There was a ‘malfunction’ in our alarm clock this
morning. It was supposed to go off at
5:45 (it could have been operator error), but luckily somebody had to use the
bathroom only to discover it was 6:45.
We missed breakfast and headed to Gingerman. We got there just about the time that the
first run-groups we getting on the track.
David didn’t have time to take the bike on the track.
It was raining pretty hard for the first run groups that
have the fastest cars and they were exhibiting some of David’s behaviors on our
previous races. Later on the rain diminished
and by the time we ran, the track was fairly dry. It definitely leveled the playing field for
us slower and lower powered cars. David
finished 14!
Our friend Roy had discovered additional problems when he
ran at Mid Ohio after the strut was replaced.
He had also damaged the stabilizer link on that same wheel. He had called BimmerWorld last night on the
east coast and the manager hand delivered the part for overnight shipping. While we were waiting to run, they got a call
that the part had arrived in South Haven so they drove back into town and got
the new part on the car in time to run with us.
He did run the first session but did not do very well. They went back into town to find a repair
shop and determined that the rear link suspension was severely bent. It would not do well under high corner loads
but seemed to be good enough to attempt the drive home. Ray decided to stick around for tomorrow, but
will not do the skid pad.
It rained again over the lunch break but did clear up by the
time the second session started. David
looked good again but since the higher ranked cars had relatively dry surface
he came in 33rd, which is our best finish in an open field.
They opened the track for practice laps and I got to get
some real track time. It was fun, but
being on the track with some of best cars here, I spent a lot of effort
checking the rear view mirror and letting a bunch of cars by on every
straight. I did figure out how to break
the rear end free but all I had to do was slow down to recover.
We drove back to South Bend, jumped in the Jacuzzi and are
headed for a steak dinner.
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