(in case no one has posted yet for the Texan's to follow) GO ROB GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rob is competing in the SCCA Nationals this weekend against some very steep competition in the Touring 3 category. So far Rob has been caught out a bit with some new 'improvements' which were added to his car before the big race which haven't been paying off. I hope Rob and his mechanic Buddy are able to get the car working to its potentialand Rob brings back some massive hardware to Texas. I believe his race is tommorow morning after a short warm up session. Blow by blow thread in racing section: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=120990 GO ROB GO!!!!!!
Qualifying is all done and you would think with a practice day and 4 qualifying sessions that we would get our act together, but we never did. The setup and my driving is finally spot on, but we've been dealing with top end power the last couple days. Since we changed the coils, plugs, crank sensor, fuel pump, and checked the high end port valve Tuesday. The challenge is determining which of those is causing the problem, because replacing those did give us low end power. We're thinking it is the port valve because it only opens at 6,250 and from there is where we are down on power. For today Buddy reinstalled to make sure it was adjusted right, but he thinks it was still off, so after today's last session he thinks he readjusted it better. We'll use the practice tomorrow morning to see if any improvement. If not, we'll probably put a new fuel pump in and maybe put back the old crank sensor for the race. This week has been unbelievably frustrating to be this much off the pace. I've been a second ahead of drivers all season that are now 2 seconds ahead of me. If we can get it worked out, then it will be a fun race working up through the field. If not, then we'll pretty much be stuck where we are lapping the race. My corner and exit speeds are all 4-6 mph higher than they were in September, but top straight speeds 2-4 mph less. Lesson learned not to make so many changes without having time to test.
I'll take my 5 position improvement after the tough week we've had. A few pics posted in the other thread.
Rob Lay drove a fantastic race. I watched the entire race from the grandstands at Heartland park which over look the front straight and the back sector of the track. It was plainly obvious that Rob's RX8 was down on power for whatever reason. I spoke with him before the race and they had just replaced a fuel pump, but from my perspective it didn't repair the problem. When a car (rob) has a run on a car in front of them and midway down the straight the other just pulls 3-5 car lengths on them there was some problem with the engine. Anyways Rob made the best out of a bad situation, ran consistent laps, and made forward progress through the race. Unfortunantely he is not racing in a championship, rather a one race take all for the marbles. Either you are on or you go home and get ready for next year. Wonderful drive, well done Rob. For those of you who weren't able to make it be proud of his efforts, just a shame the car wasn't underneath him. Cheers Michael,
