Flounder:
Apologies are hereby offered for missing the Team Thicko
Barbeque Saturday night. And I bet those Sunday morning
Swedish pancakes were good, too. A certain number of
people who had certain british equipment at Road America
were otherwise indisposed after 2 Friday practice sessions
in seering heat, a Sat. a.m. practice session, and a Sat. p.m.
monsoon. I haven't seen rain like that since Thailand in '70.
I was accepted into "The British Racing Group's" paddock
area upon Thurs. afternoon arrival. Very gracious of them.
(South Paddock, along the straight from 4 to the woods)
Between RA itself, and the heat, a number of us had no end
of problems. By lunchtime Sat. "M.L." Hillard said the BRG
paddock area looked like a Civil War battlefield hospital.
After a Sat. night work-over my car was PERFECT for the Sun
a.m. warmup. For the first time this year the car actually felt
fast (hard to believe, eh?) and I also had great brakes for the
1st time (1/2 marker @ corner 1 vs. what I was doing at
Blackhawk...).
Unfortunately, my 3:43 fast race lap reflected my car's condition
during the race:
Lap 1 - head gasket starts leaking (oil)
Lap 3 - right front caliper (inboard piston) froze "in"
yielding no rt. frt. brakes (stayed that way for the rest of the race)
Lap 4 - fuel starvation in corners 3 & 10, losing top end power
Lap 6 - I'm fogging for mosquitos 10-11A
CHECKERED FLAG!
We had a blast nonetheless. Will be back for the ELVF. -GS-
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