

This is really a story about Carolina Motorsports Park’s (CMP) strange pavement. The asphalt at CMP is made up of small, very pointy, sharp rocks. On the track’s surface, the tar has worn away leaving all the tiny pointy edges of the rocks sticking up, making the track less grippy and harder on tires. I knew all this going into the weekend. But what I didn’t know, and what no one else knew either, is what this track was like to drive on when wet. Somehow it hadn’t rained on a race weekend here in recent memory. This was the weekend it finally rained on us at CMP. And we all learned that CMPs grip levels don’t seem to be correlated to how wet the track is.

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NASA-SE Turkey Trot at Carolina Motorsports Park, November 11-12 2017: Low temps and low traction

November 27, 2017November 24, 2017 / Ann Morey

Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP) is known in the Southeast for its surface. The asphalt has much of the tar worn away, leaving sharp little rocks that provide little grip and wear tires like a cheese grater. Combine that weird surface with tight turns and hard brake zones, and you get a track that’s punishing for both cars and drivers.

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NASA-SE Savannah Sizzler at Roebling Road, September 23-24 2017: My first NASA races

October 16, 2017November 19, 2017 / Ann Morey

My first NASA-SE race weekend was a baptism by fire. It was nearly 90 degrees and steamy, living up to the event name. Roebling is a deceptively technical track where I’ve never felt particularly confident. There were 50 cars in 5 different classes, racing all at once on the small, two mile track. It was intense. And it was wonderful.

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Making it official – NASA-SE Competition License School

October 12, 2017 / Ann Morey

Many large racing organizations require you to have a competition license to race with them. NASA competition licenses are earned by attending a “competition license school” event, which is really more of a “prove yourself worthy” event than a “school.” The full day event is designed to stress and exhaust comp school students and concludes with a “mock race.” The idea is to demonstrate that not only are the students safe and competent racers, but that they’re safe and competent races when they’re so hot and exhausted they can barely remember their own names.

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