Monday, September 27, 2010

11th Place!


We had a fantastic and nearly flawless race this weekend.

We ran ~2 hour stints to minimize time lost during pit stops. The driver order was Brian, Steve, Craig, and then Seth.

The front wing didn't last long. A 944 got squirrelly in front of me and I gently tapped it with the front wing support. It stayed together, but was damaged enough that it needed to come off at the end of my turn in the car.

We had some clutch slippage during my stint that got progressively worse. Steve started his turn in the car and we started looking for Integra clutches. The closest was Columbia, so we had Seth's wife pick it up on her way to the track.

Steve got pulled in for a mechanical. Our cool seat cooler had started leaking water and they thought it might have been gasoline. We ended up not running the cooler for the rest of the day. It had lasted about half of my stint, and was a great asset when it was working.

Fortunately the clutch issue turned out to be air trapped in the clutch slave that we bled out while getting Craig in the car. Craig and Seth's runs were relatively uneventful. We were adding about 9 gallons of fuel at each driver change. We did the first two driver changes in the paddock, but the last one we did in the hot pits.



Thanks to Micheal Rennick of the #6 GRR Motorsports Escort for the picture.

The siphon tube had slipped out of place on one of the tanks and Steve had to pour the fuel in slowly to prevent spilling. That pit seemingly took forever. After I replaced the tube we were able to dump a can of fuel in ~1 minute.

We finished the day in 13th place.

Day two we ran the same driver order, but due to the quiet hour we had to run unequal times. I ran the first session and what started as a light sprinkle turned into a steady rain. I had to come in twice to get the fog wiped off the inside of the windshield. The fog had gotten so bad that I was navigating the track by feel.

The car seemed to have a big advantage in the rain (when you could see the track). I was able to easily pass the rear wheel drive cars with ease.

I pushed it a little too far on the front straight while drag racing the Dog Ciao alpha. I started hydroplaning as soon as I touched the brakes and ended up in the overrun area. We got a free pass out of judging since it was our first real offense.

The failed pass occurs ~50:30 in this Track Geeks video.

During the quiet hour Seth ran out for some much need RainX and FogX. He made it back from Camden with just enough time to get it on the windshield for Steve's stint.

The RainX and FogX did the job and Steve put in his stint with improved visibility, but continuing rain. The rain started to let up and we did driver changes in the hot pits, adding 5 gallons at each driver change for both Craig and Seth. By the time Seth was in the car we were battling the #80 Tortoise for 10th place. They were only 3 laps ahead with 40 minutes to go and had slowed down to conserve fuel. It looked like we might catch them, but they noticed our encroachment and got on the gas enough that they finished about 1.5 laps ahead.

We weren't too disappointed, since 11th is our best finish yet!

2 comments:

  1. Congrats 172 dudes! You guys definitely looked better this time than any previous run that I've seen ... from: Road Warrior Racing aka Super Troopers aka Mad Super Max Troopers aka .... well ... you get the idea. See you in Feb!

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  2. Thanks Mad Troopers! Your costumes were awesome and I'd be more envious if they didn't look like you were roasting in them on Friday. Your car was wicked fast as usual.

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