Race Day

It was just another race day, a million details to follow-up on, crew to organze and dress, meetings to get to, and I wasn't even driving. I've decided it's much more stressful to watch and wait from the pits. I started the race watching from the in-field near turn two, where it turns out three cars went down on the first lap. The race included 7 full-course cautions, and a couple more minor contacts to the Mustang. Keith missed the first big crash by a small margin, but ended up clipping a Porsche who decided to park in the middle of turn one. This damaged the rear suspension again (that's two rear-ends in one weekend). The back left tire spent the rest of the race heading in the wrong direction and trying to put the back of the car into the wall.

The car finished a decent 17th in GS, finished being the keyword.

Daytona Practice and Qualifying

Practice - Hit in the first lap.

Vesko headed out for his first lap in the Mustang only to have a BMW not see him as he passed and hit him in the back left wheel. The wheel was destroyed and the Mustang spun six times close to the wall, then shot down through the infield still traveling at 120 mph. The compete rear-end was damaged and had to be replaced, but the car made it out for the second session, thanks to a hard working crew. Our crew is comprised of Erich Ficker as crew chief, four volunteers plus a gang that Keith brought.




Qualifying - Hit in the last Lap

Keith did an excellent qualifying lap of 2.03.1, which starts them 21st in a field of 34 GS cars. There are 69 cars total in the Koni Challenge race. On the last lap he had contact with a TRG Porche (John Potter?), which did some minor front end damage.

The End of Koni Test Days = The End of the Civic

Daytona was going GREAT, the cars were getting better and better, and we were all enjoying the track and the weather. It was 80 degrees and sunny — while it was snowing back at home — gorgeous days. The track at Daytona is a fun place to drive, we were getting faster, and finding what the car needed to be competitive. The Civic designed and built by Veskso was impressive. There were the usual improvements that can only be found by putting a car on track, but each session saw progress.

Vesko, and Erich Ficker, (our crew chief for the season) worked hard since we went without any other crew for the test. They had both the Civic and the Mustang GS car owned by Keith Rossberg to care for.

In the last session we had a renter in the Civic who lost it in the kink and ended up hitting the wall a couple of times. He has a broken wrist, but is otherwise ok. It was a terribly hard hit, which shows how well the cars are built–to be able to take an impact like that and protect the driver.

Our plan is to find another Civic, and work day and night to finish it for the Race in Miami. This will be a repeat of the first Civic, since he literally finished it five minutes before putting it in the hauler to head for Florida. This plan is contingent on Vesko getting paid for the damage of his car. Once he gets the money he can start ordering parts and looking for another Civic.

Daytona Test Days '09

I finally have a little downtime to enjoy the warm FL weather and relax for a minute. There are four of us here for the test days: Vesko, Keith myself and Erich Ficker as crew. That's right, once again we only have one crew member. It's been a little difficult and we're all ready for some sleep, but both cars are on track and looking great. I had my first session this morning and it was a lot of fun, but challenging to learn a new car and track at the same time. The Honda was jumping around so much I though it was experiencing technical difficulties, but that's just the track here, super bumpy!

We need to change the map—we're running on the factory settings. We are hitting the rev limiter too early and not able to use complete power in places, going around the oval we have to lift a little, and stay in 5th, since sifting to 6th actually slows the car down. we'll bring the computer home and get that fixed after test days. The cars are staying here until the East coast races are over.