Barber National Race 1 > Qualifying

This is a long post, mostly because I want to give due credit to the hospitality I received, events I watched and facility I visited (plus I had a bunch of pictures I wanted to include:-).

On Saturday, my father and I drove 2.5 hours to spend the day at the Formula X event at the New Jersey Motorsports Park to watch a pair of Nazareth race car drivers compete in a Barber National Event.

The facility was amazing. The "Park" had two road courses, five racing series, three open-wheel and two sports car, were at Thunderbolt Raceway. The Barber National, Star Mazda, and Atlantic Championship are the three steps a driver takes to compete in IndyCar. Each was participating, along with IMSA Lites which feature drivers who desire to run in the Can-Am and endurance races such as 12 Hours of Sebring, 24 Hours of Daytona, and 24 Hours of LeMans.

The track is a 12 turn natural road course 2.17 miles in length, but in turn three the chicane was used to slow the cars, essentially adding another turn. Barber National cars could hit roughly 115-120 mph and average lap speed was in the neighborhood of 70-80 mph, mostly due to a very slow, technical set of turns from 7 through 11.

There are two components to this story, the experience of being with the drivers and families, and the race itself.

We arrived about 9:30 at the track. While it rained at home, it was bright and sunny all day, had to be high 80s. We immediately headed over to the Barber National tents where the cars were being prepared. First we saw Jody Karam, father of driver Sage Karam. Sage had won a scholarship for the series, becoming the youngest driver ever, at age 14 to do so. They decided to decline that scholarship, however, due to the terms, and were able to find a a sponsor, which was a bit like an angel investor. While talking to Jody, Sage came by and we had a chance to meet and speak with him briefly as well. We soon were talking to the entire family. Sage's mother, and grandparents were all in attendance. We talked about his racing, how they handled it, and soon in a short time you understood the passion and pressure everyone felt.

The Barber National is an elite level of racing with international drivers as well as U.S. based drivers. Each driver must come up with the money to run at each event, roughly $9000 not including the travel related expenses. The cars belong to Skip Barber and if you get hit, as both Lewis and Karam did, any damage, regardless of fault, is paid by the driver. In a ladder system, improvement and high finishes are critical to get you to the next series, and in some cases to the next race.

We next went over to Corey Lewis' car and his family. We met his parents, brother, and friends who travelled to the closest stop on the circuit from Nazareth. Corey had the fastest lap in the rain on Thursday, then his car experienced electrical problems on Friday which hampered practice. A complete over-haul of his car after Friday practice had everyone concerned about what he'd have under him during Saturday's qualifying.

Before we knew it, it was time to qualify. Thirty minutes, all cars on track, best lap against everyone else's best lap. We watched the cars pull off to line up to get on track. For qualifying we went to the bleachers on the backstraight, near the chicane and could see the cars come off turn two through three and into four. I could listen to track officials, who were positioned around the track and provided information and commentary throughout the session.

At the end Karam qualified seventh and Lewis 13th. Both were within one second of pole winner Court Vernon (read the Barber Series report here). Lewis was concerned with his car. He said the adjustments made after Friday didn't correct the back end from going out on turns. We could see as he went through the chicane it stepped out on him several times and as it happened I wasn't sure if he was hitting the curbing and causing it or if he was that loose. Turns out he was that loose. Later we learned that during the overhaul the back end was set up opposite what it should have been, which caused the loose condition. While frustrating that he didn't get the qualifying position he wanted (he was 5th in both the previous races), there was confidence with a car set-up to his liking that he could move through the field.