On Sunday morning, Ewan went first. While it was still overcast and the track was moist, it was not raining and the sun was peeking in under the clouds. Ewan had another good drive. He had a fast lap of 2:15 and got us into 42nd place. While Ewan was out there, there was a full course yellow that lasted about 15 minutes. Ewan came in once after touching the wall on the front straight with the sideview mirror. He self reported but no one had seen it so no black flag. About 1:15 into his stint, leaving the esses he failed to see a yellow flag and passed several cars and got blacked flagged. He decided to come in after visiting the judges.
Dennis went next. He started in 48th and worked his way up to 42nd again. Along the way he had a fast lap of 2:14.3! He had consistent green flag racing with no hiccups.
After Dennis it was my turn. Since Ewan had come in a little early and since the race is a bit longer on Sunday I was going to try to stretch past an hour and a half. I went out in 42nd place and got us into 40th. I had about a 15 minute battle with a Honda S2000 that was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I went out with an empty camelback. I went as long as I could like that, but in 30 minutes I was dying of thirst so I came in for a fill up. Back out and and had green flag until about 1 hour 40 into my stint in turn 11 then in turn 7 had fuel starving, and decided that I didn’t want to run out of gas and get towed in. So I brought it in. Oddly we added only about 13 gallons to out 17 gallon tank. I’m planning on added a Holley Hydramat to fix the fuel starving issue so we can go longer than 1:40 in a stint. My fast lap was a 2:16, no very quick.
Jason went last and brought us home, from 42nd down to 39th place. He had two hours until the green flag, and based on my drive we planned for him to come in to the gas pump for a splash and go at about 1:10 minutes. Unfortunately someone broke down on the pit entrance lane, keeping Jason stuck there waiting to get off the track. Back out he had a 10 minute full course yellow, but he brought it home with no damage. We finished in 39th overall and 19th in B class. Jason had a smoking 2:12.6 fast lap. That’s our track record for the long turn 11 track. I call this an excellent result for us. Consider that we did not hot pit, which cost us an extra 5-10 minutes per stop, that’s like 45 minutes of lost track time. Hot pitting is just so much work, we chose not to because it makes the race more fun and less work.
I already have a to do list for the next race. Holley Hydramat which will require dropping the gas tank. I noticed that each of us had some trouble finding 3rd coming out of turn 11. So I will replace and reinforce all the motor and trans mounts and replace the shift bushings. I also need to re-do the wing support cross braces, which came loose.
PicknPull Racing 