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Since I probably had one of the shorter tows I thought I would throw up a teaser vid for everyone.
First and for most I want to thank everyone in the SE30 community and especially Aaron and Ryan for getting me back on the road as I was ready to pack it up Friday and some tire barriers came flying out at me from the bus stop. 
Ha nice job of missing my dumb ass. thought I over cooked it but after seeing that it does not look like it so who knows. Fun as hell
Dang that was soooo fun!
Friday was a good track day and we had some fine sessions in between āworker breaks.ā
Iāve not reviewed my Saturday video yet so Iāve zero recollection of any details. Sat night we hung out with the great guys at Mad Motorsports, watched race videos and ate well.
Sunday, to my very great surprise, I qualed 5th of 28. I must have had a helova tailwind. I didnāt do all that well in the race tho. My LF tire seemed to have given up at the green and I couldnāt get the darn car to turn right. I bled a lot of positions and ultimately finished 11th. But I had an absolute blast between green and checker.
https://vimeo.com/110815294
I had a helova time getting home tho. I blew a trailer tire about an hour out from Savannah (home). One of the lug nuts was on so damned tight that I snapped my fancy foldable lug wrench. The only other thing I had to fit the nut was a sparkplug socket, but it was 3/8" drive which I knew wasnāt going to hack it.
I called Rich and Fred to see if by chance they were coming up behind me. Nope. But one of them had the idea of torching the nut. I figured the weak link was the 1/2" to 3/8" adapter. I torched the nut for a couple minutes before I busted the adapter.
I had one last chance. Iād use my torque wrench which would fit the spark plug socket w/o an adapter.
I torched the bastard for at least 5min. And with the torque wrench the nut turned. So then it was just a matter of changing the tire. By the side of the freeway. In the dark.
Saturday video is uploading, and I hope to upload the Sunday video tonight. I had a great time, but I definitely wish I had done the Friday practice and found a qualifying buddy.
Had a great time. First race of the year for me so played it safe, tried to keep out of the way and had a blastā¦
Qualifying and some Saturday racingā¦
And a little funā¦
Broke a rocker arm on lap 2 of Sundayās race so not much to see thereā¦
Great weekend.
[quote=āRangerā post=78954]I just looked at my data. Top speed was Sunday qual. 139.68mph@6198rpm. Woohoo![/quote]was that GPS speed? I think I saw over 140 but havenāt pulled my dash card with my data.
Guess that puts me at about the same. Wow. Canāt imagine what 200 would feel like nose to tail like that.
Yes, GPS. My Speedo read 0. Occasionally the needle tho would whip to full scale and then drop back.
Back when my speedo did work it read 5ish high >120mph.
Looked like a ton of fun. Ranger, it looked like your best minimum speed through bus stop was about 73. Seemed like your exit speed was usually 80, including the 3rd gear lap. What did you do in quals when your tires didnāt yet suck?
The Bus Stop was a problem. On Saturday morning I saw Eric and Sandro go thru the Bus Stop so fast I couldnāt hardly believe it. So I became determined to push the comfort zone. My problem was that as I was getting better, my traction was getting worse. I was kinda right on the cusp of making it solidly a 4th gear event. In the end I kinda had to take it case by case. If I was clear of traffic on Sunday it was a 4th gear turn. If there was traffic in front of me, I said to myself either āok, lets briefly hit 3rd this timeā, or the more exciting ābe prepared for a shit-storm and have to hit 3rd unexpectedly.ā However it went down, it was an E ticket ride each time.
I had a great time racing with you all! Saturday was probably one of the most exciting races I have been in yet. I qualified in P8. I had a great start, and a few close calls. One at the exit of the bus stop and another and was at the exit of turn 3. I was eventually able to make my way up to 3rd after a photo finish and an epic last lap with Scott Mckay.
On sunday I qualified in P10. I had a great start making my way up to 7th after turn 1. Scott went a little wide in turn 1 of lap 2, allowing me to pass for 6th. After the restart I was able to draft a bit with Ryan Wittinger and Walsh and eventually I pass Walsh in T1 for 5th place. A lap or two later I caught up with Mckay after getting a good run through the bus stop. I finished in 4th. Iām very happy with that 
I hope we can do Daytona again next year!
So Daytona was my favorite race so far for so many reasons. As many know Iāve run a total of 4 weekends so I have a small sample set, but itās going to be hard to beat. I grew up 45minutes from Daytona and the 24hr race was my first race I ever went to as a kid.
To start the weekend off, I pile drived the tires in the bus stop on Friday in my second outing. It wasnāt too bad but I busted the steering rack. I was packing up and Ryan told me thereās no way I was leaving with that damage and convinced me to stay. Something about being an E30 and not giving up so fast. 
It turned out to be quite the challenge as no one had the part, but my least favorite auto parts store was to the rescue. Autozone got one brought in from Orlando the next morning and all I missed was Qual for PTD and SE30 Saturday morning. Aaron busted his hump to help me get everything together and low and behold we had it together and dead nuts on the alignment in no time. A 2 minute test drive and I was ready to race. Now my mom, step dad and girlfriend could see me shineā¦ hahahahaā¦ Seriously though I canāt thank Scott, Al, Aaron and Ryan enough for their help/encouragement!
I started both races for Saturday behind the class and in the SE30 case it was even behind the 944ās and GTSās with Mark Issa. I battled all the way up to 14th with some close calls, good luck and good racing and had a blast. That race was my most fun at that point and Mark ended up finishing just in front as I was trying to catch him. PTD was great fun as well and itās quite thrilling to have some of those Thunder cars fly by at 200āish on the oval. Again Issa and I had some good fun in there as well and it was a blast. I finished 7th there.
Since I had family I went to dinner with them and ended up turning in early. Back at it first thing in the morning I wanted to qual. I screwed up qual in Lightning by ditching my draft partners on the out lap and ended up 14th, which was great as it was where I finished the day before. Thunder I have no idea what happened as I ended up 2nd next to Ryan in qual. lol, I was only 3 sec off his lap. Sandro was kind enough to hang back with us mere humans for some fun and bump draft me a couple laps and show me some lines I was screwing up. I had a good race and a good time and finished 5th.
Then was the lightning race. It started soso gaining a few positions. Then the double yellow and then I had the most fun Iāve ever had. Not on film were some exciting turn 1ās with other cars where there was a lot of bumping and then some challenging turn 3ās. I had some ah ha moments, near misses and good passes, It was awesome. I was then in a 4 car train with Lako, Bains, Issa and myself and we had some fun. I would say my favorite race by far and 3 laps were incredible. I canāt wait for the next race!! Watch Issa get punted in last lap @15:50 mark from roadster. I ended up in 8th at the end which is my best for sure. It was quite a swing from OhShit Iām going home before noon Friday again (happened earlier in the year when I found the tires in 1 at RA on a Friday) to oh man what an awesome weekend!
Hereās my vid with commentary. After the restart is where all the excitement was. Damn this takes time to do and upload.
http://youtu.be/dFZk8wM1Ssw
Forgive my excitement in 1 a couple times as I shift early. I looked at the data and the rpmās maxed at 6690 on next to last lap in 1 so not too bad. :sick: All checked out so far and itās good.
Still having issues with Vimeo in getting my Saturday video up, but here is my Sunday video. I started 15th and finished 13th. The best battle was with Aaron Whitinger:
Here are two videos from the weekend. I really canāt recall having this much fun racing in the past few years and hope to make it back to Daytona in the future.
Sunday Lightning: http://youtu.be/IHuS1hrG5DI?list=UU2aQquX5t0Pn0Flr7Jjswdw
I know Iām biased, buth this video is kind of exciting to watch. I got spun in Turn 5 on the first lap (donāt worry Ken, I forgive you) and spent most of the race working back toward the front. Turn 5 ended up being a great place to pass because most folks were going deep and late apexing while leaving a large hole on the inside.
Sunday Thunder: http://youtu.be/_B0rNREig6A?list=UU2aQquX5t0Pn0Flr7Jjswdw
This video is only 32 seconds and shows me getting sideswiped by a Spec Miata at the race start. I retired immediately to fix the car for the Lightning race.
Finally got my Daytona video together. Here is some highlights from Daytona in PTD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWUiUbrMA7I
I know it isnt SE30, but PTD is mainly SE30 nowadays anyways.
Saturday video:
Started 21st and worked my way up to 12th, but unfortunately there isnāt much racing action. I kind of ended up in no mans land with nobody to draft and unable to catch the pack in front of me with Ranger.
Lets see some pics. I have to write a story for Speednews and Iām a bit low on pics. Anyone have some great train photos?