I'll start with the #50 story while it's still fresh in my head.

It was an excellent weekend for the #50 CMC. Thanks to Redshift Racing, Richard, Dan and Craig for all their help and advice in setting up the car and getting my tire rack ready. It's a team victory for us, we've been working on the car and driver since January of 2018 to get it into a reliable competitive state.

Preface:
We made some big changes to the car this season going from a super stiff setup with a pm3l to a softer 4 link setup. At COTA the car drove like complete garbage. Richard and I made a trip from Austin to Summit Racing in Dallas Saturday night to pickup more speed parts which only marginally helped the car on Sunday. In between R3 and R4 I found a sizable crack in the driver rear upper control arm mount and called the weekend. A new set of dampers, new springs (again), front ride height adjusters, welding up cracks, fresh brakes, and designing/fabricating a tire rack for the trailer were all wrapped up at about 3am on the Thursday before Hallett.

We were able to test the car on Falken Azenis at MSR-H at a Driver's Edge event where we changes springs and sway bars to understand the effects they would have on the behavior of the car. Learned a lot of valuable information there, led to me ordering even more springs for Hallett. For the first time in a LONG time, the car went back on the trailer without requiring major surgery.

Friday T&T:
We rolled into Hallett mid-morning and were able to get three sessions in on Friday. I ran the Azenis for two sessions - a couple of seconds off the pace. I was having a really hard time getting power down out of the bitch. We removed the rear sway bar to help the axle move, definitely an improvement but not perfect. Scrubbed new tires in the last session to set tire pressures.

Saturday:
Missed warm-up with the HPDE meeting, no biggie. In qualifying we were running COTA RRs, and were a second off the pace placing us 8th for R1. Car still wasn't right, so we decided to drop the panhard bar. Dropping the panhard bar before a race is a risky move, it significantly changes the rear roll center of the car and it's attitude over all. The axle will move a lot more side-to-side, and ultimately caused a slight tire rub for us.

R1 - Got a decent start, minor body contact in T5 on lap 2 (I think). Ended up fighting from the back of the pack for a lower-mid pack finish. Not what I wanted, but puts us in a good position for R2. The car STILL wasn't where I wanted it, so time for more adjustments. Decided to drop the rear spring rate by 25lbs, and raise the rear ride height about .125" to accommodate the softer spring.

R2 - Started in 5th on row three for the rolling start. Got a great start and in a couple of corners ended up in 1st. I had a good battle with an AI car for a lot of the race... (not cool bro). Uneventful drive for a win! Felt good to break our breaking streak finally. Several transmissions, lots of chassis cracks, ignition issues, induction issues... long time coming. All CMC guys know, unreliable equipment ain't no fun.

Night - Awesome brisket from the OIF crew. You haven't had BBQ until you've been to Hallett. The Slip-N-Flip was way too much fun. The Thunder group really makes the Hallett event a blast or was it the rumchata/fireball concoction? Congrats to Record's team for taking the 2019 Slip-N-Flip trophy. I had far too many midnight ribs, and slept far too little on Saturday.

Sunday:
Probably to the benefit of most of the AI/CMC crew, Sunday morning was rained out allowing for more hydration and recovery time from the previous night's antics.

R3 - Cancelled due to thunderstorms. We took this time to check the car over again. Up until this point, we were running tires that were used for one race at COTA. I bolted on the set of sticker tires that were scrubbed on Friday for R4.

R4 - A 40 minute race, longer that I've ever run this CMC car. I got as much fuel as I could into the tank.

We started in P2 behind Michael. Michael and I both got good starts and barreled into T1, where Michael was able to make a move on an AI car. They came out of T1 side by side and I was trapped behind them. I spent the next 10-20 minutes trying to get around this guy, while Michael was opening up a sizable lead. I was eventually able to make move going into the bitch. Jander tried to follow on the inside at the bottom of the bitch, where they touched. I think the AI car got the idea at this point and eased off. Maybe I was too nice, but I really didn't want to hurt the car in such a long race.

Now with clear track ahead I knew I had to run as cleanly and quickly as I could to close the gap. Qual lap after qual lap, Michael was doing the same thing. We worked our way through other traffic fairly quickly without much issue. Once I finally got close enough to make a move, local yellows in T2 and the bitch were really... a bitch. Michael and I were inches apart for what seemed like 100 laps. We took the white flag, and my heart sank. I focused as hard as I could to run a perfect lap, hoping Michael would make a mistake - of course he didn't. Coming up to the bitch for the final time I eek out 105% of the grip the tires have to give and manage to get a run on Michael down the back straight on the inside of the track, I couldn't believe it. Michael expertly chases me down to the white line, we must have been a millimeter apart door-to-door. We're both thinking the same thing, last one to brake wins. Braking later than I ever thought was possible for the final corner I manage to hold my line on the inside and get on the gas early. Full throttle and a half down the front straight for the win. I couldn't believe what had just happened, the flag guy couldn't either.

Hank directed me to the winner circle on the in lap, which really confused me as I was trying to get to impound. None of the spectators were able to see what had happened in the final corner, to their surprise the #50 was queued in the winner's circle. Tyler helped me pin a NASA patch to my brand new suit, which was then promptly doused in champagne. We thankfully came in 66lbs over in impound (DQ for weight is the worst) and passed the track width measurement. Best drive home ever, going to ride this high for quite a while.

Great weekend of racing Thunder, triple thanks to Red Shift. Looking forward to the next event!

- Josh
#50 CMC