Race Report

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Buttonwillow - Located equally between Lost Hills and the World's Largest pile of Cow Manure , hmmmm, guess nobody likes a race track in their backyard.

On the trip over from Vegas last night my already loud car (straight pipes to an ARC exhaust as heard thru the Plexiglass installed with the roll cage) went really loud when an O2 sensor plug fell out of its port. Picture this - after three hours of loud droning you try to check into Motel Six talking thru the night window, huh? huh? What did you say? Huh, could you repeat that? Still this morning,,,, huh, huh. We decided we better replace the plug before we ran hard so as not to risk burning a valve. It took about an hour to determine the correct replacement size, actually truth be told, after an hour I called Mark Basch; 18mm x 1.5, right off to the parts store. Nothing the big at the track repair shop. John Deer had parts that big but when I said it was metric they looked at me like I was a communist. Off to Car Quest , tell me how does somebody get lost going to Lost Hills??? We missed our first session but got the parts we ! needed installed.

News of the other NSXs; Mark and Tevor went out, Mark driving, to refresh themselves with today's configuration. Trevor lasted two laps; as I mentioned last year, its tough to be a passenger when your used to being a driver. Mark set the early mark at 2:12. Car 52 is running smoothly, knock on wood, they haven't even had to change a tire. Later, Trevor drops Team 52's time into the 2:09 range, good enough for forth place in a very competitive group until the last session, when the other M3 coupe driven by Carl McGinn of Driving Concepts, knocked them into fifth by a few 1/10s.

My times for this track are slow and there isn't enough sessions left for me to work up so Todd takes the last two sessions. In the third he puts us a few tenths ahead of the M3 in our class for second place. Most people will pack up early today because of the long drive ahead to Thunderhill but we have to plan on guarding the 2nd. The track is getting hotter, slower, by the moment so times should climb. We decide to put on the shaved set of tires just in case. In the forth session the M3 comes out and the Porsche stays in feeling comfortable in first with 3, 2:10s, The M3 cards a 2:13 but then starts to slow as the temps rise. All we need is one lap at 2:13 to hold on; 2:13, 2:12, 2:10, eyecks, Porsche territory. 2:09, 2:09, can we get another,, not now, the tires are way too hot so Todd runs a 3:00 cool down then gets another 2:09 before the checkered is thrown. First for today.

Action Pics

[ Car 15 ] [ Car 52 ]