We'll jump ahead a bit, so Jabaay gets material to do the cage. Now it is time to "buckle down" and make things happen. Travis and I pulled the drivetrain to do maintenance/upgrades to the motor and transmission. The process probably took longer than it should. But, the scheduling worked out with getting the car to Chicago.
I took the car up on a Sunday and dropped it off with Kyle. We went and got pizza at some local joint. In one week's time, Adam and Kyle had the whole cage done! That was huge progress, but time was still limited. Also, the van wasn't running, so Travis was nice enough to let me drive his huge rig!
Once the car was home, I had a lot of work ahead of me. Paint the cage, wire transponder/kill switch/etc, run the fire system, the list went on. With a son that isn't even a year old yet, it really tests your patience because you don't think that you're holding up your side of the parenting agreement.
The last two weeks were short of hell in a basket. Every night, I was up until midnight at least. I was heading to St. Louis on Friday and the car was to be tuned in Chicago on that Wednesday. I ended up taking a half day on Tuesday just to make sure the car was "good to go". I got up to Chicago and the Hondata was good, but the ecu was junk. Luckily, Mikey came through and let me borrow an ecu with S300 on it. After many pulls, the tune was done, and I was headed home, late of course.
I left work around noon on Friday to go get the van/trailer and car to head out west. The drive out was pretty smooth, just some construction here and there. I was pretty nervous considering the last time that I really drove the car was the NSXpo trip mentioned at the beginning. So, it'd been about a year and a half since I had really ripped on the car. Now, the car has a bunch of changes and I'm going straight into competition school. haha.
I did some karting at the track on Friday night. That really helped at calming some of the nerves. We had a comp school meeting on Friday night, so after the drivers' meeting, we just had a little refresher. The nerves were starting to pick up again. Am I going to be late for grid, am I going to look like a moron out there, what am I doing, do I need to go to the bathroom again?! haha. The list goes on. Deep breathes!!
The first session, we went out to kind of shake the rust, plus had flagging exercises. Bryan had mentioned people creating flags for them. Well, that applied on Saturday morning! We had already been shown the emergency vehicle flag which it was out, but for nothing other than the flagging exercise. A few laps later, I come through T2, another emergency vehicle flag. The heck is this, whoops, exit of T3b there is a Miata stuffed in the wall!!
The second session was supposed to be lead/follow, then side by side. My partner spun on lap 2, so I went to the top of the banking and pondered on what I was supposed to do. I didn't see him anytime quickly in the rear view, so I took off. I might as well pedal instead of waiting around. In a few laps, I caught up to a GTS3 M3, and two CMC cars. Us four had our own little mock race and it was a blast. I got around them and kept pedalling. I caught back up to my partner and slowed to his pace. I quickly thought, "this isn't as much fun as I was having!" Sure enough, there was the pass flag and here came those three. So, I bailed on my partner and went back to "racing". The Mustang and I had a real good go. We were side by side for a bit and went into T3 with me on the outside, so I gave the corner up. I came back across his rear and we had to have been less than six inches apart(That moment is what broke my "don't scratch the car" cherry). I played the line right and got back around him. That was a great session for me.
The third session was supposed to be a mock qualifying session, plus work on being consistent. For a few of us, it turned into a mock race again. Again, that was a great session and I was starting to feel better.
The fourth session, they invited other licensed drivers out to do mock starts with us. He wanted us to grid however you arrive. We were to race until T5 were they would throw the yellow flag and then we were to reset into a different starting spot for the next start. All of these were double file, as well as nuts!
Go figure, I grid towards the front. So much for hoping to be towards the back. I start P4, outside of the second row. The green drops, I hammer and get swallowed going into T1-2. By T3, I am stuffed on the outside with nowhere to go. That was fricking wild and borderline insane.
Start two, I'm mid pack and am starting on the outside. I get one heck of a jump and get up to the wall. I make up like 7 spots, but lose 3 or 4 going through T2 when I got pinched to the outside. Still, it was a good start in my opinion.
Start three, very back on the inside. I get another good jump and get to the inside wall. I get by the guy in front of me, but Brian in his Baby Grand is low too. So, I make my way to a gap in the middle. I make up a few more spots, then get low to protect my inside.
Start four puts me almost in the same starting spot at start two. To keep us on our toes, they wave off the first go at start four. I make another great jump and get to the wall again. Joel; in Sam Myers' CRX, and I got a great start. This time, I didn't get pinched in T2 and hold the P3 spot. That's when they leave us green and our mock race begins. They also pulled the red flag out to stop the race. It went full black after that. Hey, I PASSED COMP SCHOOL!
At the awards banquet, they had some pretty good chili and we got our certificates. Of course, something had to go wrong that day. I put my windows back in for the night and the inner mechanism that pivots fell out. I rigged it up and got it working for the rest of the weekend.
I went karting on Saturday night to get me a little bit more tired, so I'd sleep through the night given Saturday's early rise due to the time change. Sunday morning came quick. I got up and moving around to get the day started. Once the sun was up and there was a tad bit of warmth in the air, I started getting stuff ready with the car.
I was nervous come qualifying, but I had a plan in mind. I went out and ran the plan to a T. It worked out well because I dropped three seconds off my time from the previous day. That had me feeling good for the races.
Race one started off good. I got around one of the Spec944s and made my way up to the back of the SE30s. Then, one of them drove me up the banking which killed my pace and that lap. I was the only one in class, so after that I was just trying to stay out of everyone's way and get credit for one race.
Race two wasn't the start that I was looking for. That race I was starting behind the PT guys. I tried getting a run, but the flagger held the green longer. Then the car ahead moved low, so I couldn't see the flagger and I went when I heard the other cars go. I was running good laps, then the motor's tone changed and the car seemed to have lost power. I started limping laps to get credit for the race. I was going through T3a and saw a few SMs coming. I was pointing them to the right, well the first car in that group decided to go left and I was full track left. So, he went through the grass and the other two went right. After that, I said limping the laps was silly, so I went in.
All in all, great weekend and very relieving given the prior weeks leading up to it. I can't wait to get myself and the car better for the rest of the season! Party on!!
