Sixth Gear

Wow….this just keeps getting better.

The morning started out cool (49 degrees) and sunny. Lots of power on a day like today. Teammate Dan Watkins was first at bat and SHOT out of the box with a TWO second improvement in lap times. Dan is putting his foot down…literally.

David Quinlan was working the phones with a 2 hour conference call which allowed us to slip Andy Lally in behind the wheel and give us some data laps for comparison. Holy cow, the kid has the X factor. First lap, he drops FIVE seconds off of our BEST time. Enough already, get out of the car….we get the point.

I’m next up, keen to capitalize on the overnight subconscious analysis. I emerged from the car so VERY happy having exceeded my goal of 1.55.00 for the day. (see below). This probably isn’t a fair screen print…these guys are clearly capable of more…but man, it feels good!

All seemed to be going well on the day so I chose to take a 30 minute ride north to connect with a fellow Rolex racer (Gotham Racing) to buy some new tires he was selling. Upon my return, I learned that tragedy had struck. Poor Toby broke his ‘ankle’ as his factory cast differential sheered. The picture shows how the collar has seperated from the drum. It’s only supposed to be one piece….not two.

Have no fear, Trevor Dawe from Dawe Motorsports and the TRG team stepped into action and we were back out in just a few hours to crank it up again. A post mortem analysis of the car data showed that the factory tension settings were too tight and the banked oval took it’s pound of flesh from Toby. With the outside wheel spinning an average 1 mph faster for the entire length of the oval, the clutches were too stiff causing huge heat and wear, eventually leading to the differential shearing.

The highlight of the day was talking about the Guardian Angel story with Micheal from Grand Am press. He, together with his colleague and 12 time Boston Marathoner, JJ O’malley have taken an interest in our pursuit. I’m excited about our potential to combine efforts for the greater good. I talked about my ambition to run this across the Ferrari Challenge, Craftsman Truck, Grand-AM and Porsche Club Racing leagues for 2009. Go big or go home…they didn’t seem to flinch.

Team techie Chris Outzen hooked us up with his friend Pete from Gboxtrack.com and gave us a VERY cool gps data box that overlays on our video. We fine tuned it all and was able to produce this screen print of my night run tonight. It’s a SUPER unique experience to be doing 169.5 mph in the dark…..oddly, it’s not very disconcerting, mostly due to the voodoo setup on the car….plus the lights.

Oh the lights….Holy cow do we laugh when we hear the other drivers complaining about the lighting. You’ve GOT to be kidding, they haven’t done a Summit Pt or VIR race where the darkness is so thick you could cut it with a knife…like Jagermeister that’s been in the freezer for 2 days. LOL! It’s like 1 p.m. in the afternoon here!

Here is a cheat sheet on what it all means.

Ok -it’s 1:54 a.m….tomorrow is last day of practice, we’re looking forward to digging into the data with the crew at TRG and finding some bad habits to fix. Let’s just hope we can keep this car together…it’s been a roller coaster day emotionally with all the repairs required…..and I want a good lap time….

Speed Safely,

Loose Bruce
Rolex GT Car #18
www.guardianangelmotorsports.com