The race: Snowed like crazy the morning we left. Roads were starting to get treacherous just as we left, but away from Salt Lake everything was beautiful the rest of the weekend. Car was looking like a glazed donut by the time we got through Nevada.


On track the FX32 was lifting the front corner and spinning out of turns. We had attempted unsuccessfully to modify stiff junkyard spring on all corners but before the race switch back to stock MR2 rears. This cause the rear to really sag under acceleration, and the stiff front springs would cause the car to pivot and lift the inside front. After testing we decided to put AE92 Prizm GSI springs in front, which planted the wheels better, but allowed a lot of roll. You can see the VW Vanagon has less roll than the FX.
Early in day 2, during my stint I noticed the rear temperature starting to fluctuate, indicative of imminent overheating. I brought it in and the stock water pump was leaking. We could not stop it so ran the rest of the day on just the front motor.
We had been moving up on a class win, but with one motor, other cars started move up on us in the standings. As I mentioned previously, there was some drama on the last turn. 40th overall in a field of 174, top 25%, is a great debut.


