Weekend highs and lows

[Alien]

I'm sure I'm one of them ^^^^

Spent the 2 weeks prior fighting to get spring spacers installed, doing a brake job and installing my first set of real race pads amonst general prep. Thursday night, get the final touches done, hook up swaybar... can't find one rubber endlink bushing. Ugh.

Backtrack to previous Monday: Bought a 01 GMC 2500HD so I wouldn't have to listen to Boudy say "He's towing a CMC car with a Ranger?!?! I GOTTA see this!"

Friday: I had already arranged to take my brothers F-150 and wanted to some basic maintinence before towing wik the HD. Go to hook up the trailer, turns out all I have are drop hitches that end up dragging on the driveway. Oops. End up bringing the trailer back home behind the Ranger and hooked it up to the HD. Friday morning comes around, planning on leaving ealry, but now the HD is completely dead, won't even jump. Goto NTB, new battery, truck starts, won't move, trailer brakes engaged. Ugh. A quick rewire to disconnect the constant hot to the brakes. Hope nothing on the trailer got messed up having the brakes engaged all night. Get loaded up, head out after a quick stop to grab some endlinks.

Saturday: Glenn asks Burch who's going to be the one to give me my first donut. I decided to do that myself. During practice going into one, see a car (Chris?) way off drivers right, let up, slight brakes, back end comes around in a hurry. Decide not to be a hero, last thing I want is to go sliding into a car that's already hurt. Off I go sliding sideways in the grass drivers left to thank the corner 2 workers. Car stops after the length of the passenger side gently kisses the tire wall at the corner station. Back to paddock, no damage except a small crease in the front fender and a minor dent.

The rest of the weekend went well. Was sure to let both cars by if they were fighting for position. Got permission to take off the Rookie aarRrg's (Whoop!). Times dropped from 2:14s during practice to 2:06s during the 40. Slowly getting faster, and having a blast doing it. This is an awesome group.

[mitchntx]

Your car looked really good on track. I raced with you a couple laps and had no issues at all. Great job!

[Al Fernandez]

Holy shit Gary, that is a HUGE jump. Congratulations!!!!

[michaelmosty]

What a great weekend!!
I ran the Friday HH and the car felt good but didn't turn left as good as I wanted. Made a right side camber adjustment Friday night and the car felt great on Saturday.

R1 - Qualified 5th and was ready for the usual dog fight during the race. As the green flag dropped I quickly realized I made a terrible gear selection (3rd) as I dropped back to 7th place. The first few laps of the race were intense with Morgan in front of me and Proctor hot on my tail. I tried to pick my spot to get around Morgan while seeing James get very close in my mirror. Unfortunately I had a front row seat for Morgan's off in T7 as he shot off the track. With a 1/2 lap to go Mitch gave me a point-by to try and catch Al who was about 10 cars in front of me. Going into the carousel Al slid WAY out and caught it just in time to stay in front of me. Al, having a wheel hub failure, then slid wide in T13 and also T14 as I got past heading onto the straight for the checker for 5th.

R2 - I got a great jump and cut down to the flat for a great drag race with Jerry all the way down the straight. I went through T1 with James in the lead and Glenn behind him. Glenn made a mistake goint into T8 and I got around him at T9. Later Wirtz got a run on me going down the front straight and we went side-by-side through T1 + T2 and he edged me out going into T3. Now in 3rd I had Glenn right behind me. Coming out of T4 the unthinkable happened. Can you believe Glenn actually bumped me from behind!! I couldn't believe it. :lol: It was a tight race to the finish with the top 5 cars all less than 2 seconds apart!!!!

R3 - We had an amazing 5-car CMC battle with all cars nose to tail until......the ASC cars came into play. One ASC spun and decided to rejoin the race right in the middle of us. Another one decided to park his car in every corner to look at the flowers. It sucked seeing the ASC plowing into JB and him eventually retiring from the race.

Enduro - Marshall had an amazing start and went from 7th to 3rd in the first turn!! We had planned for 1 hour sessions to space things our and maximize our enjoyment for the race. Marshall came in a little after 1 hour for the driver change and said the motor is not well, do your best. When I got out on track I quickly realized it was not healthy and way down on power. I also realized the power steering was starting to feel stiff and was not always there. I pulled in after 35 minutes concerned with the motor and asked Marshall if he wanted to continue. He jumped back in the car and drove for another 45 minutes until his arms felt like jello. I then got back in the car and unfortunately it felt just like I remembered. My first hot lap out had Liebbe's car right behind me and I actually gave them a point-by on the front straight (and I didn't lift). After 45 minutes I gave the car back to Marshall to bring it home. We finished the race and it felt great.

I told Marshall CMC cars feel like a street car with parts on them. This AI car felt like a true machine. What an amazing experience!!

All in all it was some of the best racing I have been a part of yet!! I can't wait to get to Hallett and have another go at it.

[oz98cobra]

...

I told Marshall CMC cars feel like a street car with parts on them. This AI car felt like a true machine. What an amazing experience!!

....

So does this mean you might turn your car into a "true machine" and come race AI in 09? :wink:

[Wirtz]

I'm kind of bummed there have not been more videos posted. There looked to be great racing all over the track, and my buzz is starting to wear off.

Post em if you got em.

Jeff

[David Love AI27]

I gotta say we had lots of lows but they were over shadowed by the highs...

Screw the lows... Jason got his first starts in R1 and 2 with a 1st place finish in R2... Nick Runyon joined us in the enduro after running the sprint races in a RX7... Thanks to the 3rd gen guys for pointing out the out the necessity of an air dam to push air up to the radiator... Son in law Adam and Jason fabricated new air dam lowering temps from 260+ to less than 200 in the enduro... We had a great time with family and friends... My lack of prep for the enduro was evident when I noticed our empty pit stall for the first 20 min. We had to deal with dragging exhaust, over heating, oil leaks, poor preparation and broken panhard bar, but it was great to have fun with family and friends... more details to come...

[AllZWay]

I'm kind of bummed there have not been more videos posted. There looked to be great racing all over the track, and my buzz is starting to wear off.

Post em if you got em.

Jeff

I cut these last night and they are just raw video with a few cuts to shorten some, but they are all big files.

So Right Click...save as:

http://www.sulphurrivertrails.com/vi...WS_R1_0408.wmv
This video has some good racing with Al, Morgan, Michael with Morgan's off in R1.

http://www.sulphurrivertrails.com/vi...WS_R2_0408.wmv
This video is the first lap and the last lap only of R2.

http://www.sulphurrivertrails.com/vi...WS_R3_0408.wmv
This video is really big and has lots of good racing with Al, and then good racing between Steve and Mitch.

[michaelmosty]

...

I told Marshall CMC cars feel like a street car with parts on them. This AI car felt like a true machine. What an amazing experience!!

....

So does this mean you might turn your car into a "true machine" and come race AI in 09? :wink:

No can do, CMC has been incredible and keeps getting better!!! I'll just have to make a deal w/ Marshall to let me drive his car once or twice a year.

[oz98cobra]

Good idea! Drive as 2 driver teams in both classes - that way you will feed off each other as drivers and get faster, plus you will always have something to drive if one car breaks?