Buttonwillow Raceway, Track Configuration #1
May 15, 2002
"The Buttonwillow Clockwise Kings"

7 Tracks in 7 Days to determine who really is the fastest driver/car combo

Today was a horrid day.  We get to the track in the morning, and find out that yesterday, Ondrack/Salter in the white 914 with a 3.3 liter turbo motor went out in their last session, blazed a string of 1:26's, and took first  at the Streets of Willow, bumping us out from being the King of the Streets.  That hurt.  Also means that Mumford is still 1st overall, and we are 2nd by five points.

Chasing down Ondrack/Salter

So the results from yesterday for top five are:

Terry and Charles blast the Lotus Elise to 3rd fastest set of laps. Amir gets the F40 moving fast, coming in 5th overall.  Wayne has 6th fastest set of laps with his 944 Turbo. 

 
After three days, we are in 2nd place only 5 points behind Mumford/Provost
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Erik goes out for a session and once again we see a cloud of dust.  Erik claims that as he's going down the back straight coming into a turn the engine completely looses power and the car spins. Erik brings the car in covered in dirt -- for the third time.  As always Erik has a reasonable mechanical excuse as to why he spun the car.  I may be running a little slower than him, but I have managed to keep all four wheels on the track.

As Dagmar goes off to take some photos, she notices a guy in a UPS uniform admiring Mark O'Dell's Mini Cooper S.  He takes time to get some photos and ask questions.  He asks Mark if he's been on the track yet and Mark says that his run group will be in 20 minutes.  Brown says "No problem, I'll stay."  Later Dagmar notices the UPS truck parked behind our garage.  Its not a small local delivery truck.  It's a double rig.  Looks like thousands of packages are going to be late.  She then goes by Mumford's car and notices all of the wheels are off.  Paul is upset because he had his tires Fed Ex-ed for 10 a.m. delivery.  It's now 2:30 p.m. and they still haven't arrived.  Could be worse, they could have gone UPS...

We have had pretty good luck with the car three days in a row, but this afternoon was tough.  The NSX is sputtering a bit after the 2nd session.  We were holding our own the first two sessions, definitely in the hunt for top time of the day.  And now this happens.  Not sure if it fuel, injectors, coils, etc, but something is making it run on about 5 or 5.5 cylinders.  This is unfortunate, as we are running a configuration that favors a good handling car.

Two Lotus.  Two Lotuses?  Two Loti?  Whatever.  Anyways, they are fast!

Mark Allen/Greg Hardee get tapped by another driver, with some damage to their rear bumper.

Dave P. from Canada is trying to find an Integra Type R motor, as he thinks his bottom end is dying.  Total bummer for his team, as his car was not affectionately known as "The Honda From Hell", as he was kicking some ass in his class.

The final results of the day are:

We are kinda surprised that the Mustang piloted by Lindsey/Flaherty did so well.  I thought this configuration was best suited to short track specialists.  Anyways, we lost some points here, as we felt we could have been in the top 3 had the car been working well.

Mumford's support rig.  They drove car between tracks, but had trailer for support

We struggled for hours like this.  Around 7 p.m., after everyone left the track, Erik took the NSX on the track to test out the changes. Unfortunately, we didn't latch the rear lexan window, and it went flying off and got completely destroyed.  So we don't have a rear hatch window.   This could be a problem.  Security guard comes out and yells at us, saying we are not supposed to be on the track.  We tell him we had permission from the people at the sign in desk, and he says he doesn't care, he is in charge right now.   I make some phone calls to people on various email lists, to see if they can find anyone that will let us borrow an NSX rear window hatch, as Erik thinks that aerodynamically, we are going to lose many seconds a lap with all that air getting stuck in the engine bay.

Amir's rig.  Big ass RV, one car trailer, pulling a Ferrari F40.  Life is good!

Terry and Charles in the Elise had a rough day too.  Terry's co-driver went off a couple of times, and it also looks like some valves bent from a timing belt failure.  They have their car taken apart in the 7's Only racing garage at Buttonwillow, and are struggling to make it work again.  An hour later, he says they are out for sure.  Bummer, they were front runners.  Larry, Reuben, and Erik struggle trying to make the car run smooth again.  Another problem with diagnosing the engine problem is that we have a straight pipe with no baffles on the car.  So the car is blaring out 125 db of sound as we are gathered around the car.

One of the spectators at the the event had a really big ass rig!

We struggled with it at Buttonwillow in the 7's Only garage until 10:45 p.m., and then we throw in the towel.  We sorta got it working, but it seems like a loose wire or bad ground might be causing the problem.  We've got a 300 mile drive to Thunderhill, and we gotta get moving.   We decide that I will drive the big trailer, and Reuben will drive the RV, while the others sleep for a few hours.

Those five dollar plastic chairs can't hold that big hunk of Mexican love

I drove entire way from BW to Thunderhill, cruised in at  4:00 a.m. exactly....just like I said when we left Buttonwillow five hours ago.  The plan is that everyone but me will wake up at 6:15 a.m. to take the big trailer down to the track and start working on the car, and I will sleep until 8 a.m. and then take the RV down to the track.

After Buttonwillow, we are tied for 2nd overall, despite having the NSX sputtering
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