Thursday, 9 May - Mid Ohio

Yesterday was the Mid Ohio Race Course.  It’s a nice wide track.  The best thing was the garages that were available.  It got us inside and out of the sun.  There were big long benches to store our gear and we had power to charge up all our electronics.

In the morning session, our run group was just us and two other BMW E36’s.  We’ve gotten be good friends with both of them.  There’s an M-3 Sedan from the Hallet Race Track in Oklahoma, that we visited two years ago and an M-3 Coupe from Massachusetts, that we’d raced with on the previous two One Lap’s that we’ve been in.  As we decided on our order, someone suggested the sequence of red/white/blue.  We talked to the starter and said we wanted some photos on the track so he agreed to release all three cars at the same time for the re-con lap.  Hopefully, the professional photographers got some good ones.

Unfortunately, Roy, who is in the blue car was trying out some advice on how to take a corner in the ‘esses’ where you come up over the rise, take a hard turn to the inside, and then as the car starts to slide and come around, he’d be headed directly for the next corner.  Ray later said that the car started it’s slide, but just kept going……  He hit the wall on the right side and the front wheel took most of the impact.

He got to the starting line, but knew something was wrong and he left the track before the start.

On David’s first lap, he must have wondered where Ray was, because in one of the more technical sequence of corners, he turned the car around to see if Ray was back there.  Since he wasn’t there, he just kept the car turning until it headed forward again and continued one.  He later explained it was something he’d seen on TV called the “Danny Sullivan Spin and Win”.  He still had a fairly good run.

That cloud of dust belongs to us!

We spent the noon hour helping out on Rays car.  His front strut was damaged.  One of the drivers who had already sent his car home (a TDI with a blown engine) owns a speed shop and, with enough borrowed tools, was able to get the damaged parts off.  We finally found a part in Columbus, and a volunteer took Ray down there and got back to the track 3 hours later.  They re-assembled the car and got it back on the track just before it closed at 3:30.

David’s second run was a lot better.  He says that he’s finally getting the hang of it.  (I think that means he’s always keeping the car pointed forward…….)

We had to make a Passage Control stop at Design Engineering where all our cars were put on display.  They fed us and we left.  We went to our hotel in South Bend instead of near the Michigan track at South Haven.  Gingerman Race Track I is only and hour north of there so we get to stay in the same hotel two nights in a row.  We got to the hotel in time to enjoy a decent meal.