Re: Show Your Support Okay, who's idiotic idea was it to set off fireworks right next to the track during green flag competition? That was a lot of smoke out there. Looks like SPEED is going to cut the feed in favor of some NASCAR regional crap because it has Joey Logano and David Gilliland. I bet the person who made that decision is the same who made the fireworks one. So it looks like it's up to you to keep us updated on how you're doing. Until 7 AM. (Not entirely, live leaderboard here for anyone interested.)
Re: Show Your Support Some personal questions: How'd you get into the sport? Did you start as a fan of motorsports? As a driver? Get into it from a technical aspect? You mentioned Tony Stewart (for the record, the only person I hate more than Dale Jr. is Stewart). What's your opinion of the nascar guys? Anyone you can vouch for? Anyone you dislike? You mentioned you're at home for the race -- any communication with the team other than the tv? Are there things you are able to help with remotely?
Re: Show Your Support Every year SPEED kills the coverage overnight. That is the most boring part of the race for us, because we have no idea what is going on other than the live timing and scoring we get in the pits. It's pretty funny how much we actually watch the Speed coverage in the pits during the race. Our pit carts have 12 monitors on them, with a mix of Speed, timing and scoring, and computer outputs on them (excel sheets that we use for race calculations, tire usage, fuel remaining, etc). We always watch the coverage to see what's going on on the track, as well as some of the interviews from other teams. I really wish that Grand-Am would provide this normally, but what can we do?
Re: Show Your Support We were just down to 6th, but a driver change put us up to 8th. As well, the Mazdas are really starting to show their strength. Oh, and look at the #1 car... a "camaro". Tube frame, purpose built race car, given huge incentives and breaks compared to other cars so that it can have a good showing. Pisses us right off. And yeah, what can you do about the fireworks? It's a spectacle, after all. Hell, you should see the monster ferris wheel in the infield.
Re: Show Your Support I bought a street car, an old 1980 Porsche DP-935. Started tracking it, got addicted. Ended up buying my own race car, and started to compete, as a novice, locally. The local Novice Director, and Regional FIA License Director is the owner of Bullet Racing. We got along, he saw that I could really help out the team, and made me the manager. I'm also the guy (the ONLY guy) allowed to question him and basically tell him when he's being an idiot. (Think of it as an XO on a ship). Next thing you know, I'm a driver on his team, and am fully involved with the team on local races during the year, etc. He also seems to respect my (surprising, to him) driving abilities. Don't get me wrong, there are some NASCAR drivers that are just awesome drivers. You can put them into whatever kind of car you want, and they will do well, and be competitive. Don't have any favourites, or ones I dislike... I just wish it was more like it was in the past, with more of the grassroots flavour. Real stock cars, with good old boys just out to race. It's become too much of a BS business these days, and I think a lot of really good drivers have been left behind because they don't look/act well on camera. I'm texting with the drivers, pit members, and spotters. I also have friends that are down there that are sending me texts with updates. For instance, I relayed a message from one of my friends about huge sparks in the horseshoe that the team didn't realize was going on, and the spotters missed. Turns out that our muffler let loose, so we were able to catch that before it got too bad. As a result, we brought the car in a few laps earlier, when we were undecided as to exactly when to bring in the car/driver for fuel/tires/driver change. I'm also working with Porsche Cars North America and Porsche Canada with media requests, pictures, etc., to help them with their marketing. I'm also fielding local media requests from local radio/newspapers/tv. I'm updating our web site, twitter, facebook, etc., trying to keep people informed, and trying to get more of the word out about the Children's Hospital fundraising we're doing. We also have friends on other teams that help us out... we all kind of look out for each other. Last year, we had to borrow an ECU and transmission to qualify, and the other teams lent them to us, no questions asked, no charge. Once ours were fixed, we took them off our car and gave them back. Still, we qualified with another teams pieces-parts on our car (as in $100k of parts). Likewise, if they see damage on our car, they'll let us know. Not only does it get us off the track and give them more time at wide open throttle, it also helps to make things safer for them by not letting it blow up on the track. Last year we had some header issues, and needed to do some finesse welding to repair it. We went to the Penske trailer, and politely (we're Canadian, after all) asked a management looking guy if we could maybe borrow a TIG welder and some rod. They were pushing their DP car out for practice, and he stopped everyone, and spent 2 minutes to take us into their space-age trailer/workshop and gave us full access. We thanked him just as ROGER FUCKING PENSKE was coming out and asking, quite loudly and angrily, why his car wasn't out on track yet? The guy helping us basically said, "settle the fuck down, we're just giving these guys a hand first". Roger said, "oh, no problem." Everyone gets that we're a small, under-funded, volunteer team racing for the Children's Hospital, and tend to go out of their way to give us a hand. It's really, for the most part, a big group of real quality gentlemen.
Re: Show Your Support And if you look closely behind our car, you can see the sparks coming up from our busted muffler.
Re: Show Your Support Not only that, you guys are 14th overall. Keep this up, and you'll have a top ten overall. Those DPs are dropping like flies.
Re: Show Your Support God damnit you cant go anywhere without having women getting banged in two holes at once. I really dont know anything about racing outside of what my redneck friends say abou5t NASCAR. im rooting for you, just so I can feel like it's not a sport for the inbread. i may or may not be drunk. GO 22!!!!! wooooo uyeahhhhhh
Thanks. It's now the 10 hour mark... 10 hours done, 14 more to go. We're 16th overall, and 6th in class. (One of the Mazdas slipped by us, but is 5 seconds a lap faster than us, the fuckers). Not even half way yet, but we're quite happy.
Just past the halfway mark now... 12.5 hours in, 11.5 hours to go. Busted muffler is hurting our top speed, but we're sitting in 7th place in class, and soon to be 15th place overall (with the busted #10 DP car off the track). Sean McIntosh, the Canadian A1GP driver is now in the car setting our fastest times of the race so far. Still on track, and things are going according to plan.
Would it be worth it to try and do any repairs/replacements to the muffler if an extended caution or something came along? Or is it just one of those "if something was going to go wrong, just be glad it isn't something worse" situations?
Fixing the muffler would require welding, pieces parts that fell off, etc., and would have to be done off pit lane, in the garage. It makes no sense to fix it now. Sure, we may be 5 mph off of our top speed, but the many laps it would take to fix aren't worth doing the fix in the first place. It's already been checked to ensure that it's not falling off, or down, or onto something vital, etc., and is continually checked and monitored at each pit stop. It's just one of those things that we have to deal with.
Some bad news. From what I can tell, the car had an off in the Bus Stop due to some oil on the track. Sean got the car back on track, but a short while later a low water pressure alarm went off. The car was brought into the pit lane, quickly looked at, and then was taken to the garage/paddock for the guys to work on. We've now dropped to 11th in class. We're hoping the guys can get the car back out on track soon.
Here's to hoping it's an easy fix. And here's to hoping that if it's a lengthy one, you can at least use it as an opportunity to get everything else in shape. Admit it, Nettdata. You're going to try and stay up the whole race, even if you're not there, aren't you?
The car's back on track. And nope, we don't fix shit that doesn't need it. And just because something's broken doesn't mean that it needs to be fixed. Busted exhaust would take 20+ mins easy to hack together. Stuff on the car has to last for another 10 hours. It doesn't have to be pretty, or perfect. We'll fix it if the ROI is there, or Grand Am mandates that we fix it before being let back out on track. Fixing a hot/steaming rad is not fun. Kudos to the boys for doing a great job. And nope, I'm not staying up... I'm off to grab a few hours sleep.
These DP cars really are dropping like crazy. Does this usually happen? With so much (I'm guessing) technology and purpose-built aspects of the cars, I'd figure they'd hold up better against the marathon conditions. And on that note, you said somewhere that a few of the drivers actually have marathon/distance experience. I understand that from an athletic perspective it would be good to have that training, but from a mental experience does that preference factor in as well? Does that type of marathon experience help, mentally, as far as their mindset goes? Or are the drivers more strategically "paced" by y'all than anything else.... if that makes any sense.
Race is done. We got hit by a DP car (AJ Almondinger, the bastard). We did 621 laps in 24 hours, placed 20th overall, 13th in class, and raised over $150k for Children's hospital. And this is what a 24 hour race does to a brand new race car: