Re: NH damage report
The stars aligned for us this go. Rescue Auto Repair - Team 131 finally lived up to potential. 2/3 of us are fast but stuff always blows up.
We seized a right rear bearing at New Jersey...one day run, Sunday out of it. Wheel not turn....we came in five minutes before the end of day 1, couldn't even nurse it. Car was a two ton paperweight.
Replaced swingarm, bearing, and axle. Still have nightmares about the axle, but can assemble it in the dark by feel now.
At Thompson, we got in early on the "toss a wheel" cool kids activity...and I spent a few hours in the Autozone lot, waiting for the noon warehouse truck to bring a new disc, brake pads, and oh, new wheel bolts-I was supposed to be on Track at that exact time...but got out at the end of the day to see my first checkered of the season, the car was back on track within 20 minutes of my handing off the transplant heart, er, bag of parts. I felt happier about that than I expected to. We finished both days, but it wasn't anywhere high having lost 1/2 of day one.. Still occasional bogs, unknown source..after the race we replaced a fuel pump, replaced rear calipers and installed wheel studs.
In NH, we still had an occasional bog day 1 but after re wiring a control wire, it appears to have gone away day 2, and the fuel pump along with left turns kept the engine fed. The mirror fell down requring our only Paddock trip (zip ties FTW, literally) and I enjoyed the sweet raspberry of the BMW 6 all day as it redlined at the end of the big straight, or sometimes just before braking for the fishbowl. You don't really need a rearview mirror I discovered.
Pit stops were quick and disaster free. Two minor black flags, I overshot turn 1 (blue wing-mustang ahem !) and another driver had a yellow flag pass but no additional activities required by the Judges.
Slow and steady pressure on the pack and we pulled a 9th. The fight for top 5 is F1 on drugs, but normal folks with consistency CAN do a top 10....consistency is HARD. Our breakdowns were all things you couldn't have predicted or prepared for, and we didn't have any significant track contacts...
Of course, now that we've done it, (me, my teammates have tasted the fruit of top ten) it should be easy to do it again, right 