Practice day did not go as expected in the morning.
While going through tech they said our cage needed some gusseting on the boxes where the front of the cage mounts to the floor. Luckily we had brought our generator and welder. We initially had difficulty finding a piece of metal to use then discovered a team with some scrap.
Got that squared away and go through tech again. This time they say our submarine belt was too far forward. Ok, bring the car back into our pit and fix that as well.
Mind you this is a car we've been racing for over a year with LeMons in the past with no issues. Whatever...
So we send our first driver out for a shakedown run. This was his 2nd time at this track, so we wanted him to get more seat time. All our other drivers have A LOT of driving experience. So 3rd lap out this guy cooks it into turn 5 and goes 4 wheels off... sigh..
We bring him in and they throw me into the car. It had been a year since I've driven this car and immediately I feel the car understeering pretty bad. I'm driving about 7/10ths and turning 2:30 laptimes. Last year during the race I was turning 2:21's. I radio in while driving and explain what I'm feeling and they ask me to bring it in real quick to check tire temps and pressures. I pull in and I describe in greater detail exactly what the car is doing, pushing a lot at turn-in; mostly on right hand turns. We have this rocket scientist on our team (literally, he builds rockets for lockheed martin, lol) and he says yes, that agrees with the data from the tires. He does his thing and says go back out, do 3 laps and tell us how it feels. Immediately off the bat the car feels much better, in any direction turn in. First lap back out I knock 5 seconds off my laptime still driving 7/10ths! I do a couple more laps and bring it in for another driver change.
At the end of the day we put our noob back in the car. He almost loses it in 5 again, I have a pretty good photo of him getting crossed up in turn 5 that I'll hopefully get uploaded tonight. After that incident he does much better and actually sets the 2nd best laptime for the team (mine being the best so far
), whew good so he can be fast. Hope he can be consisitent for his 1hr 45min stint today.
Practice day ended well and we had our celebratory beers.
My only concern for the car for the weeekend is a very loud valvetrain noise. I was told that at the last event a cam cap came off and the motor had very low oil pressure in the head for a period during the race wearing the rockers pretty good. Our Z mechanics feel confident that the car will last. We shall see..
So now I'm up 1 hour before I'm supposed to because the clock in my room was an hour ahead.. FML. I'm using the computer in the hotel lobby so I do not wake my sleeping wife and baby in the room.
Racing starts at 9 a.m. today and goes until 6 p.m. I think the captian has decided to put me in the end for clean up duties and to work on gaining position.
Wish us luck!
