My 2008 Challenge in pictures

Mont Tremblant

Rode up the weekend before and stayed in the quintessence which is really lovely - one great aspect of the challenge is hanging out with a bunch of cool people that like good food and wine, its certainly an improvement over some of the food that one can experience at race-tracks!

4 of us did the advanced FDE for a few days the week before the race, then hung out in Tremblant for a couple of days at the pool. The FDE was fun but not really actually very good prep - the Scud is great on the track, but you are held to a certain pace by the instructors and you have a cone chicane in the straight. The most fun was probably doing the skip pad in a 430, but I felt I was still very green on the track when I started Friday. The weather was crappy, lots of rain and very little dry running, in fact the first time in the dry was the Qualification session. Qual was split into 2, and red-flagged after group 1 when someone delaminated a guard rail by hitting it so hard at the top of turn 1. We then re qualified at the end of the day. I didn't do well and qualified down in 24th. The race started after a huge downpour, it wasn't raining but the track was sodden. Despite the horrible conditions the general driving was pretty sensible - 150+mph 1 ft behind another car when all you can see is a wall of spray is pretty interesting! As the track dried they yellow flagged the whole field and brought us all into the pits to put on slicks. We restarted and at that point I picked up a big handling problem - my car simply would not trail brake at all, as soon as I turned right (most of the important corners at MT are right handers) my right front would lock up. I carried on but was 8 seconds or so adrift of the pace I qualified at. I finished DFL as my friends like to call it. Not inspiring. Race 2 qualification was also pretty poor starting in 23rd despite being 2 seconds faster than my q1 time, I was still only on about lap 20 ever in the dry on the track versus most of the rest of the field having been there a bunch of times previously. Race 2 however was back for the first time since Atlanta to the form I think I can show - passed a bunch of people to finish 15th. At least a big grin to finish the weekend.

Laguna Seca

A bit of weird weekend since it was shared with the pre-historics, so we only got limited practice time. Fortunately we'd done 3 days where 5 of us plus 5 instructors had rented the whole skippy MX5 school. I'm not sure that they had considered that the 2500$ damage excess was not much of a discouragement to FC drivers... A real blast, and a good reminder of proper momentum preservation.

We only had one practice session before qualification which was the first time I'd seen the track at speed in the challenge car - the sequence of bends following the corkscrew are the key to a good time there. I did OK in qualification ending up in 13th. I made a good start and coming up to turn 5 was in about 7th or 8th, we were still 2 wide when "the unguided missile" (other FC drivers will know who this is) hits me hard and spins me to the inside - for the second time this season I'm spun and am now at the back of the field - I make up a few places including a pass at the top of the straight before the corkscrew to finish 17th.

Didn't qualify so well in the second quali and started race 2 in 21st. The race itself was an advert for all that the Ferrari Challenge should not aspire to be - we ran I think 6 laps of green and 14 of yellow - the first lap was a monumental multi-car crash that happened all around me - I'm amazed I didn't hit anything. Then on the restart after a bunch of yellow laps, there was a big crash on the Straight at start finish and we were immediately back under yellow. Most dissappointing "race" of the year - I may have made a pass, I simply don't recall, but I finished 16th.

New Jersey

Another interesting weekend - first major race event at the track was the Grand-Am Rolex weekend, so we were sharing track time with them. On day 1 Scott Pruet had a massive accident in turn 12 (I think that's the right number, the concrete apexed right hander onto the main straightaway), hitting the end of pit wall and leaving half the car in pit lane narrowly missing a team of mechanics who were attending to another car. THe car was in three distinct pieces. I believe its this accident thats resulted in a new mandate for a new inflatable helmet device that allows the helmet to be "pushed" off your head by a bag inside. I have had to have this new device added to my helmets prior to the Daytona 24.

The crash cancelled the rest of the day and possibly meant the whole weekend would be called - we didn't know until the following morning when we saw they'd put up 100ft of new Armco to protect the pit entrance. I'm sure they'll change it more since they were luck no-one died.

I ran 7th in practice times then qualified 12th in 1:25.096 versus 9th place at 1:25.026, there were 4 of us in less than .1 of a second. Again made an OK start but once again was hit in turn 2, kicked sideways, caught the slide, then in the red-mist added too much gas to rotate round on the track to be facing backwards (you can see this on the video which is linked to on the challenge website). For the 3rd time I'm at the back of the field - oh well! Note to self - try to not do this again! Finished 17th and that was to be the end of my season - in the second race my coolant system blew a pipe and I spun on my own coolant, then had to bring it back to the pits.

I didn't go to Italy since I didn't have the time with Daytona prep, but perhaps Mark can add some commentary on the Finals.