Great Weekend at the Glen!

Wow! Too much fun! But when is Watkins Glen not fun?

Friday practice was pretty rough. First race weekend and first time at the Glen in a year. Times were bad in the morning but during the practice starts and the fun race I picked it up a little.

I placed 8th in Sprint 1 and 5th in Sprint 2. Not too bad. The hometown boys have a pretty big advantage up there. Track time is everything! I wish I could get there more.

The enduro was a blast for about an hour then things went bad. I battled it out with number 277 and number 112 for the first 35 minutes. Loads of fun. I learned a whole lot chasing those guys. Watching them really helped me clean up my line in T8 and 9. I was really hitting the bus stop well also.

Highlights coming soon!

Here's a video of my mishap in the Toe:

http://www.vimeo.com/12175605

THE GLEN!!!!

4 DAYS!!!!

I'm gettin there!

Great weekend with Schatt at SP main. The morning sessions were run in the mid-70's which is just beautiful for an air-cooled car. I decided to put on my sticker Hoos to see if they would improve things. Since I broke my video camera on Saturday and no one put up a beacon I didn't get any lap times for the first run. I can say this, the new tires fixed all kinds of issues from Saturday. Particularly turn 3. I couldn't hit 3 comfortably all day on Saturday. New tires and all my troubles went away. Hoosiers are crack cocaine plain and simple. The first session felt really really good.

I did get some times from the second session and am very pleased with the results. I had a few clear laps and put together some laps back to back in the mid- 1:26's. That's good for now. On any given day the track can vary time wise, particularly after a big rain, so I'm pretty happy at the moment.

The bad news is that I went too deep trying to chase a screaming BMW into turn 1 and flat spotted the heck out of one of my 2 heat cycle old Hoosiers. At least it was only one and at least I stayed in the turn and not the gravel.

Overall, good result even if it ended early.

Back on track!

FATT on Friday and 2 days with Schatt at Summit Point Main. So far so good. The car defintely feels stiff. Real stiff.

Ride height is lowered. Real low! CV boots are rubbing a little. Now you might think that would mean raising the ride height. Not when you are talking to a race mechanic! A race mechanic gets a hammer, a big one, and a punch and just starts banging away until the offending piece of bodywork is beaten out of the way.

Softened the front sway a touch. The track feels a little slippery after then huge rain a few days ago so my understeer may go away as more rudder gets ground in.

I was hoping to see some better times but it may take a few more track days to dial it in and learn the new setup.

Big thanks to Marc Francis from OG Racing for the shop gloves!

It Lives!

Finally done! My buddy Jeff doggedly spent 3 weekends rebuilding my transmission and installing my LSD. Thank you Jeff!

Now I'll have to get used to driving with the LSD. Hard to feel the difference on the street without driving like a crazy person. I try to avoid that in a bright red car with numbers on it and minimal muffling!

3rd gear feels great. I should say it feels normal which is a good thing.

The car is now at Performance Auto Works at Summit Point getting the front shocks and torsion bars installed. I need camber plates to fit the new front shocks but thankfully this year they are allowed in PCA stock classes.

The new tail doesn't quite fit but I'm sure they can massage it into place.

One week to go for my first track event of the year!