Thanks to all that shared their concerns, we are all, alright,,, from our log
Day Six ¡V Deja Varoom,,,,,, And Mister Toad¡¦s Wild Ride
Skinny ¡V Slicks are holding out, car is killer, team is strong, we¡¦re moving up, Rupert regains the Spin King title but not before Greg and Mark try one of their own. Review of the posted results in the morning confirms we¡¦ve moved from 10th to 7th overall. We hear Wayne¡¦s Porsche 944 turbo is history due to an overheating problem. Doug has new injectors after visiting Comptech last night, at the driver¡¦s meeting he says he hopes it first up, it does and it looks strong.
We arrive at 6:30 and begin setting up camp, which by now is automatic.
We all have our assigned jobs, MA finds a great place to set up and then checks the scores, MB looks for the biggest cup of coffee made within 50 miles and Greg turns on the music and tries to find everything he put away and forgot the location of ƒº. Roll out music for today by, ¡§The Royal Scottish Bagpipe Brigrade¡¨. Camp is fully functional by 7:30.
As I am typing this we roll the rig so I¡¦ll have to finish this later ,,, aaaahhhh,,, we¡¦re ping pong balls in the lotto machine¡K¡K¡K¡K..
Deep breath, back to the story, let¡¦s see what I remember ¡K¡K¡K.
Button Willow counter-clockwise, deja vue, we been here before, but today we go the oppsite way around the course. I¡¦m a little more hopeful as this is the direction we practiced three weeks ago but in the back of my mind is my little learning experience with the front straight-away wall. We decide to ride together for the first few laps to orient ourselves to today¡¦s challenge. We¡¦re not using the bus stop so the speeds on the back straight will approach 140. We check the pads again, remarkably the Carbotech pads show little wear to this point.We¡¦re still running 50/50 bias on the Brembo kit with no sign of rear lock up.
Our recon runs go smoothly until I apply to much power in the decreasing radius hairpin and spin out, a scene that will be repeated by many on the day.
Rules dictate that if you spin you can¡¦t carry passangers any more that day so I drop Mark off in the hot pits and head out to set a mark for him to shoot at. Our times are close to Doug¡¦s so we decide to push a bit more¡K¡K¡K..
We decide to add more cooling power to the intercooler and increase the boost a bit with a smaller pully and hotter chip. Its nice to be able to try different combinations and make adjustments on the fly, of course you better have someone along who knows what they¡¦re doing and we do ƒº Mark posts some really good times and keeps the pressure on so team 55 puts Eric in the car with instructions to get us, he does but blows the engine in the process, they head back to LA to install a new one, I was sure they had one in the spare parts van they brought along but I am wrong. They work all night AND in the back of the trailer on the way back to Vegas,,, they¡¦ll be getting the HARD LUCK AWARD for sure,,, but wait,,,,,,,,
We decide to bag the last session and head out early as we¡¦re all tired and we have 335 miles to go, boy a shower will feel good. Traffic thru Bakersfield is heavy and slow but the pace picks up out of town. Our route is Hwy 58 through the Tehachapi pass. As we approach we notice all of the windmills are working except three, the Suburban climbs the hill easily and as we crest the hill the combination of a strong tailwind and downhill grade almost instantly increases our speed. Mark A. is lying down asleep in the back seat (no seat belt), I am in the passanger seat typing the earlier part of this note and Mark B is heading down hill when the trailer puhses the rear of the surban to the side, we do one waggle and then another of a larger maginatude, Mark A wakes up, we all now now we are pointed off the road with no chance of recovery. I cinch my seat belt, Mark A rolls into a ball and Mark B utters a few words appropriate for the situation. We avoid other cars around us and leave the road cleanly, things are clear as we go inverted and then the dust and gravel obscure vision. When the motion and sound stop we all determine each other is alive and begin to take stock, my door opens easily so I get out to check for fire, none. Get everone out and sit down. I almost didn¡¦t notice that the barbed wire wrapped around the truck ripped across my cheek as I exited, better get some long pants, gloves and wire cutters first. Mark B is in danger of going into shock, perhaps with a few craked ribs and needs to sit down, Mark A begins to handle all of the good people that have stopped to help. Police arrive in 15 minutes, ambulance in another 15 and wreckers in another 30. One of the OTC cars sees what they believe is a trailer in the revine and calls back to Paul Mumpford who is towing a large trailer empty except for a load of Viper tires.
Knowing the the Surban is probably headed off to the great resting ground we separate all of our belongings, now what about the race car, doesn¡¦t look good front the out side, I cut the cables holding the door and we force it open to find the car hanging from the inverted floor, good job of cross tying guys!
The car has not even shifted enough to contact the sides where there was 4¡¨ clearance when loaded. A few fluids are leaking, darn we just put new Mobile 1 in that morning. We pull out the tires and EazyUps to get a better view, I looks unscratched, team huddle, do we race? We all agree we HAVE to finish this thing, that¡¦s the plan now how to make it happen. Paul shows up at the instant, he claims he¡¦s not an angel but we know differently. We decide to take the car and trailer on the flatbed to Mojave and unload and reload there. One last bit of excitement, as the flatbed backs up he crosses the railraod tracks and gets stuck, of course, around the corner comes a loaded freighttrain, downhill, horn blowing, I am sure I will see the most spatacular NSX crash ever so I whip out the camera and get the closing shots, the flatbed driver manages to get free just in time; we¡¦re on our way to Vegas, everyone wonders if we should bet big or not at all, have we used up our luck or are we the luckiest guys in the world right now¡K¡K¡K.
