Road Atlanta: Unfinished Business

Photo by Rob Wilkinson

Road Atlanta has always been a little different for Jerami Bailey.

In 2019, Turn 1 ended his weekend in a crash. Last year, the team came back looking for a better result, only to have rain wash out the second day after a promising start. It was another weekend that left more questions than answers.

So heading into this year's GRIDLIFE Special Stage, there was unfinished business. The goal wasn't to let Turn 1 intimidate him. It was to get back into the rhythm of Road Atlanta, trust the car, and see what all the years of development had produced.

And this isn't the same car that came off the track in 2019.

That car was mostly stock, full weight, with basic suspension and an E85 setup. It was quick for what it was, but the FRS has evolved considerably since then. The current car weighs around 2,200 pounds and has years of suspension development behind it, along with front and rear aero. It's a completely different machine.

After a disappointing weekend in South Carolina, Jerami wasn't sure exactly where the car would land against the Club TR field. Friday was about getting reacquainted with the track and getting comfortable again. Saturday morning was when it was time to see what the car could really do. The Club TR lap records had been set the previous year, but the times were moving quickly. It seemed like someone was setting a new record every lap on Friday. By Saturday morning, Jerami wasn't even sure what the current record was anymore.

It didn't matter.

He wasn't chasing a number on the board. He was chasing his own best lap.

Fresh tires went on the car. The weather finally cooperated. The track was as good as it was going to get.

And the FRS delivered.

Jerami set a new lap record.

Then, on the very next lap, he went faster.

He didn't actually know he'd broken his own record when he came back into hot pit. The timer in the car tells him what he ran, but not what everyone else is doing. He climbed out, started logging tire pressures and temperatures, and went about his normal post-session routine.Then the guys came running up to congratulate him.

That's when he found out. The record had fallen again.

It wasn't just the car, either. The FRS was working exactly as it needed to, but Jerami was getting more comfortable with every lap. He was settling into the track, finding the rhythm and continuing to chip away at his own time.

That combination finally turned Road Atlanta from a place associated with a six-year-old crash into a place where some unfinished business was getting settled.

It felt like payback.

Then came the protest.

After setting the records, Jerami was protested over a bracket that had been removed from the car. Suddenly, the entire weekend was hanging in the balance.

If the bracket was determined to be required at all times, it would have to be reinstalled. There was just one problem. He didn't have it.

There wasn't much he could do but wait and see what happened. Jerami expected that he was going to be penalized, and the uncertainty ended up following him back onto the track. Instead of continuing to find time, he was thinking about whether the work he'd just done was about to disappear.

It showed.

The drivers behind him were slowly closing the gap, and he couldn't find a way to get faster. The protest had gotten in his head.Eventually, the decision came down. The result stood.

P1.

After everything that had happened, the first feeling was relief. But there was also something else behind it.

Proof.

Proof that the car worked. Proof that the engine worked. And proof that the years of development on the FRS/BRZ platform could stand against a field of Honda-swapped cars.

That matters because this car didn't become what it is overnight.

Jerami has been developing the FRS/BRZ platform since it came out. The platform is capable right out of the box, but building one specifically for a ruleset is a different challenge. It's about finding the obvious things.

Then finding the things nobody else is looking at. Every suspension change, every setup adjustment and every development decision has been another attempt to find performance without stepping outside the rules.

That's where years of work start to show.

There is a lot that goes into a race car that nobody sees at the track. Time. Money. Late nights. Parts that don't work. Setups that have to be changed. Decisions that might take an entire weekend to prove right or wrong.

There's never a guarantee that any of it is going to produce the result you're chasing.

Road Atlanta finally provided that answer.

The work was working.

Six years after crashing at Turn 1, Jerami returned to Road Atlanta with a completely transformed car and left with a win and a new lap record.

More importantly, he left knowing that the years of time, effort and development had actually led somewhere.

The trophy will eventually collect dust.

The lap record will eventually be broken.

That's racing.

But the feeling of finally proving that all of the work was worth it is a little harder to take away.

Road Atlanta was unfinished business. This time, Jerami got his payback.