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Amy got all of the front supports off first, which we easily straightened. It wasn't perfect but it was at least level and enough forward so that the front tires didn't rub on the flares/splitter. That would have to do. We had checked times in the TT Practice and out of 44 cars I was still 6th fastest, with the off and overheating? I was hoping to make it to grid and I jumped in the Mustang, drove up to the hot pits just before the field was about to leave. Costas had the field pretty spread out and we had caught the back of the field on the 2nd lap, where I ran a best time of 1:23.469
with a pass on that lap. This was a solid second faster than last year, but I knew the car had a lot more in it. I made a total of two hot laps in this session and the car started running warm, so I came in early.
If you ever pop one of these radiator caps, throw it away. We now keep a spare in the trailer
It was after this point that John Scheier mentioned that the radiator caps on these cars are a one time use cap - after they "pop" once from an overpressure condition, they
never hold pressure again. Turns out he was right - we kept having to add water all weekend and it never would hold pressure again. Amy went out after that TT session in the HPDE3/4 group and made a bunch of laps, getting to a 1:29, but when it started to run warm she came in early. Since Hallett is remotely located in the "Oklahoma Outback" a quick trip top a parts store wasn't an option.
After lunch it was over 90 degrees, but I went out in the 3rd TT session anyway to see if I could find some time. Tires got super hot, and I got stuck for 2 laps behind some TT1/TT2 cars gridded ahead of me, which was very frustrating. One of the cars holding up me and a train of cars behind us made a mistake in T1 so I made a pass on him into T2, outbraking this much lighter car. He immediately tried to take the position back and was making some VERY high risk moves for the rest of that lap trying to overtake, which were uncalled for - this is supposed to be TT, not W2W. This happens sometimes when Wheel to Wheel racers pay extra to also run in Time Trial - they don't turn that "attack for position" goal off and it has actually caused some accidents in TT before. Anyway, I finished the lap, with a pitiful 1:23.6 lap, then "pointed him by" on the front straight. I may have...
used the wrong finger to point him by. I was pretty upset at the 5-6 near misses we had with him driving like a jackass behind me on the 2nd half of the lap after I passed him (cleanly). And of course the trackside photographer got a great picture of my angry "point by", which got me into all sorts of trouble with NASA officials. I won't get into all of that drama, but it was a dumb thing to do and I won't do it again.
My "angry bird" point by got me in a bit of trouble. Stupid mistake and very unprofessional. DON'T DO THIS (especially next to a photographer)
I won't be showing the video of this Lotus driver's ass-hattery because for one, all of this happened behind me after I passed him (I need a rear facing vidcam), and also because I lost my cool and the audio from my in-car camera was "too colorful". Due to the heat and massive traffic issues, this session ended up being a total waste of time and consumables. It only got hotter the rest of that day, so I sat out TT session 4 and let Amy make more laps in DE 3/4 and where she found two more seconds after finding some confidence. Before that session started she got stuck on grid belted in for 20 minutes (while yet another tire wall was being fixed after a Spec Miata smash-up-derby, wadding up one chassis) in 95 degree heat and she got overheated herself, with some signs of heat exhaustion after she came in from driving and got out of the car. We ended up putting 2-1/2 gallons of water in the car and we drank as much or more ourselves that day.
Amy ran in DE 3/4 sessions all weekend but likely took more laps than me, at this, her first Hallett event
Nobody went faster in TT sessions 3 or 4, and we wisely skipped session 4. Lots of crashed cars, and I got pictures of cars going through tire walls at T2 and another at T8. A Miata rolled after it was tagged from behind, Jeff's EVO, and our off and overheat. This track will really bite you in the ass if you go off in the wrong place, that's for sure. Big classes, with 10 in TT1 and 7 in TT3. We managed to win TT3 and ended up 7th overall in TT times, but it was not my best driving (or behavior) that day and we were really exhausted by the time the Saturday night party started at 6:30.
After racing was over I broke out the beer and we hung out and cooled off with friends parked nearby in the paddock (John, Marc, Garrett) and saw Oklahoma residents Mark Council, Pat, and Brandon Jung who came to the track to watch the track side action. We stuck around long enough to get to the party, ate some good barbeque provided by NASA, drank some more cheap beer, then bowed out early to get Amy back to the hotel and cool her off. For some reason the Hampton Inn gave us a jacuzzi suite so I took a long soak that night and got cooled off myself, too.
Left: its always more fun when you can paddock with friends - John (Tt3 Boss302), Marc (TT1 C6 Z06) and Garrett (TTB E36 M3)
With as poorly as I drove that day -including the "off" in practice and "angry bird" session that nearly got me DSQ'd for the day I was downright LUCKY to pull off the TT3 win that day. My best lap was a 1:23.469, which was a solid two seconds back from the TT2 winner (Josh Dunn) and nearly four seconds back from the TT1 winner (Marc Sherrin). I'm usually not that far off these guys and had to wait for Sunday's TT event to try to better my overall placement. It looks like I won the class by 3.5 seconds but in reality I was chasing John Scheier, who had a 1:25.7 best lap but was switched to TTU for non-competition reasons. John had some off-track troubles in some sessions, but I knew he could drop 1-3 seconds if he found the right line here. With 7 in TT3 class at least I scored 2 Hoosier tires for the win. I vowed to Amy that Sunday would be "drama free" and faster.
Official End of Saturday TT Results (link) are copied above. We had a NASA Texas record of 44 competitors in TT at this event
Sunday June 22nd - TT Day 2
Sunday went a lot better than Saturday. There was a bit of a panic in the morning when a "end of Saturday" TT results sheet showed me as DSQ'd but it was only a typo. Before the day started we refilled the radiator once again and finally adjusted the rear wing, to dial out a lot of the angle I had dialed in (went from 12 to 6 degrees), and the balance was a LOT better. I also removed the ballast plates in the trunk, which NASA's scales said were not needed. I went across the scales at Impound at 3864 pounds during a session Saturday (on a 3802 pound minimum), then after pulling the weight plates out and running less fuel it was 3812 pounds at another morning impound check on Sunday (that was close!), so I ran with a tick more fuel after that.
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