Our Lady Barber Race Report!

Always good to see Our Lady out and about.  Nice recap.  see you at CMP.

That was Mark making a poor decision on our part.  Didn't sound too egregious over the radio, so we told him to wait it out to see if someone noticed.  Our cavalcade of mechanical failures started shortly afterwards.  Sorry we didn't get over there to deliver our mea culpa in person.

I felt terrible watching you guys race. I mean, you were fast and clean, and good guys, and you used to build that cool dome thing; but we were racing against you and you were obviously faster than us. So every time you came off track for a flag or mechanical, while I should have felt bad for you, because you were good guys, and you have a cool car, and were racing well and stuff, I could only cackle with glee because we were going to get a chance to pass you. As the race wore on and it became apparent that one of us could win it, it got much worse. Cackling turned into jumping up and down, fist pumps, and loud exclamations of joy at your misfortune. At one point I was putting the finishing touches on a banner that said "WE SUCK LESS THAN OLPD!" and my teammates intervened, probably for the best. It would have been a far better thing for me if you had won it and saved me from having to face the unpleasant realization that I am a fundamentally bad person. Damn you!

Yeah Craig, our team needs better communications. In the last hour or so, I didn't know that you had pitted for gas and that we had a comfortable lead, so I was really sweating it when you came out of apparent fuel conservation mode and started passing me. All Robert could do was send me beeping noises on the radio that either meant "QUIT LETTING CRAIG PASS YOU, DUMBASS!" or "QUIT TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH CRAIG, DUMBASS! WE'RE AHEAD BY 5 LAPS AND WE CAN WIN THIS THING IF YOU DON'T SCREW IT UP BY GETTING ALL RACECAR OUT THERE!".  He did send an excessive amount of beeping noises though, so I figured it was the latter.

We had a similar situation at Sebring when the transmission on the Focus that was leading our class died and Robert suddenly found himself in P1 with a 54-minute lead over the P2 car in the last session on Sunday. Of course we could have just had him black flagged at the 50 minute mark, but we do like our seat time.

I think some combination of radio beeping and a pit board with a +/- and lap numbers would be simple enough. Ricky actually made the board at Barber just to try to let me know, but I wasn't looking for it because I was too busy looking for a blue Del Sol in my mirrors.

Curiosity question for you Craig; when I was coming out of the last turn behind you in the last part of the race and flew past you coming down the front straight, were you just coasting to mess with me? I remember thinking "Why isn't he on throttle?" and wondering if your car was broken. Shortly after that you passed me and left me behind, answering the car broken question.

It was working for a bit until the team started beeping me frantically. We had pre-arranged that a beep would mean that I was in the lead and that I could take it easy and go in to "stay out of trouble" mode.  After our last pit stop, I thought that I'd have to catch you to retake the lead, but we got a driver change and fueling done in 2 minutes, so we came out still 2 laps ahead, and the team gave me the beep immediately. I didn't understand it at the time (we'd never done a pit stop that quickly before), but I continued at a medium-fast pace. We knew from spying on your teammates that you were in a tight fuel situation and would have to take it easy to finish without a stop, so I saw you ahead of me and took advantage of your situation to put another lap on you. Then I figured I just had to keep you from passing me twice before the checker and we were good. When you passed me later and we started swapping positions, I was a little confused because you were no longer driving like someone who is concerned about fuel, so I started to get a little nervous and sped up, at which point the rest of the team, who could see that we were 5 laps out in front, began beeping me continuously until I slowed down. I didn't see you again, but I was worried about it the whole time. I can't describe my happiness at the long double-yellow at the end. I was praying that it would last until the checker so I didn't have to try to stay ahead of you. I still wasn't sure that we had won when I finished, and it was my first question when I came off track.