We made it Home

We made it home Saturday evening about 11 pm after logging 4964 miles since leaving Thursday to head west for South Bend.  Rick still had another 30 miles to get home to Ephrata.  This year gas was slightly cheaper this year and the lowest we paid was $3.41 in Mississippi and the highest was on the Indiana turnpike at $4.45.  Total spent for gas was $1039 and we averaged 17.29 miles per gallon including transits at about 19 mph and on track mileage of about 6 mph.  Out longest transits were from New Orleans to Daytona Beach which was 650 miles and from South Bend to Grissom Air Force Base then on to Talledega, Alabama at 683 miles. We did give a little too much money to the turnpike commissions of Pa. Indiana and Ohio where we spent a total of about $180 on tolls.

This years finish was less than we were hoping for at 37th place.  We had an ABS brake system failure at the Autocross at Grissom Air Force Base so we spent the rest of the week without ABS.  I am used to teaching without ABS and I race my Spec Miata without ABS so it wasn't a disaster but I probably would have done much better on the autocross and at BMW Performance Center which was like an autocross with the ABS.  Also as I mentioned in a previous post I think I chose the wrong tire and didn't have quite the grip I had in the past.  The lack of grip and a little over aggressive driving had me off the track a few times during competition which cost me several finishing positions each time.

The other big event that cost us in finishing positions was at Carolina Motorsports Park when an oil cooler line got cut through by the power steering pulley which then spewed oil and put out a smoke screen.  I was able to finish my run by nursing the car to the finish but lost a lot of time.  We were able to make a repair on the oil line before the end of the session and run the second event of Carolina but got a 10 second penalty for running out of group and I was the last car to run.  Our goal this year was for a top 20 finish.  The competition really seemed to be stronger this year with many awesome cars in the mix.  Even at 37th place there were a lot of cars that finished behind us, so that's a little bit of a win.  The biggest win is that we were able to complete the event and bring the car home ;^)

Don't forget we are still raising money for our charity, the Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition. We still need a few hundred dollars to meet this years goal. For a donation of $10 or more we will place your name on a Pink Ribbon sticker on the car, or the name of someone you would like to honor or memorialize.  Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition helps women going through Breast Cancer as well as helping to fund mammograms and research. Help us meet our goal. Please make any checks out to Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition or PABCC and send to Jim Roberts 14 W. Main St. Mount Joy, Pa. 17552. This event is really a lifetime experience and we felt is was a good way to leverage the it to the community good by raising funds for this worthy charity.