Whew, that was a wild weekend! Got all extremes of weather, short of it snowing. The new pavement is awesome, really making what was a great track into a fantastic track! Like usual, the hospitality of the hosting regions workers were second to none, and the two BBQ diners were phenomenal. The Prod field was a good one, and it was great to see all my GLDiv Prod friends again, and all of the CenDiv guys who made the trip around the pond.
As for me personally, it was an up and down weekend. In a cool & cloudy first race qualifying, I took the overall pole while turning my best ever Grattan lap by .6 seconds. Bob Doernberg (EP 7) and I had a lot of fun swapping the lead a couple of times in the race before he got a little deep into Turn 3 and had an off. After that I pulled out a pretty good lead, but kept my eye on the Volt meter, which was dropping and dropping. By three to go, I had turned off everything in my car I could that didn't make the car run, but I had already dropped below 11 Volts. Coming out of Turn 8 and then again in Turn 10, I could tell the car wasn't pulling like it usually did. As I crossed the S/F line with two to go, it finally started cutting out and dying. At that point, I had a 45 second lead in FP and just hoped I could make it to the finish. I gimped and gimped around, until the car finally lost all power through the 11 & 12 chicane onto the front straightaway on the last lap. I dropped from 1st to 10th overall (and 4th in FP) in the last corner, in view of the checker flag. That sucked, but the car at the very least kept on idling, so I decided to keep it rolling, letting it take the checker flag.
Then it poured rain for three hours and completely changed the track. The following morning was second race qualifying, and the car went wicked loose on the green and kindy dirty, dusty track. I qualified five seconds slower, and 11th overall. In the race later that afternoon (in about 85 degree, super sunny heat!), I hoped the track would've got better by then, so I didn't change much on the car for it. Right on the pace lap, I could tell the car was still going to be really loose and off the start, it was just that. I had to just try and hold onto it while I chugged around in about 10th (4th in FP), waiting and hoping the car would come in as the race went on. Luckily for me, that's exactly what happened. I steadily picked up time, passed some cars, and with the help of a couple DNF's & spins, I found myself in 2nd overall (1st in FP) by the checker flag, and with the fastest lap of the race. I had cutout the video system and the O2 heater from the previous race, and that was just enough to get me to the finish without issue. I still have some issues to work out in that regard, but we'll get it licked. Looking forward to Mid Ohio.
