We did the event. Got 3rd place, mostly 'cause not too many others showed up. Qualified 13th out of 13. That's right, they ran qualifying laps during Friday's night practice to determine the grid for saturday's start. Pretty cool.
The NL folks and UC people were nice to us. Our seat back brace failed tech (wait, what, we need a seat brace?). After we ran to Summit racing and totally struck out there on a seat brace, we were helped out by the track tech barn w/ the use of their MIG and scrap metal pile. I know they can't be that generous to everybody when there are 120 cars in the race, but they were able to save our bacon this time, and we do appreciate it.
In NL tradition, the weather was hot Friday, then rainy, then cold and windy overnight, cold & gray saturday, clear sat night, then sunny & mild sunday. The Junk Player team had track tires, rain tires and snow tires. They are locals, so maybe we need to bring snows to the next race.
The racing was clean & safe. There were some seriously fast cars (volvo turbo, DSM turbo, V6 fireo) and some not so fast cars (us), so we gave point-bys and got a few point-bys.
I got a front row seat for the classic slow car/fast car corner collision. Slow car tries to maximize momentum through the turn by going extra wide at entry before arcing all the way in to early apex, and fast car takes that as an invitation to cut inside. Slow car turns in for apex, and collects the fast car that coming inside. Oops. Luckily, I didn't get involved, and was able to squirt through the hole after they spun apart.
And thanks the M3R car for opening up that dang tire pinch at carousel exit. Sorry to hear it tore up the car so bad.
The race organizers say they will definitely hold the UsedCar race twice next year, spring & fall. We will be there, it's close, the price is reasonable, and its a real 24 hour race. I hope to see a few more lemoneers there.
Jim C.
If God meant for us to race, we'd all have baggy Nomex skin.
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