Post by turbot on Jul 22, 2012 12:05:06 GMT -6
That was a looooooooooong time to be at track.
Got there around 10am to make sure car was ok for any of our drivers that wanted to practice and, given the weather predictions, install a wiper switch and test the wipers.
Didn't pull out out of the track until close to midnight.
Couple that with 6 hours of prep time the evening before, adds up to 20 hours of hovering around a car in a 48 hour period.....Whew...!
After being 3 laps in the lead at the 1 hour mark, and still on the lead lap at the end of our first 1.5 hour stint...., the race went pretty much south from there for us.
We adjusted the stints to 15 minutes less given that the weather looked like it was gonna hold out, making the race shorter than originally estimated due to the dry conditions so every driver would get equal time.
After Doc Phil handed over the wheel to Teddy 'the great" Busick, the cool suit box came unfastened TWICE during Teddy's shortened stint costing us 2 laps then and extra time later in the race when we noticed that the cool box had tumbled into the console, snapping off our headlight switch.
Next up, Mike "the maniac" Hamza kept our position pretty level, being consistent and trouble free. He spent his whole 1 1/4 hours methodically tracking down, what we thought at the time was our competition for 2nd place, the #25 Baldwin spec racer Ford but the two Miatas were doing 2 hour stints and were good on fuel, which shortened their stops by a couple of minutes compared to ours.
Mike was so wrapped up in edging up to the Ford that he didn't see the "pit now" board for 4 or 5 laps so we shortened the next stint to 60 minutes to make sure drivers 5 and 6 would get at least 75 minutes at the wheel.
I took over from Mike, after a pretty long stop considering we did not take fuel.....we had to swap fronts L-R to make the Nittos last the distance.
Took a couple of laps to get up to speed with a weird feeling front and a nasty mud puddle splashed right at the apex of T5 but I was soon eating into the two Miatas 1 laps lead on us and eventually ran down and passed Lastrappes, only to hand it back a few laps later when I made room for the leader at T3 and David decided to sneak under me before I could shut the door back.
I kept right on the Miata with my stint having maybe ten minutes to go with the dark beginning to fall when I had to come in 10 minutes early with no tail lights......, figuring my team would be caught off guard, I made one last lap revving the engine up and down at T14 and waiving to warn them but when I got to the pit stall, our next driver didn't even have his suit on yet.
We lost an easy 10-15 minutes there, pitting normally coupled with the delay while Henry "the hatchet" Carter suited up.
Ashamed really, because we showed early that we had the pace to be second and had pretty much settled for finishing 3rd being 2-3 seconds per lap faster than the Miatas.
We left out 9 laps behind the close Miata battle for 3rd place.
Henry had trouble getting up to speed with the dark and the portable light station between 4 & 5 going out with a temporary mechanical shut down....., mis-adjusted headlights that hurt Henry's view put the final nail in the hopes for a podium as Henry was slowed to 5 seconds off our average pace.
We made an aim adjustment on the headlights and had enough fuel to finish so the last stop where Eon took over was pretty quick and he was off in just a couple of minutes after we topped off the oil and cleaned the windshield.
Eon put in some good laps, faster than all cars on track at some points and clawed back three full laps on the 3rd and fourth position Miata battle between Sarah and Max by 2 and 3 seconds per lap even though Max and Sarah had upped the game to low 1:31's as they battled back and forth in the closing 15 laps for the last podium step, .500 gap between them all the way to the firework checkers.
Long long grueling day for sure, sad because the car ran and handled flawlessly and all of our troubles were avoidable....but...., like they say...."that's racing"....
T
Got there around 10am to make sure car was ok for any of our drivers that wanted to practice and, given the weather predictions, install a wiper switch and test the wipers.
Didn't pull out out of the track until close to midnight.
Couple that with 6 hours of prep time the evening before, adds up to 20 hours of hovering around a car in a 48 hour period.....Whew...!
After being 3 laps in the lead at the 1 hour mark, and still on the lead lap at the end of our first 1.5 hour stint...., the race went pretty much south from there for us.
We adjusted the stints to 15 minutes less given that the weather looked like it was gonna hold out, making the race shorter than originally estimated due to the dry conditions so every driver would get equal time.
After Doc Phil handed over the wheel to Teddy 'the great" Busick, the cool suit box came unfastened TWICE during Teddy's shortened stint costing us 2 laps then and extra time later in the race when we noticed that the cool box had tumbled into the console, snapping off our headlight switch.
Next up, Mike "the maniac" Hamza kept our position pretty level, being consistent and trouble free. He spent his whole 1 1/4 hours methodically tracking down, what we thought at the time was our competition for 2nd place, the #25 Baldwin spec racer Ford but the two Miatas were doing 2 hour stints and were good on fuel, which shortened their stops by a couple of minutes compared to ours.
Mike was so wrapped up in edging up to the Ford that he didn't see the "pit now" board for 4 or 5 laps so we shortened the next stint to 60 minutes to make sure drivers 5 and 6 would get at least 75 minutes at the wheel.
I took over from Mike, after a pretty long stop considering we did not take fuel.....we had to swap fronts L-R to make the Nittos last the distance.
Took a couple of laps to get up to speed with a weird feeling front and a nasty mud puddle splashed right at the apex of T5 but I was soon eating into the two Miatas 1 laps lead on us and eventually ran down and passed Lastrappes, only to hand it back a few laps later when I made room for the leader at T3 and David decided to sneak under me before I could shut the door back.
I kept right on the Miata with my stint having maybe ten minutes to go with the dark beginning to fall when I had to come in 10 minutes early with no tail lights......, figuring my team would be caught off guard, I made one last lap revving the engine up and down at T14 and waiving to warn them but when I got to the pit stall, our next driver didn't even have his suit on yet.
We lost an easy 10-15 minutes there, pitting normally coupled with the delay while Henry "the hatchet" Carter suited up.
Ashamed really, because we showed early that we had the pace to be second and had pretty much settled for finishing 3rd being 2-3 seconds per lap faster than the Miatas.
We left out 9 laps behind the close Miata battle for 3rd place.
Henry had trouble getting up to speed with the dark and the portable light station between 4 & 5 going out with a temporary mechanical shut down....., mis-adjusted headlights that hurt Henry's view put the final nail in the hopes for a podium as Henry was slowed to 5 seconds off our average pace.
We made an aim adjustment on the headlights and had enough fuel to finish so the last stop where Eon took over was pretty quick and he was off in just a couple of minutes after we topped off the oil and cleaned the windshield.
Eon put in some good laps, faster than all cars on track at some points and clawed back three full laps on the 3rd and fourth position Miata battle between Sarah and Max by 2 and 3 seconds per lap even though Max and Sarah had upped the game to low 1:31's as they battled back and forth in the closing 15 laps for the last podium step, .500 gap between them all the way to the firework checkers.
Long long grueling day for sure, sad because the car ran and handled flawlessly and all of our troubles were avoidable....but...., like they say...."that's racing"....
T
