Eric had promoted this race well, as something special and I thought it really was. A chnace to put laps in on a real[fast, challenging and held in high esteem] endurance track. I spent the first few days after the announcement trying different cars, and tracks, learning a lot about the track but not much about the cars as they all seemed to perform the same. Finally, I could see a difference and picked the Vette to work on. Still stymied by the track I pushed to where I knew enough to stay on course. The car began to come together and my lap times became consistent. I locked in the settings when I could do multiple laps of 3:40's. From that point on all I ran were groups of 6 laps, incidents meant a trip to the pits. no changes to the car, drive what I had! Soon I was able to do several 6 lap runs in a row and without changing anything laptimes could fall to the low :38's. I just kept practicing to not go too fast! On raceday I was ontrack with club members and the job was to "push". I found out how hard I could push before messing up, good to know!
Anyhow, practice was over!
Q: Time to step up. My fastest laps to date had been in the low :38"s and they would happen near the end of 6 lap run. With a full load of fuel I entered a track clear ahead and behind. I was ready to go after a sedate outlap. I pushed all my brake points to the limits, flicked the wheel at the appropriate moments and really did a great job of getting on the gas in the correct places with hardly any wiggling. Full speed on the Mulsanne and perfect braking there and at Indianapolis. The car flowed right thru the two sharp turns, I was in heaven. I got two wheels off just after the Porsche corner but I knew just how to handle it, not to worry, everything from there on went 100%. That gave me a 3:37.775 and I backed that with a low 3:38 on the next lap. LOVED IT[P12]! Quits after two laps.
R1:Gary gets lagged at the start, I'm literally stuck behind him until all but Joe Edgar go by[P18]. I chase the group ahead of me and catch them just before the hill at the end of the Mulsanne. Maybe I was the only one to see Blair get really nose high as he got totally airborne cresting that hill! Blair had been all over the track coming up to the hill and I should have taken caution. I set myself in the right lane before the hill, I'm passing in the right lane and as I hit my brake point, Blair moves to the right and collects me, bounces off the wall and collects me again. I move off track so Gary can go by then get back on track to see Joe against the wall. Not knowing if I had caused his siituation, I wait for him, P20. Joe blows his motor at Indy and pulls off. I catch up with Blair after the Porsche only to go off, Eric E is back on from his off and passes me. After catching him at the pit, I plan to stay behind until the straight but he pulls over to let me by so I go, thanks Eric! L5 and James F and Glenn P pull into the pit as I close on them P13. Lucky for me neither the incident nor my off had damages the car at all and I had full speed all the way to the end, P10. Wished I could have raced more rather than passing by offs and pitstops.
R2: That had been a good run and I throuoghly enjoyed it! Hopefully this would be the same. A good start but my looong 1st gear held me back a bit. Alongside Abdul at T1, he keeps wide to the left as I maintain a distance at the right, um, I'm in the grass, oops and I'm into T2 with too much speed as I get back on. As I regroup, James gets by me. For the first time, I'm following close to someone on the Mulsanne and I experience the draft, Passing James with a top speed of 209 mph, WooT! On the way to Indy I pass Tyler who has slowed to avoid a spinning Stefan. Tyler hangs right in there for the lap and is right behind me as we enter the Mulsanne again. My car, reallly set up just for top speed today gives him a tow but as he tries to break out and pass me on two occasions, he fails both times and as I had hoped is unable to pass in the curvy sections either. Well, he pulls up along my right side at T1 so I move to the left and prapare for a pass but he's pushing hard and misses T2. James is behind me again at the Mulsanne but I'm 1 mph up on him at the Bar and 5 mph by the kink. After the corner I can See Yves ahead. Then I did a very stupid thing and I can't even rememeber doing it, I shifted into 6th on the way to the Indy corner. I don't even want to watch the replay past this point. I did the two downshifts coming to the right hand bend and the two more that would have me in 1st gear for the left hander, only I could see as I was turning in, that I was in 2nd. CURSES! Race over. At least I had a fast lap of 3:37.296 before it was all over, fastest lap ever for me here.
I was ready to do better but I think my potential as realized and I really had a lot of fun both preparing for the event, qualifying and racing with my friends! I had picked a race strategy opting for top end and spent very few laps in a car that had more than one degree of wing or one[?] of splitter and had cooling blocked down to the min's. It was a challenge for me to drive with so little downforce and I have amazed myself! Maybe I can carry this forward to another fast venue.
Thanks To Eric N and RD for this race.
