[ComposiMo]

A.) Not fill out paperwork and get disqualified

B.) Get sick on gas fumes and go to the infield care center

C.) Build a 1-off Rear Differential, and not create a backup

Well, 'A' almost happened to a LOT of teams... they were re-greidded to the back of the packs, and started the race there, since many teams forgot to fill out driver info forms... lol

B just about happened as well when our teams fuel rig sprung a leak, and it was unbearably horrible until the gas finally evaporated in the kitty litter...

So, we'll leave it to 'C' to cut the race short.... yep, a one-off dif in a barely used ford 9" quick-change rearend. The 9" is comon, but the diff is different in the quick-change rearends... and this one just happens to be even more unique to work with certain axles.

So yea, the car found a way to break the diff in half, and with no backup for the diff, the race was over. Grabbed the beer, and hung out till about 11pm, and came home... i just got back a few minutes ago.

Ah well.... it was an AWESOME time! I'll have pics tomorrow or Monday, whenever i can get the 1.5 Gigs of pics i took between the practice session on Thursday, and the race today. I got pics of the infamous diff as well, so you'll see how badly it was damaged.. hehe.

::sigh:: i was looking forward to trying to fall asleep with those cars racing away in the background.. hehe.

 

[Pag]

you were doing an endurance race? what car were you using?

 

[stick]

I'm glad you had a good time inspite of the circumstances. I'm looking forward to seeing the pics

 

[rex2nr]

sorry to hear the weekend was cut short. I can't wait to see some pics

 

[ComposiMo]

Well, i guess a little background is in order i suppose 8) (i coulda sworn i made a post about this not too long ago.. ah well)

So i got a call one Sunday after watching the Steelers clinch another victory, and it was a good friend of mine, Dave Junkins (owns and drives a sweeeet SCCA ITA CRX). He was letting me know that he had secured a spot for me to help crew with a team in the Rolex 24 Hour race at Daytona. yAy!

The team is the #08 Mazda RX-8 (3-Rotor power.. hehe) owned by the Goldin Brothers. These are some of the nicest people you'd ever meet. The entire team was friendly, and willing to let Dave and I tackle any portion of the car we felt we could handle. In fact, i even got to engineer a new catch can setup for their power steering resevoir at the last minute, since it was leaking all over the place... lol. And yea, mine worked excellent!

So anyway, i went on Thursday before the race, met the team, got the credentials, learned a bit about the cars. It was a great time. The race itself was AWESOME to watch, and i can't wait to help these guys next year. Unfortunately, this year wasn't too nice to them, and they broke their rear diff... ah well, they'll learn for next year.

Here are some pics of the car i got on Thursday... unfortunately, on Saturday for the race, i did not have any time to shoot any decent pics until after the car broke and it was declared a lost race... then i picked up my camera and started shooting some stuff.. hehe. But anyway, i'll get a gallery up shortly, but i'm having problems with my gallery software freezing halfway through the process... but once i figure that out, i'll post up all 500-some-odd of my pics i got

On track hauling tail!

With a little bit of company to.. hehe.

Now, here is another little tidbit of info that happened during the weekend. This GT porsche is run out of a shop here locally that i am very good friends with. I do a fair amount of fabrication for them, and in this case, i fabricated the entire exhaust system on the car. Granted, it isn't 'much' exhuast, but i'm damn proud of it! lol..

This car wound up finishing 8th in class, and 19th overall... and my exhaust made it through all 24 hours :twisted:

And so that was my Rolex weekend... i stayed until midnight, and decided to go ahead and head on home, since i wasn't going to sleep in a lawn chair if we didn't have a car running... heh.

All in all, it was a GREAT experience... makes me remember why i enjoyed working in racing so much back in the day.. ::sigh:: maybe there is a future there yet 8)

 

[azulito]

That's great Jon! I wish I could've seen that RX8 make it. There was a lot of attrition this year though among all the cars. You had your own fabrication make it 24 at Daytona! That's very cool! One of the tuners for the TRG GTO-R is Tom Payn who incidentally tuned my WRX.

Are the Goldin brothers racing the season or just Daytona?

 

[ComposiMo]

Yea, it would have been nice.. ah well. Live-n-learn... they should have had a backup for something like that But yea, it was -really- cool to see the Porsche finish the race with my exhaust 8)

I don't think that the Goldin Bros will be running the full season. They MAY be in Homestead though, since they are from the Miami area.