Salute to the Dogs (06/27/2020) - 7 hours - Ridge Motorsports Park:
It's race day, and after a mostly successful test day (ignoring the wheel bearing issues), we are ready to race. Dave starts the race in 38th place and it's a hectic place to be. There are 57 cars and turn one is BUSY! Cars are off track on the first track and there is an immediate yellow flag. While Dave is out there, we get a hold of Randy Pobst to get in the car. On Lap 36 Dave pulls into the pits in 13th place to turn the car over to Randy.
Randy gets in the car, and I verify the cameras are on. Well, what I SHOULD have done.. is verify they were actually recording. As it turns out, only the rear camera was recording, and the front camera was happily on and ready to record and doing nothing. Randy goes out in 35th place, with us having a bit of an early pit stop. I will always choose Randy's feedback over placing in a race, so no big deal. I'm really curious what he thinks of the car after the tweaks we made based on his feedback. After the last time we got beat by Randy in another car that won the race, they have instituted a "Randy Rule" and he is only allowed to run 30 minutes per car. He gets up to 7th place and runs a 1:57.33 before he has to pull back in.
I ask, "Did you have fun?" Randy says, "This is the best handling car I have ever driven in my entire life!" Previously having been given very constructive criticism about the car, I am blown away by this! He continues with "I wouldn't change a thing. Except the brake pedal firmer and about a hundred more horsepower." Yeah, there we go. I know the pedal is too soft.. we have been running Wilwoods up front with the factory master cylinder, so it is too soft. And who wouldn't want more horsepower?
I jump in the car now, and we have dropped back down to 25th. With the extra pit stop I know a podium is pretty much out of the question, but I tell Kyle that I'd be really happy if we can get to a 5th place. The closest I can get to Randy's time is a little under a second at 1:58.2. I had actually ran a 1:57.3 on a previous outing, and Randy had ran a 1:56.6 at that same event. Huh.. is the track slower, car slower, or are we both slower? With a little pit stop shuffling, we actually pit in 3rd place on lap 90. I had noticed the car was getting a little hot, so I ask to have the radiator checked to make sure nothing is blocking it.
Nothing is found on the radiator, and Dave heads out in 14th place. He runs a nice consistent pace and gets us up into 6th place. He pits on lap 131 and turns it over to me for the final stint.
I get in the car, and soon after discover a wheel bearing making noise. It is worse with the left front loaded up. Another one? We have an hour left in the race, and I need to determine if it's going to make it. We have two sprint races after the main race, and there's just 30 minutes in between races. I hope that it will hold out.. but it just keeps getting louder and louder. We finish the race in 5th, and I run a 1:57.9. Into the 1:57s, but still slower than our last outing. We get straight to work on swapping out the wheel bearing before the sprint race.