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We got here about 1:30am
and the wind was fierce. The 55 gallon drums the track uses as trash
cans were blowing over and rolling around. We found Rylan's S2000 in
an unfortunate state of disrepair:
Bryan and I thought
about all kinds of evil, funny things we could do to Rylan's car, but
ultimately we figured he had done enough evil and unfunny things to
the car himself. He did say he got 64,000 racing miles out of the engine
before it spun the bearings.
The
S2K engine is not normally a stationary power source.
We climbed
into the camper to get some sleep before the racing begins in 6 hours.6:00
am and we're up, showering (I think), unloading the car, setting things
up, and doing the first of 6 unpackings we're looking forward too during
the next week. Our girlfriends (Floris and Dara) are supposed to come
out and meet us this morning and be our cheering section. They also
check tire temps, tire pressure, and make us lunch. It doesn't sound
like much but its a big help. Bryan's girlfriend Dara autocrosses and
always wants to race (and beat) Bryan. Here' she's trying to put a lap
on him on my "Mini Bike of Death."
Bryan
just twitched the car right and she was left on the ground in a bloody
pulp. Girlfriend or not, this is racing.
We were
pretty busy getting the car setup and trying to solve the cooling problems
that I though I've solved three times before. I didn't have time to
take many pictures. Wayne Mellow running his EVO8 in T3 blew the motor
(again) in the first session. Unfortunately, Rick White, Wayne's co-driver,
was driving the car at the time. Rick was also driving Wayne's EVO when
he backed it into the Buttonwillow pit wall during one of their pre-OTC
test sessions. And, Rick broke our little magnetic mirror when he borrowed
it to check out the spun bearing in the EVO bottom end. Careful about
letting Rick drive your car... :-)
The rumored
killer EVO8 tuned by Shiv at Vishnu and driven by SCCA WC driver Ken
Dobson showed up. They broke in the second session before setting any
fast laps. That's 2 dead EVOs out of 5 and we haven't even completed
2 session yet. I'm not worried about EVOs anymore.
John
Dearing threw down some very fast laps in his Viper GTS and Doug Hayashi
couldn't cover Dearing's times because he was busy burning his rear
bumper cover. A hot dog was added for effect and remained there the
entire event. The wire ties would melt off after another fire but the
hot dog survived.
I
was willing to pay anyone $20 to eat the dog, no one took me up on the
offer.
Dearing's
series of 1:54s had everyone covered and Doug Hayashi felt that he couldn't
catch him, so the Pulp Racing crew packed up early and left by 1:30pm.
They had some kind of irrational fear of the Las Vegas traffic and decided
to leave early and go to Willow Springs in Rosamond by way of Death
Valley...? It took them 9 hours! It took us 5 traveling at 60mph the
whole way.
But,
Mr. Hayashi-san miscalculated. He didn't take the Rusty Old Datsun seriously.
Bryan went out in the third and fourth sessions and laid down a series
of low 1:56s and we almost took second place overall away from the Pulp
Racing crew. Unfortunately, our overheating issue kept Bryan from running
more then 5 minutes at a time. The Pulp Racing team still had second
place, but only by .620 seconds.
We packed
up and had dinner with the girls at Buffalo Bills at Stateline and then
drove to Willow Springs.
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