Wow - what a long day for all yesterday. For those that weren't around to watch on PIRlive or in person...you missed another awesome event.
Quick background on our team.
Team Name - Two Adams and One in the Chamber. (we are very witty).
Drivers - Mike Adams (Owner), Steve Adams (No relation), Matt Chambers (Another 944 junkie & happens to be my cousin).
Car - '87 944 (not a pretty car, but a great running car with a pretty nice motor in it).
The day started off very wet (it rained pretty good all night friday) and with the thick grey overcast it made for a pretty moist track for the first couple hours of practice.
The pit crew challenge was a little disappointing as all but two teams competed for the "prize" of best pit crew. I'm sure many folks were making last minute changes and just paranoid about the time commitment. Maybe next year this can be something for the night before for those after move-in. My crew was ready to pit off, but we came up short because of not realizing it wasn't just a 1v1 matchup. We pulled the fastest time of 1:26 vs. 1:40, but since we had noone else to compete against...we matched back up with them but we had to add 14 seconds to our next stop. The other team (Mike/Dave/Brandon) had their crew practicing to drop a little more time... however we only had to improve our previous best by approx 6 seconds to win. It was still fun and the team enjoyed bragging about both stops were faster than our competition, but rules are rules! *note* We were offered to "share" the win and 50/50 on the prize money of $100. My team was quick go after an ALL OR NOTHING approach, which I think made it that much more exciting.
On to the race...Lemans start - This is always a hoot to watch and if you're lucky enough to participate in it...it's even cooler!
I had the pleasure to be the owner of our car so of course I took the chance to compete in it. We were a little nervous since I'm coming off of knee surgery in august and lets just say I'm still recovering. We personally had a quick start, however Team Dunn was pitted next to us and they pulled away first... but I was close behind (enough to watch the M-Coupe tire lockup to avoid collision). Overall it looked like a clean & quick start for everyone.
http://youtu.be/22ME_9uTTGI
Lap 1 - For me this was pretty eventful as I approached Turn 10 brake zone I was watching my mirrors as I saw an E30 closing in on my car quickly. To my surprise we had some contact on entry, which sent me spinning into the grass and luckily missed all the oncoming traffic. Radio'd in for a visual but of course Driver's Side rear quarter damage is hard to see from the inside of the track. It ended up being a pretty nice sized dent behind my tire, but luckily didn't damage our tire or effect us much more than the time lost on track.
Like everyone we had a strategy and quickly that changed as we realized others were doing just as good on their gas mileage as we were. The first hour I drove directly behind (and I mean directly on the bumper of) Team #78 (no idea what the team name was). This was Jason Vein's team and found out later that I think it was Cavan driving?!?. What a blast that was... we jockey'd around for position a little bit but I just enjoyed finding someone with a great pace that I could easily manage for my stint. It would have been too risky to try to "hot-lap" by him as a 944 just doesn't have the power to keep the motor down the straights. And it was much more fun lap after lap dancing with him even if it wasn't "in class".
About 90 minutes in we started to discuss possible changes to our strategy and the car was running great... I hadn't made any mistakes to lose track position. We decided to keep going a little more... Soon I received the call to run about 4 more laps and get ready to pit.
After two more laps it seemed like the car stumbled a bit and lost power... I was amongst some fast lapping traffic and trying to stay focused on what the car was doing while being smooth & consistent. I radio'd in that I was going to come in one lap early. I made it to about turn 10 when I saw the oil pressure drop significantly and my warning light go on. OH NO!!!! I immediately shut the car off and broke it off the racing line for a coast into the pits... no oil anywhere on the track but certainly a terrible feeling in my stomach. I coasted all the way to our pit area and we maintained a normal pit stop strategy. Driver change...fuel up and wait to inspect the car. Upon inspection there was no oil on the dipstick. Oh boy. Let's fire it up again and "listen".
You can only imagine our facial expressions when we heard what we feared and guessed was rod bearing failure. Our day was done!
We packed up and took the crew out for a good dinner as there was disappointment in the air... we really felt great about this race and the start. We returned to watch some really competitive racing and quite an interesting Yellow/Black scenario that played out. Heard lots of gripes in the pits about that one that I'll leave open to others to discuss.
Thanks again Steve Adams for being a great team member all weekend long. Thanks goes out to all of my crew that showed up and kept my spirits up even if we only made it 25% of the way...
Looking forward to the final results... we headed out right after the race was over due to our many hours of mourning. A long drive home into the middle of the night...
How was your experience? Drivers share a recap of events as there's always fun stories to be told. Ours was pretty short and sweet.
Quick background on our team.
Team Name - Two Adams and One in the Chamber. (we are very witty).
Drivers - Mike Adams (Owner), Steve Adams (No relation), Matt Chambers (Another 944 junkie & happens to be my cousin).
Car - '87 944 (not a pretty car, but a great running car with a pretty nice motor in it).
The day started off very wet (it rained pretty good all night friday) and with the thick grey overcast it made for a pretty moist track for the first couple hours of practice.
The pit crew challenge was a little disappointing as all but two teams competed for the "prize" of best pit crew. I'm sure many folks were making last minute changes and just paranoid about the time commitment. Maybe next year this can be something for the night before for those after move-in. My crew was ready to pit off, but we came up short because of not realizing it wasn't just a 1v1 matchup. We pulled the fastest time of 1:26 vs. 1:40, but since we had noone else to compete against...we matched back up with them but we had to add 14 seconds to our next stop. The other team (Mike/Dave/Brandon) had their crew practicing to drop a little more time... however we only had to improve our previous best by approx 6 seconds to win. It was still fun and the team enjoyed bragging about both stops were faster than our competition, but rules are rules! *note* We were offered to "share" the win and 50/50 on the prize money of $100. My team was quick go after an ALL OR NOTHING approach, which I think made it that much more exciting.
On to the race...Lemans start - This is always a hoot to watch and if you're lucky enough to participate in it...it's even cooler!
I had the pleasure to be the owner of our car so of course I took the chance to compete in it. We were a little nervous since I'm coming off of knee surgery in august and lets just say I'm still recovering. We personally had a quick start, however Team Dunn was pitted next to us and they pulled away first... but I was close behind (enough to watch the M-Coupe tire lockup to avoid collision). Overall it looked like a clean & quick start for everyone.
http://youtu.be/22ME_9uTTGI
Lap 1 - For me this was pretty eventful as I approached Turn 10 brake zone I was watching my mirrors as I saw an E30 closing in on my car quickly. To my surprise we had some contact on entry, which sent me spinning into the grass and luckily missed all the oncoming traffic. Radio'd in for a visual but of course Driver's Side rear quarter damage is hard to see from the inside of the track. It ended up being a pretty nice sized dent behind my tire, but luckily didn't damage our tire or effect us much more than the time lost on track.
Like everyone we had a strategy and quickly that changed as we realized others were doing just as good on their gas mileage as we were. The first hour I drove directly behind (and I mean directly on the bumper of) Team #78 (no idea what the team name was). This was Jason Vein's team and found out later that I think it was Cavan driving?!?. What a blast that was... we jockey'd around for position a little bit but I just enjoyed finding someone with a great pace that I could easily manage for my stint. It would have been too risky to try to "hot-lap" by him as a 944 just doesn't have the power to keep the motor down the straights. And it was much more fun lap after lap dancing with him even if it wasn't "in class".
About 90 minutes in we started to discuss possible changes to our strategy and the car was running great... I hadn't made any mistakes to lose track position. We decided to keep going a little more... Soon I received the call to run about 4 more laps and get ready to pit.
After two more laps it seemed like the car stumbled a bit and lost power... I was amongst some fast lapping traffic and trying to stay focused on what the car was doing while being smooth & consistent. I radio'd in that I was going to come in one lap early. I made it to about turn 10 when I saw the oil pressure drop significantly and my warning light go on. OH NO!!!! I immediately shut the car off and broke it off the racing line for a coast into the pits... no oil anywhere on the track but certainly a terrible feeling in my stomach. I coasted all the way to our pit area and we maintained a normal pit stop strategy. Driver change...fuel up and wait to inspect the car. Upon inspection there was no oil on the dipstick. Oh boy. Let's fire it up again and "listen".
You can only imagine our facial expressions when we heard what we feared and guessed was rod bearing failure. Our day was done!
We packed up and took the crew out for a good dinner as there was disappointment in the air... we really felt great about this race and the start. We returned to watch some really competitive racing and quite an interesting Yellow/Black scenario that played out. Heard lots of gripes in the pits about that one that I'll leave open to others to discuss.
Thanks again Steve Adams for being a great team member all weekend long. Thanks goes out to all of my crew that showed up and kept my spirits up even if we only made it 25% of the way...
Looking forward to the final results... we headed out right after the race was over due to our many hours of mourning. A long drive home into the middle of the night...
How was your experience? Drivers share a recap of events as there's always fun stories to be told. Ours was pretty short and sweet.
Last edited: