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The trip to Road Americe went reasonably well. This was the maiden voyage for our "new" transporter as well as our first race of the season. The trip took about 7 hours one way. We arrived on Saturday during the Driver's school to give ourselves time to sort out the car. We fixed a couple of minor problems and prepared for the race on Sunday. Sunday started out ok. We had 2 qualifying sessions, but no practice sessions. Neither of the qualifyings lasted as long as they were suppose to due to accidents. The first session ended early when an ITS Porsche 944 hit the wall in corner 5, we managed 2 laps before that occurred.
The second session went a bit longer, one of our competitors in C class had a problem. The #66 car a Honda Civic had smoke coming out his back end, so we knew something had let go. Our best lap was a 3:12 which put us starting 4th. The #66 car wasn't able to be repaired in time for the race which moved us up to 3rd starting position.
The rain starting during Group 1's race (we were Group 4). They red flagged the race and allowed 15 minutes to change tires. At that point they announced that all other groups now had their choice of tires to race on. Our car was already up on jacks under the canopy in the paddock area, so now we had to play a waiting game with the weather. The rain was sporadic, but when it came down, it came down in buckets. The track was throughly soaked.
We walked out to the back straight when Group 3 started their race to check the condition of the track, was still pretty wet so we decided to go with our rain tires. Wouldn't you know it stopped raining just as our group was going out. Within 2 laps the race line was dry and we went backwards in position. We finished 6th in class. Not the best we've ever done but we took a chance on the weather and lost. One good point is that we didn't break anything! The last 3 years we raced at this track we broke 1 engine and 2 hubs, so atleast the car stayed together. At 4 miles it is a very long track for us, we plan on doing better at our next race here in September.
We hope no one was discouraged by the results our first race. Our second race was at Gateway, this track has been re-done completely. We did much better there and our fastest lap record (for class C) still stands at the old track.
The whole weekend was miserable weather wise, high humidity and high temps. Standing on asphalt all day didn't help any. As for racing, we qualified 3rd and won 1st place in class on Saturday. Sunday we qualified 2nd, passed the 1st place car and led for 14 laps until the car started overheating and losing power, we ended up 3rd.
Overall the weekend was a success. The new track was great! It has a smooth surface but offers lots of grip. It is also very wide (4-5 cars abreast), lots of room for racing, oversteer is a must. Way more fun than the old track!
At the beginning of the race the "S" and "A" cars took off leaving the rest of the field behind. After 2 laps a major incident occured in corner 5 involving 3 cars. An "A" car suffered heavy damage, causing its fuel tank to split open and catch on fire (driver was ok).
Unfortunately, this happened in front of Tom, having no where else to go he drove through the fire! It didn't even leave a mark on our car! But it did cause the race to make 6 parade laps under double yellow to get the area cleaned up.
With only 4 laps left in the race, Tom started chasing down the lead cars. Then bad luck struck! Our battery broke loose and grounded to the hood, which in turn caused the ignition system to cut out. Tom had to pull off track. We finished 7th.
The second day wasn't as eventful, but we couldn't repair the car properly and once again placed 7th.
