2009 El Toro ProSolo Saturday

We arrive nice and early, get teched and walk the course one last time. This is a great course that combined all the elements - technical without being visually difficult to see, fast in sections and slow in other sections. You had to get it all right in order to do well.

Just as we are finishing our walk, we receive a phone call to see if we'd be open to Julie Avard driving our car so that all the ladies can be in single driver cars. Julie is currently on Bridgestone tires at home, so this should be a good fit.



With the lower car number, Jason starts off as first driver in the morning. He has good times on both sides and ends the morning session the faster of the two of us. With the combination of starts and a few minor delays, the morning session doesn't end until around 1:30pm. It seems to be the trend for me so far at these events. I end up dirty or red lighting on one side so I'll only have decent times for one side. For this event, it was the left side that was giving me grief. I'm in 4th place by the end of the morning.



In the afternoon session, the faster driver goes first, so Jason goes out and takes his runs. He improves on the left side, but not on the right side. With the runs being back to back, the time goes by very quickly. The RE-11 tires are holding up to the heat of back to back runs very well, getting up to operating temperature and staying there without the need for cooling. My afternoon runs come up and my focus is to get a clean left side so that I'd have a decent time at least. My first left side run is an alien run that would have put me within 1/10 of Ken on the left side, but I cone it away and end up standing on a clean 2nd left side run. The right side dips into the 43's for a decent time.

Julie takes her runs and it's getting late. I have a feeling that they will not be able to finish all their runs before it gets dark. Everybody is hurrying to try and get all the runs done before it gets dark. Julie has not driven in a while. She's not pushing the car, so we encourage her to push harder. The tires are not getting up to 150 degrees, but staying in the 120 degree range.



When the Saturday results are posted, I'm in 3rd place and Jason is 6th. Both of us are still within striking distance of trophies.

I'm very tired. There seems to be very little down time at a ProSolo. The course will be the same for tomorrow, so we pack up and go grab dinner. We can walk again in the morning.