The best thing about any racing class is winning

 

Nice run Michael and congrats beating those guys!

 

Here is a split screen video of Hurst and I

 

Bump for some info about last weekend. Lets hear the goods!!!!

Congrats to Mark on a third place Finish and Ken on 5th.

That 1993 bmw must be something else.

 

It was a frustrating event. I came out swinging strong on Sat AM at the Pro. On my first PM run I put down the clean run I needed on the right side that put me within hundredths of Neal's BMW.. Unfortunately the timing system database chose that moment to take a major sh-t. Apparently the times were displaying properly outside, but not recording in the timing system. From there we sat in the starting line for 20 minutes and made one run, then again, and then again. It was a total cluster. I and a few others also had to be the first cars out Sun AM to make a single rerun for lost times. Not only did it eat the time I needed, it also zapped my mojo as I could do nothing right after that. There were a number of other factors, but I'll spare you the excuses. I did learn a lot and believe the car can be strong when we return to Lincoln for the Pro Finale and Nats. For now I look forward to moving on and getting back on track at Blytheville.

 

Registration opened for Nationals the other day

 

Wahoo I can't wait!

 

Damn Mark, that stinks. And I thought that they had killed all the ProSolo timing gremlins, based on how smoothly El Toro went. Sounds like there are still a few hiding out in the system.

 

it was the database, somehow got corrupted right before we ran and they tried to do a rewrite on the fly that had some kind of bug, finally they gave up and finished heats 7 & 8 manually

They stayed until 10:30 pm that night fixing the database and there were not any more issues after this

 

Congrats to Mike on the comeback win at Blytheville! Fill us in guys.. what happened out there? Surprising to see such swings from the Pro to the Tour.

 

The big change from the Pro to the Tour for me was my lack of power at the Pro. During the Friday morning runs of the Pro I threw a CEL and it never went off. Turns out I had a Cylinder 2 Misfire. Then later in the day I threw the P0037 code. We were able to pick up some new plugs and coils at a Mazda dealer down there on Saturday, and got them installed before the Tour.

The Tour course was tons of fun, very open with sweeping turns followed by lots of late apex transitions and some very fast slaloms. Having my power back really helped me be able to put down the time needed to come back from 3rd on day 1 of the Tour to take the win.

 

Congrates, nice job.


Simmons

 

Yes, nice job Mike. And Mark was up there as well - congrats guys!

 

my car is a winner, my driver is a loser ...


edited for clarity ...

.

 

it should be noted that Sparky stopped for a cone issue on his last Tour run, but there was a dispute with the corner workers about the situation. He was given a provisional rerun and and ran a 53.9xx which would have bumped me back to 4th. However, the Chief Steward waived the provisional and he did not get credit for the rerun. I heard several different stories on what the situation is and can't be sure of the actual facts. One is that the cone was partially displaced, but not out of the box. It has to be fully out of the box to qualify for a rerun. The other is that the pointer cone was partially displaced, but pointer cones don't count.

 

I ran the second day trying not to lose. Michael ran to win. The results show how successful that was....

Props to Michael for an excellent showing out there!

 

No complaints from me on the cone call. I backed myself into a corner driving too conservative and lost a judgement call on my last run as a result. It's amateur racing and these things happen. Micheal put down a fast time and backed it up on his 3rd run. Also of note, Mark put down a flyer that smoked us all on day 2. Great run!

 

I made the classic amateur mistake of trying to win on Day 1.

It was an interesting series of event days for sure ...

 

Anyone going to be at my home course, Devens tomorrow for the tour? If so, let me know! Would be nice to meet any one of you guys for once.... Other than always just hanging out with BRODA of course. :P

 

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-racing-25/northeast-national-tour-234042/

I'll be there, Eric, a few others

STX 17 Copper Red/black rims

 

The Packwood Pro was a big yawn ....

 

There was a Pro in Packwood?

 

There's been a Pro in Packwood every year since 2008...

 

Someone doesn't understand Sarcasm?

 

Someone's been not understanding sarcasm every year since 2002.