COOL!! Now we need a full race report!
I'm really interested in what happened to the "Tanker Truck" Carver?
Yeah well.....I think the 35 gallon fuel cell ended up being a smoke screen and I'm pretty certain from what I saw just from a distance that it was a charging system related problem that ultimately did Carver's team in.
But.....on with the recap from our view.
Scott held constant and drove the car in in second place after popping in what would be our fastest lap of the event, a lone 1.28 with all the rest of our laps in the 1.30's until we went into preservation mode V. 2.0.
We had already seen that Cannon's driver had pitted in the other Sp2 so we sent a runner to check their fuel consumption.
We accidentally started on 3/4 tank so we didn't know if Frankie would make a full 1.5 hour stint but knowing what the #007 burned, helped ease our concerns.
Anyways, we were heads up with the #76, on the same lap, but not equal on pace as Rebstock looked to be pushing fairly hard as he was sliding through T14........maybe the only 2 cars on the lead lap after the 40-something lap first stint and Teddy suited up to jump in second of our line-up.
Our main problem of the whole event happened in the driver exchange which we had worked out to take around 6-7 minutes with fuel.
There was still 1/4 tank left but we dumped 10 gallons then buckled Teddy in only to find out that his cool shirt had a blockage after testing the pumps and hoses. We had to yank Teddy back out of the car for him to peel down his suit to change out the shirt.
This cost us a 16+ minute pit stop time putting us 5-6 laps down on Carver's team when Teddy took back to the track.
From recollection, this stayed status quo as Teddy learned the car and got on a good pace after getting only 4-5 laps of practice, having never driven a 944. Teddy did a full stint right around 1.5 hours which took us to lap 93.
Fuel consumption looked as good as I had figured here in another thread pre-race so we dumped only 1 can and I jumped in next as Teddy reported the car's condition as A-OK. Scott's dad Ian and Paul Loupe were on hand for our stops to check tires, clean the windshield, add oil, etc. and that really helped us out a ton.
I got off to a slow start as the #51 Boxster must have popped a cooling hose or something right in front of me and trailed water around the line for at least 2 laps. This was a pivotal point because we had chosen a lighter fuel load and I was going to try to make up some ground on Carver's car with Smith at the wheel.
After around 3-5 laps, the line dried up and I piked up the pace, eventually catching up chunk on the 240.
Originally I had thought that Rebstock's early pace had over cooked the tires but as I got next to their inside T10, I could hear a misfire and could tell easily the car was down on power.
I took me my entire stint to claw back 2 of the laps we had lost, un-lapping ourselves from the lead 240 twice and keeping with the plan of low revs and short shifting.
Carver's team lost another lap to us, stop vs. stop time as I guess they were dealing with the charge situation so we still short filled Eon, hoping he could make up another 2 laps comparing our speed vs. the 240's compromised pace.
Eon was clipping of good times, still being conservative on the machinery and the grip was still in the tire and the car was surprisingly still balanced. I had to change front shocks prior to the race and the ride height was +1/4 inch to where it had been, the front tires were brand new....and wider as well as the front having +1-2 degrees more negative camber than I had ever run because we didn't have time for an alignment. With the resulting + toe from effect of more negative camber.....4-5 things should have pointed to bad over steer, not to even mention the extra rear-biased weight but old Frankie just chugged along like a trooper.
Pivotal point of the race was here in Eon's stint when the 240 began to get worse and as the mandatory headlights were turned on, the Nissan's lights looked very dim and I knew they were in trouble.
Several on/offs to the pitlane to resolve with a quick fix looked futile as Carver was eventually having to bump start the car from a roll when the battery power wasn't enough to keep up with the ignition system demands, especially with the lights on.
They eventually bit the dust so all we had to do was watch Cannon's car to stay on an even keel with them as they pitted.
We were able to let 4master and Teddy take each a second 30-40 minute stint toward the checkers so they got as much seat time as possible.
Teddy went last and took us to the checkered flag at a version 3.0 limited pace to make sure we made it mechanically as the fronts were looking pretty skinny after running all day with 5.0 deg. negative camber.... ;D
So....that's about it.
It would have been a close finish if Carver's team could have even kept up the compromised pace as the car was running for them during my stint, with Eon picking up a foreseen 2 more laps on them, it would have put us 1 lap down with around an hour to go.
As it worked out, all we had to do was keep a pad to the #007 to have Teddy be the one to set off the race ending fireworks.
That's about it......great event and not much trouble for us.
The unpredictability made it very interesting and working as a team that much more rewarding.
Looking forward to another one.
T