It's time...

As I sit here and write this, the second day of the ProSolo Finale is in progress. I'm listening to the live feed on Ustream while packing. Let me just say that doing this is making packing very difficult. I'm listening to the commentators, rooting for my friends, my heart is racing and I'm forgetting what I'm supposed to pack.

I suggest having all your packing done before you listen in on any of the broadcasts. Kudos to the commentators for doing such a good job.

I turned Ustream off in order to be able to write this update. Neelu and I will arrive in Lincoln tonight and spend tomorrow getting ready to race. Of course, I want to thank my sponsor Bridgestone for sticking by me and providing the tremendous support that they have always provided. Thank you Rod!

2012 El Toro ProSolo

Some of you have heard me say this before. This is my favorite event of the year. It's held at my favorite site and my favorite format. It sure would be nice to have more of these events. No matter what happens, this is a great event to play at.

Saturday is a beautiful day and I'm having fun. I'm putting down decent times and in the hunt. I'm having a good time. These are especially good events now that my daughter is here joining in the fun.



Sunday rolls around and as expected, the track has rubbered in. This is the day to lay down fast times. But, before STC runs, my daughter is up in JA. All's well until Neelu's go kart stalls while staged and the timer is running down. There is no starter beside us and I have to scramble to look for a starter. It's in the other lane. I make a sprint to the other lane, grab the starter and come back to start her kart. Her video shows that the kart starts just as the lights turn green. That's not the kind of excitement I was expecting on a Sunday morning.

Later in the morning, when STC is up, I have a few things in mind to try, but am not successful. I'm very very frustrated with myself. Not only did I not go faster, I didn't even match my times from Saturday when the track is faster. Grrr.

Worst outing at a ProSolo for me. Until next time then..

San Diego National Tour

I've been looking forward to this Tour. It's my first Tour where I haven't been buried in homework or class projects. I've also had a chance to practice and prepare for this event. The weather forecast actually looks like it will be a rain free Tour. Our car is ready and sure looks pretty.





Saturday is dry just as the weather man predicted. We don't run first thing in the morning, which is another nice surprise. Starting out with a coned run, then a DNF left me with a safe run to put in the book to stay in contention for Sunday. The safe run left me almost 2 seconds behind the leaders. That's a tough nut to make up for. At this point, there is nothing left to lose.

Sunday is another dry day. There's nothing to lose and everything to gain. Run one just gains me a cone, so we get ready to go make run 2 count. I lay down a 55.947, which is the fastest time for all ST drivers on run 2. I'm not able to go any faster on the 3rd run. It's my consolation that only 2 drivers break in to the 55's. Now if only I had a better Saturday.

Anyhow, those are the breaks. Congratulations to the winner - Will.

National Tour preparation

The San Diego National Tour is right around the corner and Mike and I head down to Qualcomm to get some seat time and acclimate ourselves to the surface. The Civic has been running well and we haven't run in to any major mechanical problems recently. I bum a ride down with Jeff and Nicole, which makes the weekend a whole lot easier for me.

The course looks like a mini road race with not a lot of line choice, though there are a few sections that are tricky. I'm trying out a new program called Harry's Lap Timer. The instructions in the program as well as online are not very clear. The video is supposed to start recording automatically based on GPS coordinates and stop by itself. With the camera mounted high on the passenger side and polarized sunglasses, I can't tell if the video is actually recording. At the end of the day, only one run has been recorded. I think I have figured out how to record the video correctly now. I'll test a little more before the Tour. I'd like to make sure that I get some video this time.

Speaking of the course, we have 4 runs and Mike and I take our runs and experiment a little with the car set up to see what works best. The car is working well and I've been able to put a run together that is several tenths faster than every other Civic, which makes for a nice start to going in to the weekend of the Tour.

I'm ready. Are you?

Whole again!

Not much has been said about this since this problem has been around for quite a while - we have been having an issue with valve float for about the last year. It's been affecting the car and has been gradually getting worse. The first time we really were affected by this was as early as the San Diego Tour back in March/April time frame. Going uphill at Qualcomm in third gear because you can't use second is really SLOW!

Up until recently, the problem didn't happen until the mid to high 7000 RPM range. However, at the last PCA event which kept us in the higher end of the RPM range, the problem was very apparent now at 7000 RPM. Much lower in the RPM range.

With 3 weeks between events, it was now or never. We flipped the switch and took the car apart to get it worked on. With everything that goes on in the ST world, we made sure to get measurements of everything in case we ever get challenged about the work that was done.

Anyhow, there were some delays in getting the car ready, nothing major, but Jason worked really really hard to get the car ready with Jon's help. The car showed up for our event with the car in one piece and running quite well.

It was just nice to be in the car again after 3 weeks. We were running tires from Nationals and had to take the OPR off the tires. This resulted in some slippery runs at first, but the car settled down as the tires cleaned up.

Jason ended up like Sebastian with a ton of re-runs (without looking for them). As a result, I ended up taking my second run about the time most were finishing their third runs. My second run put me in first place by 0.055 with two runs to go. I'm expecting Will to go faster and try to pass me, but he doesn't.


Jason and I talk about the course and we figure out a couple of places where we want to try doing something differently. It works! By the time I finish my fourth run, I've put a total of 6/10 on Will and the car appears to be working well and NOT using any oil. Woo hoo!

A very big thanks to John Edwards of Costa Mesa R&D Automotive Machine Shop for doing the head work and making sure that we stay in spec.