Pro Solo Saturday Recap

Saturday morning was on the cold side and I was nervous. The tree start isn't something that I'm familiar with. This is only the second event that I've had to deal with the tree. I also found out that Andy Hollis (who is considered by many to be the fastest STS driver in the country) had switched from STS2 to run STS also.



The start order is based on car number. Mike goes out first and I'm following up in the 2 driver group with Kevin McCormick. The chosen method of launching was a dismal failure as I'd watch Kevin pull close to a full car length on my in the first 60 feet. The morning wasn't what I'd consider to be a success, but the other drivers were faring even worse, so I find myself in 2nd place at the end of the morning sessions. The video recorder is showing no power and we have a blown fuse for the external camera, so we ditch everything for the morning session.






While I'm taking my morning runs, I see a worker start running behind me and I know that I'm clean. It turns out that one of our fender liners had fallen off.

Between sessions, I'm asking lots of questions about the tree and other drivers on how to do a better start - just to try and keep up with the other Civics. We also replaced teh fender liner, recharged the video battery and fixed the fuse on the external camera. Thanks to everybody that came to help.



The Saturday afternoon was quite different. We switched up to run in order of finishing times from the morning. With a 2nd place in the morning, I was paired up against Andy Hollis. The new launch method works better now. Andy gains less than a car length on me at the start. Of course, his times are very fast and mine are respectable. Unfortunately, I red light both runs on the left side, which drop me down to 7th place by the end of the afternoon session. If my times were good, they would have kept me in 2nd place. By the time it was Mike's turn to drive, the Civic would not start. Fortunately, Jason and Moe had come to watch and jumped right in to give us a hand troubleshooting. We were not able to get the car started and running again in time, so Mike missed his afternoon runs.



By the end of the day, Moe has the car running again. The wires behind tumbler for the ignition key had shorted out, so we weren't able to start the car or keep it running. Fortunately, Moe had the part on hand, so we were back in business for Sunday.



With only 1 timed run on the left side (that had a cone) and 3 red lights, the pressure was on to get a decent time on the left side on Sunday to stay in the race. We shall see how Sunday turns out.