2001 in Review

For us, 2001 will go down in history as the year that we finally got serious about racing.  The previous year had us buying stuff we needed, but we still didn't have the car.  The eVisory Cobra finally got done and we got into the wheel to wheel racing by running with NASA.  The year started off driving the Viper as we got ready for the season by going to the High Performance Driving Schools.  Harry and Dan both got race licenses and Dan even picked up his instructor license.  Overall Team Elam finished a very respectable 5th place in the series standings despite only running half of the season.

It would be an understatement to say that our driving skills dramatically improved during the course of the year.  It's taken a while to learn the car and to learn the race skills.  We've still got a ways to go, but we have certainly closed the gap with the guys at the top of our class.

The Cobra hasn't been the ideal starter race car because it is relatively hard to drive at the edge, but it has been nearly bullet-proof.  We've only had to make a few repairs during the course of the year.   Right now the car shows the results of a full race season:  lots of little marks on the car and worn out tires.  Dobyns Motorsports really did a nice job building our car to make it easy on us.  It really is hard to believe that we can take this fun car out on the track and still drive it on the street.

It all got started in the snow as we picked up car #1520 from Factory Five.

Want to see pictures of the car as it is being built?

Click here to see us (finally) taking delivery from Dobyns Motorsports!

Bobbie has also gotten into it.  She did driver's school and now has her pink RX-7 to be turned into a school car.  She also got to play trophy girl!

One real surprise has been how much it has been playing instructor.  It can be a little nerve-racking sitting in the passenger seat with a student who won't listen, but it is big time fun when you see a student's eyes get wide because he came through a corner at 90MPH thinking he could crash and me telling him to push the accelerator and trust the physics.

Pictures of the 2001 events can be found:

    Speedtrial VIR
    Summit Point Fall 2001
    SCCA Fall Driver's School
    NASA Instructor Clinic
    Speedtrial (Bobbie) at Summit Point
    Testing Day at Summit Point
    Kershaw August 2001
    Nazareth Speedway July 2001
    Bobbie Skip Barber/Dan Testing @ Lime Rock
    Summit Point Spring 2001
    VIR 2001
    Kershaw Spring 2001
    Harry Driving School Summit Point 2000

One of the best parts of the 2001 season was that we met new friends and got a bunch of our other friends out to play with us.  We're really glad that so many wanted to come out to the track!