| Re: Spectator-Racing is off to the National Championships |
Subject: Re: Spectator-Racing is off to the National Championships by SpectatorRacing on 2008/9/15 13:00:13 I'll write a full report later, but whew...what a weekend. Summary: Thursday practice was great, weather held and we had a good time. Then it rained. And rained. And rained. Friday had one purpose - survive. Practice and qualifying were fine (but slippery), but in the race Friday afternoon I parked it in a the kitty litter near the end of the race trying to make a pass on an RX-7. Oops. With all the gravel in the car I was able to make weight, though... Saturday morning I put the car on the dyno to make sure I put in enough ballast. HP was where I wanted, but the A/F ratio was at 15!!! Not good. That explained why it was running so hot on Thursday. Thank goodness I didn't burn up a piston or two. I spent all day Saturday trying to figure out why I had low fuel pressure, so I missed qualifying and started from the back during the race. Changed the fuel filter and adjusted the pressure...still not quite right but another trip to the dyno had the ratio back to a "safe" range, with a peak of 14.6 at the top of the RPM band. I played it safe and shifted early. I never checked where I finished on Saturday, somewhere near the back. It's hard to be fast when you're staring at your guages. Sunday ended up being a fantastic day. I decided I didn't care if the car blew up or not, I have all winter to fix it. You don't get many opportunities to drive in the National Championships, so I drove instead of worried. Overall finish was 10th of 17. Not as high as I would have liked, but I finished...and with all that happened it could have been a lot worse. Will explain later, it was a drama filled race - big wrecks and car fires, red flags, high speed lawn-mowing session at the end of the back straight, etc. Film at 11. |
