Time to catch up

I have been neglecting this blog as racing has a tendency to suck up time.  There are some truths to racing:

If you have a budget for racing - racing will take your budget + 20%
If you allocate time for your racing - racing will take your time + 20%
If you......well you see where this is going.

So you have two options:
1. Take your budget and before you start, reduce it by 20% and you will end up at the original budget.
2. Time allocated will not change.

So the last 3 years, 2014, 2015 and 2016 were very interesting years.  Some day I will go back and summarize them.  For now I will try to get everyone caught up on 2017.

I took a lot of the car apart over the winter and barely got it together for a NHMS race on Memorial Day weekend.  If not for the fact that my engine decided to lose all of its oil in the last race of the weekend, I would have considered it a minor success.

With 3 weeks in between NHMS and Lime Rock, I was luck to find a used engine from Dan Grace.  Putting the engine in, and doing the things I wanted to do at a relaxed pace (like make a new seat and do all the normal maintenance) ended up being a thrash and I finished the car with no hours to spare.  BTW - Thanks to my wife for being so patient with me...)

Lime Rock started out good, went very downhill Saturday morning and ended up on a high note Saturday afternoon.

Actually I finished 2nd - should have been standing to the right of Tyler Reynolds.  I started last, made my way up to pass Chris Barry.  He made a great move to put me back in 3rd in the uphill, and I squeaked by him by .01 at the line.  

Now why did I start last?  One was a mistake on my part, another was a mistake but  really an issue with me not being familiar with the new (to me) engine.  I dropped out of the qualifying race, even though I had the 4th fastest time.  

So that is the quick summary - the car is still in the trailer, I will take it out soon, check over the condition and then decide on the next plan of action.  I need to get my primary engine together and then I will have the spare destined for my otehr car.  Hmmm there goes the rest of my summer....