Thank you, thank you, thank you.
To start, it was an early morning. We departed Hillsboro at 6 am. Traffic was light and we made good time arriving just about 9 o'clock for the 10 am tip-off.
Unable to gather local travelers I was able to secure the services of Tony and Ray. Both were comfortable with the cars and the track. Lucky for me with only 6 teams we ran the 6 lane track. I'm a lot sharper on that track than the 8 laner. Also seems to attract fewer riders and less body damage. I felt encouraged. I ran really well channeling my inner smoothness and it didn't seem to matter which lane I was on.
On the plus side, we made no pit stops during the event for repairs or parts replacements. The hand-out motor, though not the fastest, held up well. I would rate both the tires and the braid as both good for 6 hours of running time. At the conclusion it's unlikely either could have gone another heat.
Heats were an hour in length. Another nice bit was that you could swap in a new driver whenever you wanted. Ray was our tough guy slogging an entire hour on one occasion. Tony and I were happy to swap out at about the halfway mark. Don't think I drove more than 35 minutes at any one stretch. So we kept rotating and keeping the pressure on. We also grabbed a good corner to work saving more wear and tear - so no running to the center.
We seemed to latch onto the third slot pretty quickly into the race driving against the typical Tacoma hot shoes.
During the 5th heat we could hear the gear starting to get a little loose - the mild grind on deceleration... But we stayed with it and it held up for the duration. Teams were close enough that a 5 - 10 minute parts swap would cost a position you probably couldn't get back.
As for the motors - not a single motor swap was registered. Let me repeat that for effect. Not a single motor went off.
Cars were dyno'd at the start and end. By Alan's numbers, all were pretty close at the start and no motor suffered any drop off during the race. Dyno at the end showed one motor the same but the other five had increased slightly. Ours was one of the increasers and it clearly improved during the second hour.
History... at one point I had to encourage Tony to give 'em the old BUSO. We enjoyed a mild chuckle but no BUSO was given.
Big thanks to Tony who did the car setup including a few last minute adjustments to get us on point. And thanks to Ray who provided a wonderful controller. We stayed on it the entire race. It felt fantastic. I don't think I can afford one...
Alan provided live video during the event and otherwise ran the race without competing.
All teams had three racers except the two PSSRA teams (BRUMOS). They had five racers split between two teams so there was some shuffle going on.
At the conclusion Alan pulled out a big box and each team could reach in and make a grab bag find. Ray had already left so Tony gave me the honor. I reached in and pulled out a new BRM Porsche 911 GT1 in orange. It will probably make it's way to a track soon.
By 5 pm we were headed to the beach. Smiling.
in my opinion this race came off like you would hope. No delays, no computer gremlins, excellent weather.
And don't forget about Jimmy John's - they deliver!
The 24 hour race is scheduled for November. Let's get the team together!
"Big Smooth"
