Ryan Eversley's RACER Diary: Continental Challenge

About a month ago I was asked by Kurt Baker of the Honda of America Race Team (HART) If I was available to drive their Honda Civic ST car in the Continental Tire series. Of course I said yes and Mosport was going to be my first race with my new team. Last season, teamed with Kyle Gimple in the C360R Civic I was able to finish fourth at this track, so I felt confident that our #93 Honda Civic would be solid come race time.

My co-driver Chad Gilsinger, who I've raced against for years, is one of the fastest guys in the class. He's a Honda AWD engineer which allows him to test drive a lot of really cool cars and his schedule wouldn't allow him to make the promoter test day because he was busy driving around the Nurburgring in the new Acura NSX! I took the opportunity to learn the car and the team and we found ourselves running really well on older tires and I felt right back at home driving the same type of car I'd been in for the last five seasons.

Chad arrived on Friday morning and we did that awkward first date thing where you get to know each other. You know the drill, Favorite color? Beer or wine? Should we split the check? Should I pay? The usual...

Unfortunately, our session was cut short due to an electrical gremlin and we didn't get to turn a single lap. The upside to that was we were prime choice for autographs as we were the only car still in the paddock – as a group of kids found out!

In the second session Chad was able to get some laps in the car placing us around seventh on the timing board and feeling good for qualifying, which was up next. When qualifying started our team car of Steve Eich in the #92 immediately jumped to P2 in his first time racing at Mosport! After a few minutes Chad was able to get some clean laps and found himself in third and Steve in fourth for a great qualifying effort from the HART guys.

The race started and after a few laps Chad had moved his way up to second and eventually to the lead! Our glory was short-lived as Chad was catching up to a backmarker GS Mustang, and contact was made which resulted in our car shutting off. By the time the guys could find the problem we were many laps down and it was pointless to continue.

Because we have a smaller team, both cars are pitted by one crew so when the the guys were working on the 93 in the garage I was asked to do the fire bottle on the #92 car. As you can see, I nailed it. The #92 went on to finish sixth, which was a great result or Steve and Kevin Boehm.

Lime Rock Park was our next stop in the Continental Tire series and I wasn't sure what to expect. What I knew I could expect was the gorgeous scenery that the New England area always provides.

I found myself pulling over on the side of the road a few times to get some photos. I actually say to myself sometimes, "This will be cool for the RACER column." But to be honest a few times I just stopped and stared without taking photos at all. Truly one of my favorite areas of the country to visit.

Right, back to the racing stuff. The layout of the track is predominantly right hand turns which really wears that left-front tire out and it's especially rough on the FWD cars, so we knew it wouldn't be an easy weekend. The car felt pretty good in practice and Chad and I just made a few small changes to really get the #93 dialed in for qualifying. We never used sticker tires until qualifying so we were hoping to really jump up the board when it really mattered.

We rolled out for qualifying and Chad ran as hard as he could but all we could manage was 14th for the #93. After the session during our debrief Chad mentioned that the car felt worse on new tires than on old tires, so we adjusted the setup for the next mornings race by making some big changes.

We had a tremendous amount of fans show up for our fan walk pre-race (TOP), which was a nice shot in the arm before we got going.

The green flag fell and Chad was able to move up a few spots before settling in. The car was improved from qualifying but it still wasn't the car we needed to win. Chad pitted at the 50-minute mark and we had a pretty good driver change for our first actual attempt in a race but as the crew finished fueling the car, the trunk wouldn't latch. We lost about 15-20 seconds trying to get it shut which is a huge amount of time at a track like lime rock but I was determined to put my head down and see how high we could finish. I knew we weren't in the fight when the class leader Stevan Mcaleer caught up to me to put me a lap down, which is always a bit deflating but I was determined to get us a solid finish nonetheless.

As the laps wound down we had a yellow for my teammate Kevin Boehm, who had a broken driveshaft. That bunched the field up with 15 minutes to go. It was nice to be in the mix with some of the top guys in the class for a bit but we soon strung out and when the checkered flag fell we managed to finish 10th. All and all not a bad day for the #93 HART Civic and I'm encouraged heading to Road America in two weeks that we will be a threat for the ST win.

Next up for me is Mid Ohio this weekend with my RealTime Racing Acura TLX over in the PWC series. Thanks for reading!

-Ryan