85Gold

24Chromium

My BSR teammate Laura again flew out and joined me to share the car in the enduro. This time around, I gave her the majority of the seat time during the practice and warmup sessions. Laura is an amazing driver, currently winning her class in her series. She displayed her depth of talent and raw speed by quickly coming up to pace and getting within 1 second of my own PB laptime with a time of of 2:02.444.

My sprint races went well enough. I finished first in class in both. Sadly, my only class competitor crashed near the top of the climbing esses in sprint 2. It was a bad one and I was shocked to see the remains of the car when it was dropped in the paddock nearby. The big event was the enduro. I felt very confident, this being my 4th or 5th enduro, and 3rd one sharing with Laura. Even more so, because we were the only car in class - we just needed to finish! Earlier in the day, my weather app showed there was a possibility of rain during the race. Memories of the enduro at WGI still haunted me and I was bound not to allow that to happen again. However, the skies were bright and the sun was scorching. With an hour to go before the flag dropped, the threat of rain had passed and we prepared a set of slicks in case of a puncture. I took the first stint. For once I had a good start. However, on the opening lap, at the beginning of the downhill roller coster section, a car in front of me spun and a few cars got by me. On lap 6 there was a terrible crash at the end of the back straight. This forced a black flag all that kept un in the pit lane for nearly an hour. Just prior to resuming the race, the stewards declared it a sprint race with no pit stop required. Poor Laura never got to race. Despite a scary spin and ‘John Deer’ excursion at the top of the climbing esses, I finished the race first in class and P17 overall.





VIR


VIR


VIR


I was surprised to receive a trophy!

You Tube

Fastest lap at VIR

You Tube

Enduro (Sprint 3) race

24Chromium

As I write this, I’m finally home safe and sound. I’m still amazed that I made the entire journey with zero drama as far as the truck and trailer. I never even had so much as a flat tire. I took a more relaxed pace on the way home and reveled in the beauty of the country and the changing landscapes and climates. It felt so good to finally reach the dry west. I honestly think I could envision myself living near Birmingham, AL or Braselton, GA - if it weren’t for the humidity.

I made so many wonderful new friends on this trip. Especially John Tecce, Rick DeMan, Matt 'the professor' Distefano, Seb Juneau, Mo Dadkhah, Tim Lambie, etc. And likewise I got to see old friends like Kai Bockmann, Clarke Simpson, Sly Yaninska, Stu Fain, Andrew Davis, and David Murry. While I was very tempted (Rick D!) to stay a few more weeks and race at the Monticello event, I have two events already scheduled at Laguna Seca back home. But for those of you who will race at Road America during the Labor Day holiday, you’ll see myself and Laura again. Laura decided to dip her toe in the waters of Trophy East. Now we’ll finally get to see a real ‘East meets West’ competition! And I’ll again be in the Club Race. I look forward to meeting even more new friends and catching up with everyone.




Somewhere in middle America




Road life

GT3DE

Great to see you again.
Glad you had a great trip.
Clarke

24Chromium

pvgolfer

Epic journey! Thanks for sharing!

montoya