2019 Gingerman 8+7-Hour Enduro Results

[Bill Strong]

Official Results are up:
https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/1714431
and CSV file upload is available here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hup3RhscuLlQW1pqG0kOGSqtqiQE4M4z?usp=sharing

 

Awards Ceremony
https://champcar.org/mainweb/bwg_gallery/2019-gingerman-87-hour-awards-ceremony/
 

Race Recap

 

 

Saturday Race Impound Interviews
 

 

Sunday Race Impound Interviews

 

 

 

[Andrew D Johnson]

Thank you Champcar staff  and volunteers for a great weekend.

 

Gingerman is the most fun track to race at and this weekend just reinforced that.

 

I had the pleasure to drive the CYR car, thank you for the opportunity. 

 

I had had a good time at the cook out Friday night, thanks to everyone who participated or set that up.

[wvumtnbkr]

Yo, did you guys just practice with the crx?  I was surprised not to see it in the results. 

 

 

 

Congrats Ben!  Good job!

 

" I guess we will paint the tow hook"   lol...

Edited August 26, 2019 by wvumtnbkr

[Andrew D Johnson]

30 minutes ago, wvumtnbkr said:

Yo, did you guys just practice with the crx?  I was surprised not to see it in the results. 

 

 

 

Congrats Ben!  Good job!

 

" I guess we will paint the tow hook"   lol...

 

I didn't think I would have any cars ready in time for Gingerman, and I saw Tyler had a seat available. I ended up getting my car ready in time, and since I was going to be at the track to race Tyler's car I figured I could shake down the CRX. 

[JDChristianson]

Our heads are still spinning a bit.   Lots of work, lots of fun, and lots of worn out team members......sounds like a great Champcar weekend.   In the big picture, a decent weekend for Team MiElan.   

 

Thanks to all the Champ staff.  Another well done race!

 

More updates coming.

 

[IPF Racing]

IPF had a rough weekend, but honestly still one of the best race weekends so far! The cookout and comradery was great with way more participation than expected! We had a blast pitting next to @Wittenauer Racing and Two Brothers who were both extremely helpful when we had issues. Also a great time as always with @E. Tyler Pedersen and CYR and @NigelStu. 

 

Fridays practice went well even though our new LSD was more open than anything. Saturday we started at the rear and 14 minutes in, hit a spun car in turn 6. Apparently the golf lost a coolant hose and we were closing in too quickly to avoid them. 35 minutes later we had a new radiator in and the rest of the front end torn off. We took the rear wing off to help balance the lack of front aero and started running again. Thought it would just be a lapping day at that point until 2 of the D class cars ahead of us had issues so we started pushing to win our class at least and managed to do it in our last stint! Also the car was quicker without wings and a front end #wingsdontwork

 

Then Sunday..... Started at the front, lead the first hour with solid pressure from the teams behind us until I came into turn 11 and tried to down shift from 4th to 3rd. The clutch pedal went straight to the floor and fluid started smoking with our lack of hood. I coasted down the front straight to pit out where they quickly towed me in. Removed the trans in less than 15 minutes (is that a record?) and found the release bearing in pieces. The clutch fingers were white and the slave seals were shot. Unfortunately I only had a few of those parts as spares so we had to call it a day. Looks like the pressure plate may have failed causing the fingers to constantly ride the bearing, spinning out all the grease and frying it. 

 

The car showed pace both days and we've finally fixed the fueling issues we've been having for the past year plus we brought home some small hardware, cant complain about that! It'll be a mad dash to get it back together but we'll be at Pitt ready to throw down!

 

Congrats to all the teams that killed it our there this weekend!

[Mike.g]

What a great weekend! We had an awesome time and the car was very solid minus some transmission related issues. I personally had a blast and enjoyed the clean side by side racing. I know of several of you that would poke or pass us between turns 1 to 10B. But after turn 10 on that short straight our car would hit the erase button on all of that. Thank you to the teams, drivers and staff for a great weekend!

 

This is why Champcar is awesome!


Day 2, Part 1

Day 2, Part 2

 

Edited August 28, 2019 by Mike.g
Added Videos

[hotchkis23]

24 minutes ago, Mike.g said:

What a great weekend! We had an awesome time and the car was very solid minus some transmission related issues. I personally had a blast and enjoyed the clean side by side racing. I know of several of you that would poke or pass us between turns 1 to 10B. But after turn 10 on that short straight our car would hit the erase button on all of that. Thank you to the teams, drivers and staff for a great weekend!

 

This is why Champcar is awesome!

That was seriously the easiest push start I have had the pleasure of helping with haha.  I'm on the passenger a pillar.  Your whole team was awesome to talk to and I was really excited to see the car out there running hard.  You guys have done a lot of things right with that build!

[hcsi99]

We're back from Gingerman Raceway, the trailer is unloaded, and it's time for our weekend recap.

Justin started the CTS on Saturday morning and managed to turn 47 laps bring the car in 15th overall out of 54 cars that started.

Chris  took over and managed another 25 laps before experiencing clutch failure causing us to retire for the day finishing 47th overall and 16th in class.

To my surprise, we found a clutch kit that included disc, flywheel, pressure plate, and slave cylinder 1 hour away. Chris jumped in his car and headed for Grand Rapids while Alex, Justin and myself removed the transmission to get to the clutch. We had the car apart and everything cleaned and ready to go when Chris made it back with the clutch kit. We had it installed and the car back together before sundown just in time for my wife to bring the team dinner and some extra help. We also found that the rear tire had a little rub on the rear quarters but luckily I packed the fender roller.

 

Sunday Alex started the race. This was Alex's first wheel to wheel race and since he didn't get any seat time on Saturday we figured he should start #trialbyfire . Alex started 37th and did great! He turned 45 laps and brought the car back in 22nd overall and cleaner than he took it somehow.

I took the car for the 2nd stint and other than going 4 off in turn 6 (thought I saw something in the grass, wanted to take a closer look) my stint was uneventful. I brought the car in when we saw the white flag indicating 20 minutes until the Red flag lunch break. At our fuel stop we were in 18th overall. I took it back out for 15 more minutes until the red flag.

Chris jumped in after the 1 hour lunch break and took the car to 14th overall with an uneventful 3rd stint other than he did notice the car was a little down on power.

Justin took the car out for the 4th stint and immediately could tell the power was getting lower. He short shifted his entire stint, keeping the oil temps low and managed to bring the car in for the last stint in 13th overall. Alex jumped back in the car to take us to the finish. Having driven the car in the first stint, he noticed a big difference in power, the car was in trouble. He did everything he could to keep the car in the top 15 but the racing gods had other plans. Only 17 laps into his stint with 25 minutes to go in the race the oil temps and coolant temps sky rocketed even with Alex taking it easy. The car shut off just after going through turn 11 and came to a rest on drivers right just off track in the grass. It was over for us. It appears that we may have damaged some lower end bearings due to some oiling issues. The car did start this morning when I pulled it out of the trailer, but bad noises may have been heard. We still finished 20th overall out of 54 cars and 7th in class out of 18 C class cars. 

 

Overall, I'm proud of what we accomplished this weekend. We repaired a major failure on our backs in the parking lot in just a few hours and got the car ready for Sunday. We ran in the top 20 most of the day on Sunday and came very close to finishing the race in our first every try with a brand new build. I set out 3 years ago to build my own race car and team with the hopes my team would share the same goals. My favorite part about endurance racing is the team aspect. Everyone on our team brings something different to the table, like the Power Rangers when they work together to form that bad ass robot that kills Hydro Hog, but instead of a bad ass robot we are a bunch of middle aged dudes in a first generation Cadillac CTS.

Thank you to the team for making my first race as a team owner a great one. We / I learned so much this weekend. Thank you to all the Champcar competitors that offered support and advise. We will rebuild it, we will make it stronger, faster, I don't know about lighter. Thanks to everyone that helped me build this car.  Thank you to Schepel Cadillac and Radium Engineering for all of your support with this build. My goal is to have the car ready for Road America next spring. Keep an eye out for updates!

 

[E. Tyler Pedersen]

I'll do a recap later but enjoy this video from Sunday. Battling for the lead with the Mercedes. Fast forward to 4:30 if you're impatient. 

 

 

 

[Gkuhn41]

Man that was a sight from our car. Were glad you didn’t turn over as high in the air that car jumped. Would have been a good battle all day trying to catch you guys.

[Snake]

2 hours ago, E. Tyler Pedersen said:

I'll do a recap later but enjoy this video from Sunday. Battling for the lead with the Mercedes. Fast forward to 4:30 if you're impatient. 

 

 

 

 

Glad everyone came away unhurt, that could have been bad. 

[E. Tyler Pedersen]

Here's the Two Brothers view 

 

 

[wvumtnbkr]

Wowzers!

[67Mustang]

Wow! Wild ride there, glad your ok!

[55mini]

Gingerman!!!! Was an eventful weekend is the best way to say how it went. Friday was a test day for the blue car with our visitors from the north, Jerry Chinn, Craig Daley and Tosh Kondo. All went well with some very solid laps. We setup for Saturday’s race and had a very good start. Then at about 8:15 I got a call from my son that they were in the hospital working to have our first granddaughter! Ok a quick trip back home and I was only 30 minutes late which was really OK since they do all kinds of things before you get to see the new ones anyway. Such a cutie at 8.7 lbs and so happy for her arrival. All doing well! 
Back to the race which I was getting reports as I traveled the 11 hour run. The blue car was having fuel issues and would act up with cut out before the two hour point and got less and less time so limped it thru as best we could. Changed may things and finally found that the new fuel cell pickup hose had failed at the top and the rubber flakes off and it was only sucking air! Replaced that and it ran perfect. 
The green 150 car had some handling issues and a number of off track lawn mowing trips. So it was taken off track after three stints and work began. New front brake pads as they compound flaked away, new front hub, had to sort a tire rubbing issue and change all the alignment setup. After many hours it was ready for day two.
Day two since the start rotation was reversed we started in about 35+36 spots. At the end of lap one both cars had moved up to about 20th and doing very well. Aaron in 150 and Jerry in 5 continued moving forward to finish the first stint in 2P and 4P. Patrick got in 150 and Tosh in 5, both doing well until the break only needing fuel and tire checks. After the break Jacob in 150 and Craig in 5 and both went out and continued the climb from about 15 place restarts. Jacob got the 150 up to about 5P and Craig, let me say that boy can drive moving 5 up to 1P for about the last 30 minutes of his stint. The last fuel stop was interesting as both cars in about 30 seconds apart. 5 only needing fuel and a driver change. Jerry in for the last stint in 5, all good. 150 took a front tire and some axle nut tightened followed by fuel. Jeff was in to finish the race. Both cars out in the five minute window with some added pit crew help from Crank Yankers crew! 
We thought we had the win in car 5 and could get near podium in car 150. When we hear a call on the radio from Jerry some words followed by guys I’m coming in, not what you want to hear after a stop. Seems in making a pass on a slower car we got hit by a very late turn in! It damaged the rear defuser and collapsed the exhaust out let. Started him back out when we noticed we had about 7 degrees of rear camber on the rear wheel which was hit. Brought him back in to find the rear spindle damaged and that finished the day for 5. Jeff continues to drive well and brought 150 to an 8th place finish. Great effort by everyone on an eventful weekend!

Oh yes wonderful to welcome Matthew and Ambers baby girl to the new world! Savanah Rose welcome to the family!!!!

 

Last and most important I know we had contact with a couple teams on Saturday and we as a team are very sorry as we race clean and our driver lost focus. In the six years or so of racing this does not happen from our team and we hope to continue clean no contact racing!

Edited August 27, 2019 by 55mini
spacing

[mcoppola]

@55mini Congrats on the new grandchild Mark! And as always, great job wrenching not only 1, but 2 cars now!

@hotchkis23 and @JDChristianson Aaron and Jeff - as always, it was great seeing you guys and the rest of your team, and also great to finally share the track with you as a driver and not a volunteer for this one!

[Gkuhn41]

First sorry for the lone narrative.  

 

What a complete turn around from Indy, both in performance and in atmosphere.

 

Two Brothers Racing or "The Mercedes" as we have become known had an awesome weekend. We left Indy down on ourselves as we had self inflicted problems from contact. We had a discussion about the contact and what we need to do to improve on and moved onto Gingerman.

 

The only thing we knew from Indy is the car had good speed and we should be able to compete for a top ten, and possibly a top 5. Practice day came and we found the three of us who had driven the track before all to be within 2 seconds of each other with a good understanding of how the car would work. We spent the remainder of the day working with our 4th driver going over data and consistently working his times close to where ours were.

 

To cap off a great test day we had an even better pot luck. Apparently the pulled pork wasn't horrible because it was gone FAST! The rest of the food and drink was fantastic as well and we had some good conversation and great camaraderie.

 

Day one started with us starting at the rear of the field, I took the first stint and worked up to 5th before our first stop, we had one minor side to side contact with a white civic who was off the pace a bit. We talked after the stint, no hard feelings and no damage to either car. We also had an interesting moment with the mini, i surprised him by going right instead of left (hes correct it was odd id take that line so my fault) No contact and no damage but im pretty sure i sent a cone into orbit we had a laugh afterwards. Second driver took over and ran smooth clean laps to keep us in the hunt for a top five with only one minor two wheel off incident. Third driver took over, with the team now in 4th place and ran an uneventful 3rd stint, he was our least experienced driver so we coached him throughout his stint while watching racecapture and dropped his times by two more seconds. He did an awesome job learning a few things and keeping the team in contact with the top 5. We started the final stint in 6th place, and chased down the Over Under Miata for 5th with about an hour left. At that point we were thrilled to be in the top five. Shortly after that the Higgy Civic retired with front end problems moving us to 4th place, and two laps later Spartan Racing had their motor issues moving us into third place. We watched as Crank Yankers was flying through the field trying to catch us. We informed our driver late in the race with maybe 15 minutes to go that he needed to step on it to prevent Tyler from running us down. He moved our lap times to 1:49's while navigating traffic and figured Tyler would catch us on the last lap and we would have a race on our hands. Shortly after Crank Yankers had brake issues all but ending the battle and we were able to cruise home to our first ever podium. 

 

Sunday we woke up exhausted and excited for another day of racing. We had a strategy worked out to try and catch a caution and get a freebie pit stop. We started up front and worked to third place straight off, chasing Higgy, and IPF for the lead. Higgy dropped out again due to front end issues and we started chasing IPF for the lead. Just over an hour in IPF had a mechanical issue that handed us the lead. About thirty minutes from our pit stop we were caught and passed by Crank Yankers. Five corners later our driver keys the mic and says Crank Yankers lost a wheel and spun, we quickly go to the live feed to see the car joust high into the air and slam back down with our car just squeaking by. We put our second driver in for the hour before the break, he again ran an incredibly uneventful and smooth second stint keeping us in P1 headed to quiet hour. After quiet hour we decided to put myslef in the car for the odd hour to finish our fuel window, and continue to try and catch a caution. I set out in P1, somehow didn't get taken out by a dive-bomb from the 4th place car at corner 1 on the first lap after break. If anyone was watching the live feed they probably heard me yelling on our radio's i was a bit fired up that someone who was running mid pack would attempt to dive-bomb 2 cars running in the top 10 who are lapping at 5-7 seconds faster than them. I pushed the car hard for one hour trying to build a lead to hand to our third driver. With three hours to go our third driver went out in the lead struggling to keep the car under 1:50 lap times. He ran an hour and was caught and passed by the #5 MiElan car. We decided as a team to that putting myself back into the car for the final two hours was our best bet  to try and catch MiElan. Five laps into the final stint they radio and inform me that MiElan was in the pits and possibly out of the race. I radio'd back that was probably a good thing because getting speed out of the car was proving to be difficult and that our third driver wasnt off his game the car was starting to not want to do things it was 5 hours earlier and also do a few things it hasnt before!  We lapped the next hour trying to run consistent 1:49's to maintain a good gap, the car was not happy multiple times i had issues getting the car into gear heading into turn 3 once almost loosing it in front of a group of cars i had just passed thankfully they were all on their game. The final thirty minutes i stuck the car into 4th gear and drove the almost the entire track in 4th gear just to conserve the car and bring home a first place finish.

 

We got lucky this weekend some very fast cars had issues allowing us to capitalize on a good finish, we have a bit of work to do to keep up on shear speed and eventually we will get there. The biggest improvement we have had is our drivers getting more seat time, yes we have worked on the car but by far and away the best investment we have made is just getting to the track and making laps. Every time out we learn something and that makes us better.

 

We want to thank @IPF Racing and @Wittenauer Racing for being awesome pit neighbors, @E. Tyler Pedersen for getting the wheels turning on the pot luck and everyone else for the great time.

 

Gingerman continues to be my favorite track and id bet after this weekend the rest of our team would agree!

Edited August 27, 2019 by Gkuhn41
Cant spell

[55mini]

56 minutes ago, Gkuhn41 said:

First sorry for the lone narrative.  

 

What a complete turn around from Indy, both in performance and in atmosphere.

 

Two Brothers Racing or "The Mercedes" as we have become known had an awesome weekend. We left Indy down on ourselves as we had self inflicted problems from contact. We had a discussion about the contact and what we need to do to improve on and moved onto Gingerman.

 

The only thing we knew from Indy is the car had good speed and we should be able to compete for a top ten, and possibly a top 5. Practice day came and we found the three of us who had driven the track before all to be within 2 seconds of each other with a good understanding of how the car would work. We spent the remainder of the day working with our 4th driver going over data and consistently working his times close to where ours were.

 

To cap off a great test day we had an even better pot luck. Apparently the pulled pork wasn't horrible because it was gone FAST! The rest of the food and drink was fantastic as well and we had some good conversation and great camaraderie.

 

Day one started with us starting at the rear of the field, I took the first stint and worked up to 5th before our first stop, we had one minor side to side contact with a white civic who was off the pace a bit. We talked after the stint, no hard feelings and no damage to either car. We also had an interesting moment with the mini, i surprised him by going right instead of left (hes correct it was odd id take that line so my fault) No contact and no damage but im pretty sure i sent a cone into orbit we had a laugh afterwards. Second driver took over and ran smooth clean laps to keep us in the hunt for a top five with only one minor two wheel off incident. Third driver took over, with the team now in 4th place and ran an uneventful 3rd stint, he was our least experienced driver so we coached him throughout his stint while watching racecapture and dropped his times by two more seconds. He did an awesome job learning a few things and keeping the team in contact with the top 5. We started the final stint in 6th place, and chased down the Over Under Miata for 5th with about an hour left. At that point we were thrilled to be in the top five. Shortly after that the Higgy Civic retired with front end problems moving us to 4th place, and two laps later Spartan Racing had their motor issues moving us into third place. We watched as Crank Yankers was flying through the field trying to catch us. We informed our driver late in the race with maybe 15 minutes to go that he needed to step on it to prevent Tyler from running us down. He moved our lap times to 1:49's while navigating traffic and figured Tyler would catch us on the last lap and we would have a race on our hands. Shortly after Crank Yankers had brake issues all but ending the battle and we were able to cruise home to our first ever podium. 

 

Sunday we woke up exhausted and excited for another day of racing. We had a strategy worked out to try and catch a caution and get a freebie pit stop. We started up front and worked to third place straight off, chasing Higgy, and IPF for the lead. Higgy dropped out again due to front end issues and we started chasing IPF for the lead. Just over an hour in IPF had a mechanical issue that handed us the lead. About thirty minutes from our pit stop we were caught and passed by Crank Yankers. Five corners later our driver keys the mic and says Crank Yankers lost a wheel and spun, we quickly go to the live feed to see the car joust high into the air and slam back down with our car just squeaking by. We put our second driver in for the hour before the break, he again ran an incredibly uneventful and smooth second stint keeping us in P1 headed to quiet hour. After quiet hour we decided to put myslef in the car for the odd hour to finish our fuel window, and continue to try and catch a caution. I set out in P1, somehow didn't get taken out by a dive-bomb from the 4th place car at corner 1 on the first lap after break. If anyone was watching the live feed they probably heard me yelling on our radio's i was a bit fired up that someone who was running mid pack would attempt to dive-bomb 2 cars running in the top 10 who are lapping at 5-7 seconds faster than them. I pushed the car hard for one hour trying to build a lead to hand to our third driver. With three hours to go our third driver went out in the lead struggling to keep the car under 1:50 lap times. He ran an hour and was caught and passed by the #5 MiElan car. We decided as a team to that putting myself back into the car for the final two hours was our best bet  to try and catch MiElan. Five laps into the final stint they radio and inform me that MiElan was in the pits and possibly out of the race. I radio'd back that was probably a good thing because getting speed out of the car was proving to be difficult and that our third driver wasnt off his game the car was starting to not want to do things it was 5 hours earlier and also do a few things it hasnt before!  We lapped the next hour trying to run consistent 1:49's to maintain a good gap, the car was not happy multiple times i had issues getting the car into gear heading into turn 3 once almost loosing it in front of a group of cars i had just passed thankfully they were all on their game. The final thirty minutes i stuck the car into 4th gear and drove the almost the entire track in 4th gear just to conserve the car and bring home a first place finish.

 

We got lucky this weekend some very fast cars had issues allowing us to capitalize on a good finish, we have a bit of work to do to keep up on shear speed and eventually we will get there. The biggest improvement we have had is our drivers getting more seat time, yes we have worked on the car but by far and away the best investment we have made is just getting to the track and making laps. Every time out we learn something and that makes us better.

 

We want to thank @IPF Racing and @Wittenauer Racing for being awesome pit neighbors, @E. Tyler Pedersen for getting the wheels turning on the pot luck and everyone else for the great time.

 

Gingerman continues to be my favorite track and id bet after this weekend the rest of our team would agree!

Hats off to a well driven race and sorry we did not show at impound to say congrats as our heads were kind of low. The #5 was driven very well and our plan came together nicely, but it also went away with a bad turn in on a pass.

 

Great job to you all and hope to see you next time!

[Richard]

We had a fantastic/terrible weekend at Gingerman but what an absolutely amazing track this is!

 

 Friday's test day was perfect and the car did everything correctly so we were all set up for a good run Saturday. We started right at the back but my oldest son worked his way through the field and was running 10th about a half hour in. He continued his quick pace and managed to get up to about 5th when the black Saab decided that we needed neither our front end or our back end. I believe we made it up to 4th when we got black flagged for hanging car parts about 20 minutes before the two hour mark. This threw off our pit strategy and meant an extra pit stop but now fuel was definitely not going to be an issue.

 

 I took the car out for the second stint and simply did what I could to maintain the position my boy had us in. My youngest took the third stint and once the stops had cycled through for the second time we found him leading the race with a solid lead over second place. My oldest went out again and proceeded to gain even more time and when it was time for our fourth and final stop he had managed to increase the lead to over four minutes! 

 

 I took over the car again for the final stint and was sitting P3 when our driveshaft issues cropped up again and forced us behind the wall until there was only 10 minutes left in the race. We thought we fixed everything but another cheap driveshaft let go and I limped around the track to take the checkered flag. We thought we fixed the problem for Sunday but I could only manage fourteen laps before the same issue sidelined us and ended our weekend.

 

What completely fantastic race in every regard!!

 

I can't say enough about the ChampCar staff who ran another great weekend and I have to thank all the people who helped us out on Saturday. Thanks to Zach from IPF Racing for getting brake pads to me on the Friday and the Miata team for getting us the heavy duty grease for the cv rebuild. Thanks to Andrew for some much needed EF advice and I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of guys that came by as we were working on the car to tell us how quick we were, that was just about the best part of the weekend. I have to apologize to one forum member who came over and introduced himself and we had a great chat but I can't, for the life of me, remember your name!!!

 

 

Unfortunately we won't be ready in time to make the Pitt race, which is frustrating, but I always tell my sons that the worst day racing is better than the best day doing anything else and the Gingerman race simply reinforced that for me. 

 

 

 

Thank you ChampCar and thank you everyone who put a car on the track at Gingerman.

 

 

[zack_280]

1 hour ago, Gkuhn41 said:

joust high into the air

You may have won the race, but the real victory is using 'joust' in a sentence in a contextually appropriate way.

Edited August 27, 2019 by zack_280
grammar

[Bill Strong]

50 minutes ago, zack_280 said:

You may have won the race, but the real victory is using 'joust' in a sentence in a contextually appropriate way.

 

 

Pretty certain somewhere in the BCCR there are rules about using big words in appropriate ways, and the word "context" used somewhere in there. 

 

[thewheelerZ]

1 hour ago, Richard said:

when the black Saab decided that we needed neither our front end or our back end.

 

 

 

Seriously though, that car is hauling mail!  Nice work guys!

[Richard]

The sad truth about horsepower is that it can't correct poor driving but it certainly hides it very well!

[mcoppola]

@Richard, that might have been me that stopped by your pit stall. I don't even remember which day it was, but after having talked on the forum a few times, i wanted to come by and meet your team. I knew you guys had a fast car, but I didn't know it was THAT FAST!!!!

Glad you guys made the trip and enjoyed our home track! Wish your luck would have been better.

I was fortunate enough and honored to drive my buddy Ben's @NigelStu Bavarian Mustache Werks car this weekend. I met Ben a few years back at 1 of the many races I've volunteered at, and it's a friendship that I've savored ever since. Ben helped trailer and drive our Focus at our first 2 races in '15 & '16, and we often compare notes on fabrication, car building, etc. 

 

When I posted that once again my car wouldn't be ready for this race, Ben offered me a spot on his team for this race. I was a bit apprehensive since I haven't been on track in 2 years, and haven't tracked a RWD car in over 20 years, since my days on Team Viper. My SCCA GT3 racer buddy Paul young also joined us. I was well aware that Ben's car had podium potential, and the last thing I wanted to do was mess that up for him and the rest of the team, which was Paul, Ben's dad Dan, and SCCA/Waterford Hills racer Mike Patterson.

 

I didn't drive on Saturday, and was happy to help out crewing for what turned out to be the winning car! That took some of the pressure off for Sunday if I was going to drive. Ben decided and told me at dinner Saturday night that I would drive the first stint Sunday morning. I was nervous about being rusty, running in traffic, etc. but Ben's reassurance helped me to get a good night's sleep. I made a comment Sunday morning about the team being able to see how bad I was via the go-pro camera, and Tonya informed me that not only the team, but everyone else was going to see it too, as Bill Strong put a live stream camera in the car. Great, just what I needed!! With the sun's glare and early race traffic, I did my best to stay out of trouble, but if I did anything stupid and you were involved, please accept my apologies.

My stint was fairly uneventful other than going 4 off into the sand trap at turn 11 while trying to split 2 cars there!! I was trying to get by the Hounddogs car for several laps and drag raced them down Phoenix straight, only to catch up to someone on the inside too. That prevented me from getting down to the apex, and the car started rotating under braking as i pinched the exit. My inside voice was screaming at me "don't wreck Ben's car!!!" and somehow I managed to keep form spinning but went 4 off into the sand trap, grabbed 2nd gear and motored out of the sand.

I radio'ed in and told Ben what happened, and that the car had a bad vibration, but felt ok in the corners. I correctly figured that the high speed vibration I was feeling was caused from packing sand in the wheels - something we northerners experience with snow in the winter sometimes! LOL! The vibration eventually cleared up, and I was glad I didn't panic and come in. It would have ruined what turned out to be a 2nd place finish on Sunday!!

I'll let Ben chime in and tell the rest of the story. I will say thanks again to him for his trust, and how proud I am to be a teammate to a guy that not only built a great car, but had GREAT drives both days to get us the positions we did. It was a blast watching him lay down fast lap after fast lap chasing down Spartan on Saturday and Gyvulys on Sunday!!!

Can't say enough about the camaraderie and friendship, and laughs over the weekend, beginning from the minute we pulled into the track and headed to tech for gear check. the well wishes when fellow racers saw me with driving gear was overwhelming and much appreciated. I could go on and list names that would take up a whole paragraph thanking all of you guys and gals, including the entire ChampCar staff who i normally work races with. I told Mike Chisek & other staff members that I went from working with 1 wining team to another!! Thanks to all of you for a great weekend!!