The 24 hour period from late Thursday to late Friday was a bit of a rollercoaster for me. Had a bolt back out in the trans that wouldn't allow me to get any gears in the center or right gate. That was repaired and we got the trans back into the car at about 12:30 after attending the Mazda party for a bit.
When I went out for my hardship lap, second gear was junk. I brought the car back to the paddock, parked it and changed clothes to go to work. Told Jesse P and Dan from Brass Monkey that I was done--no time to change the trans.
Ron Olsen from Barrington Performance (the builder of the trans) texted me that he had a spare, and Jesse called to say that they were already taking mine out. About and hour and a half later, Jesse called to say that he had just driven the car around the paddock and it was good to go. Obviously, I would have never made the race if those guys wouldn't have jumped in to do that so I'm grateful.
The loaner box had different gears in it than mine. They were close but not identical and that proved to be a challenge running in traffic. I was often between gears coming out of corners, especially 1, 6 and 12. By myself not too bad but not good in traffic.
The pace car was going a pretty good clip. About 58 mph which is faster than what I'm used to. and that was wound out in 1st in this box. Steve accelerated faster than that when the PC left us as it wasn't in his power band. I accelerated to match that and had to go to 2nd. Just as I hit 2nd the green came out and I got a nice jump. Half way from the start line to pit out, Kevin gave me a big shove and it was enough to clear Steve and take the inside into 1.
I led through three and Steve had the run going into 5. I've had people do the over/under on me in 5 and take friends with them so I decided to not block and try it myself. Well it didn't work out as Steve took Ken with him.
From there, Ken, Kevin and I fought back and forth. It was good fun but frustrating as we watched Steve getting away little by little.
At one point I did the old 2-1 upshift in 13 and that got me all discombobulated. As I was going through remedial stick shift school, Ken went to the outside in 14 and Kevin to the inside. Sorry about that guys. I needed to reboot. That really let Steve get away.
Ken and I were nose to tail when his throttle body broke. Not sure what he's done, but he might talk to JP about it as he seems to have a pretty solid program on our motors.
The next lap, I believe, was my fastest in clean air. At the same time, my brake pedal had gone soft. Need to work on more ducting. I think being stuffed up behind Ken and Kevin for so long may have been part of the issue as well. Steve was probably 10 seconds ahead and even though we were matching times for a couple laps, I needed to start braking a little early to make the finish and that sealed it. Kevin disappeared at some point as well. Sorry to see that too.
From there I just watched around every corner to see if Steve's bad luck would continue, but it didn't and that's good for him. He probably should have won the last 4 of these now going back to the last at HPT so he was due.
My car was really good. It handled very well. The obligatory product thanks go out to Hoosier Tires and their great radial. I built this car around them. Penske shocks, OS Giken differential, Hawk brakes, Barrington performance transmission (yes we had some development this year, but it shifted great in the race). Thanks Jesse Prather Motorsports, Brass Monkey Racing, Mazda and most of all my family. Its not advisable to build two race cars in two successive winters--especially when your wife is pregnant and you subsequently have an infant!
