The Dark Side

Okay, back at the keyboard - need to catch up but it might not bee in chronological order....

So NER and Thompson came up with a great idea of a one-day "regional"  with the last race being a night race.  The oval being used for stock cars was well lit, but there was some work needed to light the road course.  About 20 rented light stands later, they were ready to go.

I got up at 5:30am (remember this) and got on the road around 6:15.  With no traffic on a Saturday morning I found myself pulling into the track around 8:10.  A quick registration, unload the car and get checked at tech (reasons another time) and we were all ready for a 10 am start - well the FV field was.

Sitting on the grid, the workers were running back and forth mumbling something about an ambulance.  Well it turns out the ambulance had not shown up yet.  No ambulance, no start.  Sit in the cars for 15 minutes and an ambulance show up - but not the once we need.  It was BLS not ALS (look it up).  So we wait another 20 minutes before they decide the ambulance is not coming soon, so they send us all back to our trailers.  Where we sit for another 40 minutes.

Finally, around 11:30ish we go out for practice and qualifying.  Pretty uneventful until the last lap where 3 cars get together in the first turn.  2 went home.

Back to the paddock for a nice lunch and rest - oh, did I mention all the Covid restrictions?

The next session was a race - I had qualified 11th out of 20 (now 17) and a new issue - rain was all around.  So drag out the new rain tires as a sign to the rain gods and it must have worked - it rained everywhere but the track.

I start off well - holding my position and hit the bowl in the oval for the first time and hear a bang - not the engine though.  I look over and the LH front tire is leaning over to positive camber at an alarming angle.  So I back off, drop back to the back of the pack and try to figure out what is going on - is the spindle about to break?  Did the sway bar separate?  are the bearing shot?  After a few (many) laps, and convinced the car was not falling apart, I gradually kept going and made up the places to finish - 12th. - 11th in class.

So we were back the paddock and looking for the problem.  Turns out the link pins on the LH side had loosened up just enough to allow the awkward camber.  5 minutes later and all was back in order but how would it run later?

Our race was scheduled for 7:30 (twilight) but the delays pushed it back to 8pm.  It was dark.  My camera of course malfunctioned so I don't have any video but you can get a sense here.

Not our group but another video

Once the race started I took it easy - not too easy but it was clear we were a group that ran about the same speed.  For the first 5 laps I took it easy and learned the track - but staying in the draft of the cars in front.  On lap 6 Kevin and Jason got hung up when Jason lost his clutch.  Then it was on to catch Dan and Jeff.  I got by Dan and immediately Jeff and I came up on William Callahan and split him on the straight while he was trying to get into the pits.  (this would be a lot easier to explain with  video).  Now we were starting to catch traffic and this allowed me to close on Jeff.  I passed him down the straight and began to pull away but now I ran into traffic.  This allowed Jeff to close in on the last lap but I was able to hold him off to take the position by about 1 second.  So started 11, with some bad luck in front of me and some good moves finished 5th.  Nor running with the leaders but thinking the wheel was going to fall off the previous race, I would take it.

We packed up and headed for home and this is when the real fun started.  I told Waze to take me home; little did I know that due to some malfunction, I was heading to Maine!  Yes, Waze had changed my home address to Maine and I lost 20 minutes figuring this out.  By the time I turned navigation over to Siri and Google maps - I got home around 12:30 am - having left the track at 10:30.  I was tired!

So we raced in the dark, the car is in one piece and now it is back to work on car #2.