Daily Journal - Sunday, May 7, 2000

Sunday was a very long day, and the night's drive to Road Atlanta was really tough. Due to a somewhat late arrival to the track and a few distractions, we ran the first GingerMan race with the boost controller off - that is, only .7bar, or roughly 150hp shy of what we normally run. We still managed to finish 13th Overall, but this was a mistake that we will not make again. Reg and I have since worked out a full checklist to go over and over again before each race to make sure everything is set up correctly.

We had to cut the GingerMan session short as it was taking longer than Brock expected to run all these cars (113 teams!), so we only ran one race at GingerMan today. In the afternoon we raced at Michigan International Speedway, with rain coming and going the hour preceding the event. During that time my friend Jane Ueda picked up some dryer duct hose and brought it to the track, with which I rigged up some brake ducts to help out the pads. To say the least, I was a bit concerned about braking on the banking of MIS, from 170mph+ down to 60mph for turn 1, especially lap after lap!

Finally we got on the track, and it had stopped raining for 15 minutes or so before that time, which meant that the track was still quite wet. I took it easy to make sure we didn't spin the car, but still hit really high speeds on the banking - I even had to grab 6th gear! That translates to about 180mph on the banking. Fortunately the brake ducts did their job sufficiently well with that long stretch before turn 1, and I had some brakes for the quick deceleration. We finished 15th Overall at MIS because of my cautious driving and the dryer track some of the other guys got after the first few cars ran, but at least we made it out of there safely, which is what really matters.

The Eclipse finished 44th Overall at GingerMan with J.M. again driving, and 52nd Overall at MIS, with Guy behind the wheel. This was Guy's first time in the car since last year, and it was certainly a learning experience as the car is radically different from last year. Additionally, the shocks were accidentally left at full soft for the track! This certainly hindered the performance of the car substantially.

P.S. Thanks to Ben and his brother (sorry I forgot your name!), 2 Supra guys from Toronto for coming all the way out to Michigan to watch and support us! Also thanks to Mark, Vamshi and Jane for coming out to visit at MIS, it was great to see some more familiar faces. And thanks for the cookies and brownies Jane, yummy! :)