Skippy Sweetness

Just did a qualifying session at Lime Rock in the Skippy. I must admit that I've been frustrated with this car at this track for a long time. But earlier this week I made a couple of adjustments to the setup I was using, and it's made a big difference.

The car is still very sensitive; Miss Skippy wants you to caress her into the corners, not manhandle her like the Legends or the Formula Mazda. She's the polar opposite of Mr. Mazda, who likes to be tossed and shoved around.

Not Miss Skippy. Toss her around even just a tiny bit and she'll bite you. You'll be spinning before you can blink. She likes a delicate touch, but when you do it right she's magic.

I raced the Legends at Lime Rock a couple of days ago, which helped me get myself tuned into the track. Then I ran a race in the Skippy earlier this evening. My iRating put me into a very strong field - dead last on the grid and also in the car numbers, meaning I was the lowest rated driver in the field - so I concentrated on just being smooth and consistent, just like they tell you in Skippy school. Nothing too courageous; just stay clean and get out of there with all the points you can.

It worked, too; some of the faster drivers took themselves off. A couple came back through, and I let 'em go. Just maybe they'd take themselves out again, I figured. Right near the end the leaders lapped me - both of them quite aggressively but cleanly - and I wound up ninth, with a small drop in iRating, but I'm 83rd out of 792 in the series, so I'm not doing too bad! And my Safety Rating went up.

I never quite got below 1 minute flat in the race, but just now in the qualifying session, I got really in the groove and did a string of 59's. My last lap was a 59.325, which put me 1.2 seconds off "pole" and 260th out of 608. Not too bad at a track where I've never been terribly strong.

The main thing, though, was I came away with a powerful sense of how terrific that car is. I've never been able to drive a real car at the real-world Lime Rock at the absolute ragged edge because of the fear of crashing it and wrecking my budget. Neither my talent nor my budget allowed me that risk and that pleasure. But tonight I had that little Skippy car out on the edge, balanced at the limit, pushing it as hard as I could, and it just sang.

Sweet music, little Skippy. I love that machine!