We found out the results from yesterday - the Seven placed 14th overall, and the Eclipse was 42nd. Finally some decent results! This morning on the way to the track the vibrating problem that we've been having all day yesterday was getting much, much worse. Whenever we'd get on the gas the car would vibrate badly. REALLY badly. Took a look under the car - bye-bye Mr. U-Joint. DOH. We grabbed the yellow pages at the track and found a place that specializes in drivelines. I stuck around the track with Jim to make sure the Eclipse was running well, and Guy and J.M. took the car to the shop. Two hours later or so, just before the end of the first session, the Seven shows up at the track!! J.M. decided he wasn't feeling up to driving today with all the problems with the car, so I jumped in the driver's seat and went for some laps.

Jim had some problems in his first session, ended up carriny way too much speed into turn 1, and looped the car. He was about a foot from hitting the wall, but fortunately looped it and went into reverse on the grass, instead! Phew!

The first session with the Seven went pretty well, though the car was still cutting out a bit. The second session for the Eclipse went MUCH better, and Jim kept it on track well. The second session for the Seven was good, too, and I carried much more speed through turn 1, as well as the last turn onto the banking. The car was cutting out a LOT, and I realized before my session we were really low on gas (because of the driving to the shop, back to the track, etc!). So, I had the fuel cut problem as before, in addition to the fuel starvation on the banking and in some turns. Ugggh. It was probably about as fast as my first session taking these things into consideration. With the new U-Joint, the car HAULS. It doesn't compare at all with the car yesterday, it's like a whole new beast. We definitely placed highly this time, but only the results can tell us what really happened :)

I also made a home-brew catch can out of an old brake fluid bottle (thanks for the idea Ari!), two door snaps that Reg had from his Supra, and some 6mm HKS hose. We are no longer spewing out oil as we were before, and it's not going into the intake, either, and the EGTs are staying down very well now, peaking at 875. Special thanks to Ian for the late-night info and Reg for helping to build this toy. :)

Time to get some more sleep (I find myself saying that a lot!). It's off to Texas World Speedway tomorrow (an 850 mile haul or so from here), where we're planning on finishing very well as I ran the track many, many hours back in February in Jonathan Altschul's little Del Sol (thanks again Jon, I owe you one!). Very few people have run the new track at TWS and we're looking to take full advantage of this! :)

I almost forgot - thanks a lot Hal for stopping by with the race gas! Sorry we didn't get to use it all up with the Seven disappearing and all. It was good meeting you and your wife, sorry we didn't get a chance to chit-chat some more, I was busy at the beginning of the day and lost track of you then. Have a good time in Mexico! :)

- Emmanuel