Sorry this report is coming out late, but.....I had already written a nice long report at 944spec.org with pics attached, went to hit submit, but was TIMED OUT! Lost it all. So I went back to scheduled work....
2nd try.
What a great weekend! We had 5 racers back on the grid to ensure the class was back in the TOYO TIRES bucks program. We had 3 new racers, which made our growth spurt here in SoCal even better.
Mike Peters, Chris Allen, and Everett Delano joined Jim Foxx and myself, the old hands in the bunch. Chris and Everett were thrilled to take the green flag in a crowd like that!
Robert and Rafi were still climbing the HPDE ladder, making their way towards that ultimate goal of earning their racing licenses.
I was dealing with a new car that weekend and so I was more in a sorting mode than all out racing mode. Car had 450 lb springs and no front sway bar. LSD and no adjustability left in the rear bar ensured that it drove like a pig with it's front legs tied up! Add a tall 5th gear on top of that and...my best effort yielded a 2:06.1? Compare that to average fast laps in the old Zebra 924S of 2:03 and best ever of 2:00 flat! Mike Peters kicked my a$$ both days. But the car was much better for it. Mike can drive well and he's busy switching his knowledge of driving from Hondas to 944's. He showed up with a new white car.....wait, I know that car. That's the ex-Johnny Pag, ex-Comeau Racing, ex-Tom Stone (AZ group) 1987 944!
Jim Foxx was racing on Sat. and had to go off track to miss a Mi-ahz-da (chick car!) . He hit his front spoiler which caused a pin hole leak in the pass side radiator tank. He slowly lost his water and with no gauge working, overheated the engine. He was on my butt one moment, then was pulling off to the side of the front straight in a billowing smoke cloud.
Even so , Jim and his lovely and self described,"pit chick", Barb served up some great nachos and fresh vegetables.
It was fun to watch race and HPDE videos in Scott's RV that night. Scott is a buddy of Robert and Rafi. Don't show videos of your driving to this crowd unless you have a strong ego! Their already pretty good drivers and they'll pick your driving apart. All in fun.
TOYO's ONLY donated a set of R-888's to our class! Bryan was so happy to see the 944 Spec class back in order in SoCal! We decided amongst ourselves that we would draw once for the whole set, instead of one tire per draw. Out came the now well-known poker chips. Each one has a race car number on it. Everett's youngest daughter, Emily, drew the winning chip and Jim Foxx was made to feel a little better about losing an engine by winning a set of fresh racing TOYO's!
The weather was fantastic all weekend. It was a great gathering of friends. 944 spec is back in SoCal. Just like it should be.