[Flash68]

Saturday heading into El Toro and getting ready to race created a feeling in me I have not experience since high school I think -- that anxious/nervous/excited energy that one cannot put into words. You just can't buy that stuff anywhere and better than any drug I ever tried.

Had a good first day and laid down a decent road course time of 1:13 as we were in the first group and the wettest condition. I was :01 off Todd for our morning group of 20 cars and his 1:12 was the best of the group. Can't complain there for my first road course effort ever.

On to the autoX and conditions had improved. I got 3 or 4 runs I believe and laid down a 39.5 best for a pretty respectable time. That slot car Vette hit a low or mid 37 for best time of Saturday. We then got shut down for the Speed Stop as the timers were not working and they decided to fix it for Sunday.



As you know, it was party time at the Renner facility that night and it was great meeting more and chatting with more friends and sharing laughs... mostly at Doug's expense. I can say that apple cider moonshine tasted non-alcoholic yet was 120 proof I believe. Yes I had a slight headache on Sunday morning but it didn't matter -- it was go time.

Started with 3 Speedstop efforts, but they were telling us the wrong stop box location for 2 runs so that was kinda messy. More runs later there so that was fine.

Went over to road course 10 min practice session and hit our first snag -- a janky shifter linkage had me off the track in the first half lap -- limped back to the pits in 3rd gear (that's fun with a monster solid roller cam). Rich made the adjustments and we were back in business for more AutoX and Speedstops after lunch. Bummer to miss out on the practice session on the dry road course as it woulda definitely helped me later.

Went over and nailed about the best I could do on the Speedstop on the 2nd effort so I said I'm done. Save the brakes and car for the road course and autoX. I think Todd ran like 17 times on the Speedstop after I quit. I still don't know what my time was though.

Went over to AutoX next and spun out a couple times in the same spot trying to be a hero. We did up the rev limiter from 7000 to 7400 since I was bouncing off it way too early and it wasn't worth shifting into 2nd. Not much better sound IMO than hanging it out at 7k+ rpm for a few seconds. I was setup well for this course since I could stay in 1st gear (I top out at 70mph with my M21 and 3.55 gears) and focus with 2 hands on the wheel.

On my 10th and final run of the weekend I nailed my best time of 38.8, which should have me in the top 10 and I think top 6 or 7 based on talking to others. But for some reason I wasn't listed in the top 10 when they announced it and not sure why. Hoping it will show up as everyone there said it was a clean run. Here's that run (720HD is best)



Last was the road course and I needed to improve by several seconds to make my goal of getting into top 10. Thought I needed a 1:08 or 1:09 to get there but not sure where I ended up. Todd says he thinks he was about 1:10 for 6th, but I think his time had to be better. Again, we still don't know our times there yet. Here is my road course run. (720HD is best) I need to quit putting my damn hand on the shifter for no reason!!