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Race Weekend!
Lots of fun things this weekend... it started with a drive to Allendale to visit the guys at GVSU. Nothing big planned, I needed a place to crash for my race on Saturday in Muskegon so it was perfect for me to crash with the guys. We got some drinks and watched football at Main Street Pub. I can't believe how big Allendale is now!
Saturday it was off to the My Import Auto Center in Muskegon. It was a smaller lot which is good for my under powered car. I have never been to this event, but this dealer is a huge import specialist. They sell all types of imports and they did a big event for our car club. They brought out some of their special sponsored cars, and had free lunch for everyone. I was excited coming off the Grattan event cause I knew on a smaller course I could compete a little more.
I love car shopping... | 
Numbers on... ready to go! |
I had a smaller heat but did well... actually really well. Unfortunately I did not place... I fell one spot short in 4th. It was a great outing... I was running good times. I was keeping up in my heat and moving up spots slowly. As usual I had the smallest motor and probably the lowest horse power in my class... so gaining on faster cars takes work! Anyhow... we had 6 runs... after 5 runs I was in 4th and knew I needed to do a lot more to move up. My car was struggling coming out of the sharp corners... my tuned suspension handled the curves well, and my knew brakes helped cool my speed into the big turns, but my lack of power was costing me time coming out of corners. I figured if I down shifted into 1st in the apex of the turns I might be able to get a little more pick up out of corners. I knew this would redline my car and hit my rev limiter quickly... but it was worth the shot. I tried this before at races and it never worked well, but I thought this time I could do it and have it work. So I tried it...
In the first sharp corner of the course I pulled out of it in first... BAM... finally the pull I needed and I cleared the corner well. At the third corner I did it again... YES... OH Wait... whats all that smoke? I flew out of the corner... but in my rear view I could see nothing but white smoke. I didn't give it a second thought and pushed to finish the course, so I took the third corner the same way and it worked. I flew towards the finish and did it perfectly! Oh but wait, right at the finish line I hit a cone... just one of the ones that is there to slow you after you finish, but still counts against you. So that run was docked... so what about the non-docked time you ask? It would of moved me into a trophy... |
This is corner two... nice slide. | 
The last straight away... |
The car is okay... I think I have a gasket going bad... I need to have it looked at. I took my 6th run slow despite all desires to push her hard again. I drove home proud of the accomplishment... and they gave me a T shirt for biggest smoke out. Ha... FYI: for those of you out there that wonder about my racing and how I do... Let me list some of the cars that I beat on Saturday... I killed a 240SX Nissan, a Nissan SER, Honda Del Sol, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Pontiac Grand Prix, 2 different Mazda RX7s, some Miatas and of course a Honda Civic. I wonder how much better I would do with a better set up car for AutoCross... who knows... but I love racing and it was a good weekend.
How was the rest of the weekend? Saturday night was a party at GVSU and that was fun. Hungout with the guys, ate some burger king, and just chilled. Sunday I went back to Albion for our Latino Dinner to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month events for our Organization for Latino/a Awareness. A few tamales, some rice and beans and the weekend was complete.
I better get some sleep... Ciao. |
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