NASA Pro Race Elkhart Lake, WI
August 2,3 2008

Pre-Race: By this time I had 2 decent Hooisers, 2 decent Toyos, 1 worn out Toyo and 1 Toyo with a blister. The race car needed some new shoes. I ordered 4 new Toyos to be picked up at the track. This is also the first event I wear a HANS device. I was going to be a hot weekend and I had a bit of concern over the potentioal brake, water and oil temps.

Saturday:

Practice: I started out on my worn combination of tires and give the car a general shakedown. It feels slower than last year but everything appears to be performing OK. I do notice the volt meter is showing only 12 volts.
After practice I notice the LF brake rotor has a large crack in it. I must not have warmed the brakes up enough before using them. Luckily I have a spare set but I can't let this happen again as I doubt any other racecar in the Paddock uses my rotors.
I also meter the battery and see that it is 13.8 volts...the voltmeter on my dash must be bad.

Qualifying: I have only one hour before Qualifying. I have to replace the rotors, bleed the brakes and mount the new tires. Everything is complete with 15 minutes of Qual left. I post a 2:46...not a very good time...understandable with the brand new tires. They should have more grip as the weekend progresses. Once again I am the only car in my class so qualifying is not very important.

Race: NASA puts the GTS, Spec 944 and PTA cars ahead of me even though I post a better time than most of them. That is their policy and I have to live with it. The race goes on. The green flag drops and I make damn sure my brakes and tires are warmed up before I push too hard. After 3 laps I start catching some slower traffic...I am passing a GTS Mercedes in Turn when I notice a local yellow flag...I lock up all four making sure I don't pass under yellow and almost slide into him. No harm, no foul and I pass the Mercedes later after the Kink.
A GTS M3 goes off and comes back on behind me. We appear to be pretty evenly matched and I have a good tussle with him for a couple laps but I seem to be luckier handling traffic than he is and I eventually pull away. Pass a few PTA cars including the class leader with a broken header. I claw my way up through the 944s and GTS cars until the checkered flag. Decent race but I had more fun last year. Looking over the car the brake rotors and tires are still good but I appear to have developed a large intake gasket leak. I don't have an A/F gauge with me so I tune the AFC controller and richen the fuel mixture until I get the vacuum reading I want...and pray. The good news was the water and oil temps were cooler than I thought they would be.

Sunday:

Practice: I skip this practice trying to take it easy on the equipment. I also rotate the tires and bleed the brakes again.

Qualifying: I try a new set of tire pressures to experiment and eventually find I hate it. Because of this, Qual was frustrating except for the last lap when I got an excellent draft on a 911 on the front straight where I set my best time. Couldn't stay with him in the corners though. While shifting into 4th for the Carousel, a 944 suddenly slides wide across my nose and for a split second my left foot is confused on what to do...so I left foot brake WHILE shifting into 4th...gears grind and I recover quickly. However, the damage is done and I have hurt the 4th gear synchros. It grinds on every high RPM 4th gear shift from now on. The M3 I was having a good fight yesterday with loses his brakes in 5 and pancakes the wall hard. No one was hurt but the car is severely damaged.

Race: I start basically in the same spot. I am passing a 944 in 12 when the double caution comes out. Once again I slam on the brakes making sure I don't pass under yellow. Apparently a gaggle of Miatas catapulted themselves onto the beach in Turn 1 while a 944 blew oil on the track between 11 and 12. We spend 3 laps and 10 minutes under caution. Because of my vantage point I see the green flag drop while others can't (because of the hill) and I pass 2 or 3 cars before turn 1. I am back with the familiar PTA cars again. I have a good fight with a Thunder Roadster similar to last year. I am stronger between 1 and 8 while he is stronger between 9 and 14. I navigate the traffic a little better and pass the PTA leader again. I finish the race only 1 second ahead of the PTA leader and the Thunder Roadster. Since there were no other cars in PTC, I sorta adopted PTA as my competition for fun. I qualified 15th and finished 12th.

Alot of carnage over the whole weekend...cars off and into the tires. Observed a couple of ABD's (Air Bag Deployments) from the HPDE cars hitting the walls hard. Concentration is paramount at Road America because of the high speeds...mistakes are often very costly.
The car felt slower all weekend and my times reflected this. In hindsight I probably should have stiffened the rebound settings in the dampers due to the higher speeds. The car felt softer than I remember from last year. This is still my favorite track however. Once I get this intake leak fixed the car should be back on form. This is most likely the last race of the year for me but I never say never.