|
Day One - Las Vegas
(Derek Daly Club Course)
"Have a belt of
this!"
Six thirty AM comes
awful early. Unfortunately, Dave and Steve had to do their
hair and such so we didn't get out of the hotel until 7:30am.
After a quick stop at 7-11, it was off to the to track. For
once, we were one of the first teams there. We hooked up the
trailer, unloaded the car and drove it over for tech inspection.
It was at that point, that we had our first OTC 2004 moment...
It seems that in the
NASA rule book for HPDE, cars are not allowed to run with "Y" type
shoulder belts, which our car has. In addition, they wouldn't
pass our fuel cell since it doesn't have a bladder. Now, this
is the exact same car we ran last year, and it was inspected by the
same person both times! After getting bounced, I went to
have a chat with BP. He talked to the NASA folks and they
agreed to allow the fuel cell, but they didn't really want us to run
unless we changed the belts. Since it's Sunday, we were in a
pretty tight bind. At least we had a chance of correcting the
belts. If they had stuck to the book on the fuel cell our OTC
2004 experience would have been over before it started. While
we started thinking about who could pull the belts out of Dave's RX7
in San Diego and drive them up, I hit the paddock to see if anyone
had any spare harness they could loan us. The first person I
asked was Dough Hayashi, who, after getting over his shock of our
car not passing tech, offered to pull out his passenger side belts
for us to use. Brent pulled out the belts in a jiffy and
brought it over to our trailer. We removed the old belts, cut
some sheet metal out of the rear "package tray" and installed the
new belts. After a few adjustments by Ryan of NASA, we were
cleared to run.
Dave went out first
in the second session and the perils of not driving on the track for
a year were immediately evident. Dave had a decent run with a 2:10
time. He also spun the car 180 degrees twice, trying to get
used to driving it again. After Dave's session, we checked
over the car and had lunch.
After lunch, it was
my turn to go our with group two. I was all setup with the
Isaac System and ready to go. If Dave was having trouble
getting up to speed, if was nothing compared to me. Not
driving on the track for a year and hundreds of hours racing indoor
karts did me no good at all. It didn't help that I tried to go
too fast on a new track right out of the gate. I went straight
off with no brakes on the first lap. After that I started to
settle down and learn the track and car. Still, I couldn't get
the right turn at the end of the back straight right. On my
second or third lap, I messed up my entry and spun all the way
around at speed. I got going again but did the same thing five
or six laps later. At the point, I was black flagged (as one
would expect) and had a chat with Ryan from NASA. He's seen me
run plenty before and knows that I don't drive like that so he just
gave me a friendly warning. The session was over by then so I
came back into the paddock and shut down. All in all, it was
the worse session I'd ever run. At least I remembered to put
both feet in as I spun and went straight off without stalling the
car (or destroying the starter). Unlike my spin last year, I
knew these were going to happen and was prepared. My best lap
time was a 2:13, which is better than I expected.
We decided that it
would probably be best if I ran the last session of the day and got
my act together. I went out again and drove slow and careful.
I still had some trouble with that turn off the back straight but no
spins or close calls. I gradually sped up and put together
some decent laps. Most importantly, I got back in the groove
of driving the Pro Chassis car on the racetrack. My best time this
session was a 2:11 and I was holding back a lot.
After the last
session, we loaded up the car, washed up, and hit the road for
Willow Springs. We made a quick stop before getting on the
highway for gas and munches. Traffic out of Las Vegas was
surprisingly light and the drive was uneventful. We're staying
in Mojave this time so the drive to the track will be a little
longer but not too bad. We got in around 9:00pm and found that
the Pulp guys had just gotten there. They took a "short cut"
through Pahrump and Death Valley!
Based on how he looks
in my sunglasses that he's borrowing, Steve is now officially known
as Maverick (or Mav), since he looks like he's ready to fly an F-14
out of Miramar (or an F-18 these days).
The car seems to be
running great, although we're having trouble with the radios.
The new coating on the header keeps things cooler and we're not
working any mechanical or setup issues. The newly redone axle seals
are holding great too.
Unfortunately, some
of the other teams aren't doing so well. Rylan spun a main
engine bearing in his S2000 and after pulling the engine, decided to give
up and go home. Wayne also spun a bearing in his new
Lancer Evo and he's out too. That's a new engine that was just
replaced under warranty by the dealer too... great Mitsubishi
quality! Another one of the Evo's had some kind of sensor
problem that put them out today at least. Johnny's Porsche 944
Turbo was having issues and spitting blue smoke, and I heard that
Coffey's killer Datsun was still having cooling problems. As
we left, we also found out that the number 80 Shelby Cobra was
having rear end problems too. It's going to be an interesting
OTC!
Let me just close
today by stressing what a great guy and gentleman racer Doug is.
He and his Pulp Racing crew are always available to help out and
today, he really saved our bacon. I owe him dinner at the
restaurant of his choice (and I mean ANY restaurant).
|
