Story by Chris Roy
photo by RPM Photography
Mike Alton driver of the #99 Legends car had a roller coaster of a ride this past weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS) as the MOAT Mountain Legends Series returned to race a double header on the 1.6 mile road course. “Saturday started off not so great, rainy and wet for qualifying and, the feature, I did not have rain tires so I qualified poorly, and held on to a 7th place finish. I was very disappointed but glad I finished with the car in 1 piece. On Sunday we made some last minute changes to car and had one of my best races, came from the back to 3rd and moved into 2nd for points.”
One of the big obstacles in last weekend’s races was the rain. Unlike some racing series the MOAT Mountain Legends Series races rain or shine. The drivers change the set up in the race car and put on rain tires then head out on to the track to take the green flag. So how did the rain affect the #99 legend car, “A lot for me, I don’t have rain tires, and no rain driving experience, not a big fan of racing in the rain so far.”
Sunday’s race the #99 started in the back and Mike was able to race his way through traffic up to 3rd place. “That was my favorite legends race so far, it’s fun to pass a lot of cars, my game plan was to focus on racing the track, stay out of trouble and move up as much as I could to gain points, I made 3 changes to the car just before the feature started. On lap one I knew I had a great car, got by a few cars easily , had a little trouble getting by Taylor Martin, and then saw Steve Johnson in front of me in 3rd, felt my car getting better and ran him down, got by him with 3 laps left, made a run for Tom Gray, but not enough race left to catch him, decided to backed it down a bit and save my equipment, very happy with 3rd considering and had ton of fun racing through the field. Most of all I was happy with the changes which made the car faster, ran my fastest times on the new track configuration so far, it gives me a lot to look forward to for the next race, finding speeds is always a good thing.”
Last season Mike made the trip to victory lane so can he do it again this season? “Yes, I will be disappointed if I don’t get a win this year, and I am hoping for more than 1 win, this year I want to catch the 23s and race him for a win, not by a DNF.
This race season NHNS made some changes, to the race track to make it safer to race. “The new configuration is not as much fun, coming off turn 12 and straight up the shoot for the last 3 years was the best part of the track, the new config. is safer and more technical, you really got to hit the last 2 turns perfect to get down the front stretch good, I do like the fact that when chasing someone down a small mistake on turns 13 or 14 gives you a good chance to get by them early on the front stretch.
The road course at NHMS is a unique legends race track long straight a ways, inclines, declines, and hair pin turns, a lot of time and work goes into setting up the race car. “The first set up of the season after a complete rebuild takes a long time, 4-8 hours, then I will set up my car after every race weekend, sometimes just to check if anything has changed, or got bent, sometimes will make small changes to try for the next race, this only takes about 2 hrs. I do it all in house, I have a brand new computerize 4 wheel chassis, suspension and wheel aligner for my auto shop it is perfect for the legends car, it measures everything including front and rear suspension points, offsets, rear end square and straightness, setbacks, wheel base and track, super accurate and lets me do it pretty fast, then an hour or two for routine maintenance on the car. We offer this service and many others to all racers, i also have a legends car jig and we can repair or replace front and rear clips, and can check for bent chassis, also have a tire shaver coming in a week, the most important thing I do is check and recheck everything, my crew gets a little frustrated sometimes at this, but we have not had to come off the track for anything or had a DNF for failures for over 2 full seasons now. On a final note I am having the most fun racing legends cars in my entire racing career, the cars are inexpensive, easy to care for and fast as heck.