Glen PCA race - May/June (continued)

1st practice session was uneventful. This was the first time the car has gone faster than 25 mph since the engine blew up in April. The lap times seemed pretty slow, but I chalked that up to lack of grip on the early damp track and my general rustiness.

2nd and 3rd practice sessions didn't see much improvement, my laptimes were still pretty slow. The car felt kidda gutless. Granted I was running a 2.5L motor instead of the 2.7 I was used to. And I was running at my 2.7 weight - 2750 lbs - which is 150 over what the 2.5 guys are running. That's the equivalent of having a passenger. So I didn't expect to running up front this weekend, but still, 4 seconds off the pace?

Sitting on the grid to take part in the fun race, I idlely played with my quick-release steering wheel. I like to check and double-check that it's locked in place. I remember an incident at Lime Rock years ago when a racer coming thru the downhill turn onto the front straight turned right, but the wheel came off instead and he augered into the wall.

Hmmm, feels like more that the normal play. There's usually a bit of slop but this feels weird. Since having the wheel come off could make a bad day worse, I bailed off the grid and headed back to the paddock. Some mechanical sleuthing revealed the bolts that connected to the quick-release to the hub were too short, only gripping by several threads. And the several years of wear had stripped one of them to the point where it was barely gripping. So a good catch, always listen to that voice in your head: "Check out that loose fit ... Drink more beer ... Kill them all "   Well, maybe don't listen always ...

The nice quys at AtSpeed Motorsports (Thanks Bob!) found me some longer metric screws and I was back in business. I finished in time to head out for dinner and beer with the gang.

Our 3rd practice session served as our qualifying times, so Saturday was 2 sprint races with me starting at the back of the field. In the first race the car was a dog. Absolutely no power. At the starts when everybody was all bunched I moved toward the front, but once the race settled down all that work went down the drain. I could go through the corner with the best of them, but once on the power the hamsters were out to lunch. Everybody would just motor away from me and wave. A couple of laps into the race Tyler Comat and John Bilikas came together in turn 1-2 with John ending up on his roof. Scary stuff. Several laps under yellow kept me in contention but soon it was time for the restart and I assumed my lonely role at the back.

Race 2 was a reply of race 1. One lap of fun at the start, and then a boring drive to the end. I didn't even bother to fight anybody for a position, there was no point. They could just drive by my Yugo with their Cadillac. This royally sucked.  The only exciting part of the race was when I was going up the hill from the toe of the Boot when my right side mount of my Wink mirror broke and swung down and hit me in the helmet. I proceeded to drive up the hill with my right hand supporting the mirror, the left frantically trying to unscrew the left bracket while steering with my knees. That was exciting! Of course I kept my foot to the floor, after all, I drive "Flat Out" :)

Sunday was the 90 minute enduro. 1 minute of exciting start. 5 minutes in the pit. 84 minutes of trying not to be a rolling chicane. I didn't give up trying, I worked my ass off in the car, trying for a perfect lines, but the car gave up trying. I was running 10 seconds off the pace. A consistent 10 seconds off, but even so. Nuff said.

So at the end of the day I rolled the car onto the trailer in one piece. Much better than last year when I got a 13/13. That's the good news. Actually that's not true. There's more. I appreciate how fortunate I am to go racing at all. That's not something available to a lot of folks. I got to hang out with friends and enjoy their company. And not that I mind rain, it was a beautiful weekend at the track. All very good things.

However, I'm just too competitive and if I can't race with a competitive car, there's no point to expending all that time, money and energy. So no more racing until I find out what's wrong with the car. It just wasn't fun.

And for a final perfect touch of the weekend, I had another trailer flat on the way home. This one happend about 5 miles from the flat on the way up. Must be some sort of trailer black hole in Harrisburg.

Time for a nice home brew.  A Tower English Dark Ale is calling my name ...