NASA hosted a 3-day driving event this weekend all for the standard two-day entry fee!  Thank You Jerry Kunzman!  The weather for the weekend was typical for August in Willows....lots of sun with temperatures in the mid to high 90s (but at least it's a dry heat...!).  This weekend had only a three GTI contingent of racers....Ron Swett and Tom Aiken of Shed Racing,  Scott Neville , and Carlos Suarez .  The always fast and hard-to-catch Joe Craven was vacationing in Peru and would miss this event.  As usual, the GTIs would be racing in Race Group A along with the Pro7s, Spec Miatas, Performance Touring, Honda Challenge cars.  We had a surprise contingent of Porsche Spec944s from Utah and So Cal who were running in Group A too (nice cars!).  Additionally,  GTI driver Steve Fuss would be running Time Trials (TTF Class) this weekend while working towards his racing license and his trip to Nationals at Mid Ohio in September. Dan Pina and his buddy Roman would be using the DP Racing #19 GTI for HPDE this weekend also.  The Shed Racing boys had a nice opportunity to Time Trial a pumped-up Subaru STi  belonging to their buddy Bluegrass Biggs owner of BiggsB Enterprises.  Bluegrass wanted to test his highly modified (~500hp to the wheels!) Subaru as he attempts to shake it down for a possible run at next year's (2007) 25-Hour Enduro.

Friday Practice:  Carlos couldn't make it up Friday so the only GTIs there for practice were the Shed Racing GTI and Scott's GTI.  Group A would be practicing with Group C, the high stung Legends Cars for all three practice sessions.  This would also be a very big day for Shed Racing...particularily Ron Swett.  Tom and Scott went out for the first morning session to dust the cobwebs off...Tom turned a 2:14.9 and Scott was a little slower with a 2:15.8.  No incidents occurred during the first practice session.  Ron took over the car for the second session and was getting use to Tom's car setup that was used for the first session (Tom likes to use a set of 13" front rims mounted with Toyos) but after a half dozen laps Tom came into the hot pits complaining about the 13" fronts.  Tom visually inspected the tires and saw nothing out of the ordinary and sent Ron back out for the remainder of the session.  The next lap entering Turn 1 the right front tire appears to have lost its bead just after turn in causing the car to understeer off the pavement at about 95mph!  Ron seemed to try to correct things but the car slid sideways back across the track sliding sideways in the hard, dry dirt.  The tires caught and the car went over for one complete roll (click here for in-car video) before settling on its tires.  Ron was unhurt in the rollover...just really pissed off at himself.

The car rolled crunching the rear hatch...in fact the body skin never touched the roll cage.  The rear side windows both popped out (and were handed back to Tom unbroken!) and the front air dam was nerfed pretty good.  After getting towed back to the paddock the usual crowd of the curious appeared, one of whom was Pro7 racer Ken Kurtz.....who made the comment that "you can fix that"....and with his guidance Shed Racing proceeded to resurrect the #43.
 

With the bodywork taking shape (so-to-speak) we inspected the rear axle beam and the position of the rear wheels.  The right rear swingarm was bent and after trying to bend it back into position with a come-a-long it was decided to call for back-up...in this case Carlos.  Carlos had a spare axle beam at his shop and would bring it up Saturday morning.  That left Friday evening to remove it and get the car ready for the transplant.  Ron and Robert Miller (of Miller Motorsports) took the lead in putting the new axle in on Saturday morning.

Saturday:   Adhering the old adage of "if you fall of a horse, you get right back on!".....well Ron did just that.  He felt it was his responsibility to make sure the car was safe to race.  After getting approval from NASA safety.....Ron took the #43 GTI out for the qualifying session for a few baby-step laps.  He logged only 2 laps, before returning to the paddock complaining of a bad vibration in the right front.   The probable cause was a bent wheel so a new wheel was put on for the evening race.

Carlos grabbed pole with a 2:14.8, followed by Scott with a 2:16.6, and Ron with a 2:40.2.  Group A would be the last race for each day....our race was scheduled for  5:20 PM in the afternoon.  The GTIs would be gridded in the second to the last in back of Group A and we would have a flying start.  Behind us was the group of Spec944s.  The finishing order of the race was decided at Turn 1 after the drop of the green flag.  Carlos took the early lead and never looked back.  His mastery of traffic management was evident as he pass some slower Spec Miatas keeping his distance between him and Scott.   Scott in turn stretched the gap in front of Ron.  The race was uneventful until a Porsche 944 grenaded its engine in Turn 4 leaving a slick of engine oil.  The 944 was able to get off the track to the outside, but not before dumping all of his oil in a line perpendicular across the flow of traffic on the racing surface.  Several cars spun from the oil slick on the track.  Carlos turned the fastest lap of the race with a 2:15.1, followed by Scott with a 2:15.9 and Ron with a 2:19.7.  Big kudos to the Shed Racing team for getting their car back into the game after Friday's mishap!

Sunday:  Race time would again be late in the afternoon at 5:20 PM.   Carlos again qualified on pole with a 2:15.2 followed by Scott with a 2:15.7.  Tom Aiken grabbed third spot with a 2:18.2  after only a few laps complaining of low power.   After fixing a vacuum leak and a trying to fix a timing issue (later to be determined to be nerfed distributor damaged in the roll) the GTIs made it out to the grid.  During the warm up lap Scott notice a grinding noise coming from his right front every time he turned left...wheel bearing going bad.  He decided to go ahead and race but would try not to push the car too hard for fear of catastrophic failure.  Sunday's race was a repeat of Saturday's with Carlos getting out front followed by Scott then Tom.

Tom was keeping up with Scott but went wide exiting Turn 6 and put all fours in the dirt.  He was not able to catch back up to Scott and Carlos after his off raod excursion.  Scott meantime was worrying about his wheel bearing and decided not to push his luck and to settle for 2nd place as the worn bearing would cause the brake rotor to move thus making his brake pedal go long in certain turns.   Fast race laps were as follows:  Carlos 2:14.1,  Tom 2:15.6 and Scott 2:15.9.  What a weekend!  Thanks again to NASA for putting on another great event!