Team Moonlite Wins E1! And 3rd Overall!
wow....... just wow. who would have ever thought a CMC car would best a Mazda MX5 Cup car? and a Team MER (AKA Jason Sanni - sp?) car at that? he later told us we killed them in the pits.
I was hoping for a podium in class. but to get a 1st in class and a 3rd overall - I am totally shocked. the two cars that beat us overall were the Turbo Miata we all know and love from MSR-C (think BZZZZ) and some spec racer Ford looking thing that was holy shit fast (1:45's). he lapped me like every 3 laps but had to stop way more often. we were 2 laps down overall and 1 lap down from 2nd place.
i got to start by thanking my support crew.
Mitch Warren as Crew Chief - you always do an awesome job.
Al Fernandez and Chris Burton as fuel guys. nice work - no spills!
Steve Mulder as Fireman and general crew duties.
Bryan Lienart as the numbers cruncher and gopher.
Chad - aint touching that last name - as general pit help and gopher.
what an awesome performance by these guys. i cant say enough about how everyone knew what needed to be done and just went at it. no job was too small for them. i am forever in your debt for the lengths you went to make yourselves available for this.
it was also very nice to team up w/ Mike Patterson who did an awesome job driving my car better than me. it was a pleasure teaming up w/ you. i cant wait for the next one.
Mitch and myself spent about 2 weeks meeting for lunch every few days and "running the numbers" to see how our stops were gonna work. we planned for a 4 stop race but knew the first stint was the pivotal stint, it would tell us how the rest of the race would play out for us w/ regards to pit stops. i don’t have the drivers log, but i think w/ got 39 laps on the first tank. it went for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. we knew if we could get it over 55 minutes, we would be on a 3 stop strategy. at one point we asked Mike if he was refining gas in the passenger seat or something. we did pull out a few tricks to get the tank as full as possible and it paid off way more than we had hoped. once we stopped, 10 gallons was put in so we could ensure a no spill stop and to see how long 10 gallons would last - it got us to the 2 hour and 15 minute mark. we also knew from stop 1 that we could get more than 10 in it, so we put 12+ in it while we did a driver swap. that stint took us to the 3.5 hour mark. we only needed 5 gallons to finish but on the 3rd and final stop but we added another 12+ to the tank to ensure we wouldn't come up light. finished the race w/ 3/4 a tank and 40 lbs over the min weight. we had 60 lbs of ballast in the car. we also speculated how many total laps we would run during our almost daily lunch meetings. Mitch guessed 105 to 106. we ran 108. that’s my fault for thinking our pit stops were going to be longer than 2 minutes. my bad.
the car - held up very well. i had an oil leak since the last event and it just kept getting worst and worst. it finally started getting on the clutch. it slipped very badly when i left the pits after stop 2. in fact, i was limping it around in 4th most all the track to help the disc live.
tires - we started the race on a newly heat cycled 4/32 set. we never changed a tire. in fact, the passenger front was the coolest tire on the car. they will get flipped and run for Hallett. water and oil stayed at 175-180 and 235-240 the whole race. nice to finally get my temps under control.
lastly, but not least, the Sponsors.
Moonlite Printing and Graphics (Kevin Turner)
Natwell Weld Supply (Steve Mulder)
PST (AJ is then man)
Argent Lab - the radios worked awesome all 4 hours.
Thanks guys for the support.
